Re: Proposed change for new U. S. law; also, what about Indiana?
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 22:25:41 -0400 From: John Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>
[ I had originally sent a version of this on Tuesday morning, but it failed to go through because apparently lecserver.nci.nih.gov is still firewalled, and elsie works only because of an MX record. ]
Yes, things are still much messed up for me as well. I am getting no copies of email (I had to FTP the mail archive from elsie to see your mail). Also, the email headers get rewritten to be from tz@lecserver.nci.nih.gov, so when people reply to email their messages do not get through. Perhaps we should move the list elsewhere? I can volunteer the GNU email server <http://lists.gnu.org/>, if that would help.
HR numbers are per-year (e.g. HR.6 of the 109th Congress), and are really only useful before bills become laws. I expect it will be assigned a Public Law number sometime this coming week, and that will appear at "http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR00006:@@@S".
Can we wait until then and include that number?
I wouldn't wait. We can update the comment later.
p.s.: I keep wondering if its a good time to propose changing the default name of US timezones to US/Eastern -style rather than America/New_York, because our timezones are set based on national policy
Unfortunately that's not quite true. The daylight-saving rules are national policy, but whether to adopt daylight-saving is decided more locally. (Speaking of which, what is the story on Indiana? <http://www.perrycountynews.com/articles/2005/08/15/top_story/t1.txt> says that Indiana will observe DST starting next year. Is that really true?) Also, time zone boundaries move. So, for example, US/Eastern is not correct for Monticello, KY, as it will mishandle time stamps before 2000 (Monticello switched from Central to Eastern in fall 2000). We will continue to support names like US/Eastern indefinitely, but the location-based names are more accurate.
On Tue, Aug 16, 2005 at 05:09:17PM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote:
(Speaking of which, what is the story on Indiana? <http://www.perrycountynews.com/articles/2005/08/15/top_story/t1.txt> says that Indiana will observe DST starting next year. Is that really true?)
The Indiana bill is SB 127, online at http://www.in.gov/apps/lsa/session/billwatch/billinfo?year=2005&session=1&re... SENATE ENROLLED ACT No. 127 AN ACT to amend the Indiana Code concerning time. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana: SECTION 1. IC 1-1-8.1-3 IS ADDED TO THE INDIANA CODE AS A NEW SECTION TO READ AS FOLLOWS [EFFECTIVE UPON PASSAGE]: Sec. 3. The state supports the county executive of any county that seeks to change the time zone in which the county is located under the procedures established by federal law. SECTION 2. THE FOLLOWING ARE REPEALED [EFFECTIVE JANUARY 1, 2006]: IC 1-1-8.1-1; IC 1-1-8.1-2. SECTION 3. [EFFECTIVE UPON PASSAGE] (a) The governor and the general assembly hereby petition the United States Department of Transportation to initiate proceedings under the Uniform Time Act of 1966 to hold hearings in the appropriate locations in Indiana on the issue of the location of the boundary between the Central Time Zone and the Eastern Time Zone in Indiana. (b) The governor and the general assembly advise the United States Department of Transportation that any administrative action to change the time zone boundary in response to the petition contained in this SECTION should not change the time zone for any of the following Indiana counties: (1) Any Indiana county currently located in the Central Time Zone, which should remain in the Central Time Zone. (2) Clark County, which should remain in the Eastern Time Zone. (3) Dearborn County, which should remain in the Eastern Time Zone. (4) Floyd County, which should remain in the Eastern Time Zone. (5) Harrison County, which should remain in the Eastern Time Zone. (6) Ohio County, which should remain in the Eastern Time Zone. (c) To implement this SECTION, the governor shall, not later than ten (10) days after the governor files this act with the secretary of state, send a copy of this act along with any other necessary documentation prescribed by the United States Department of Transportation to the appropriate official of the United States Department of Transportation. (d) This SECTION expires July 1, 2007. SECTION 4. An emergency is declared for this act. The sections repealed are: http://www.ai.org/legislative/ic/code/title1/ar1/ch8.1.html IC 1-1-8.1 Chapter 8.1. Standard Time IC 1-1-8.1-1 Exemption from daylight savings time Sec. 1. This state hereby exempts itself from observation of advanced time between 2 a.m. of the first Sunday in April and 2 a.m. of the last Sunday in October in each calendar year. (Formerly: Acts 1972, P.L.7, SEC.1.) As amended by P.L.3-1989, SEC.1. IC 1-1-8.1-2 Exemption; central time zone area Sec. 2. In the event that the Congress of the United States or the Department of Transportation should permit any state which is divided by a time zone line to exempt less than a whole state from the observance of advanced or Daylight Savings Time, then in such event this chapter shall not apply to that portion of the State of Indiana that is in the Central Time Zone. (Formerly: Acts 1972, P.L.7, SEC.1.) According to http://www.in.gov/apps/lsa/session/billwatch/billinfo?year=2005&request=getA... it was signed into law May 13, 2005. Eric Fischer
From: Eric Fischer <enf@pobox.com> To: Paul Eggert <eggert@CS.UCLA.EDU> Cc: John Hawkinson <jhawk@mit.edu>, tz@minnie.nci.nih.gov
"minnie"? I see that the tz mailing list gremlins are still hard at work. As far as I know, only tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov is supposed to work these days.
The Indiana bill is SB 127, online at
http://www.in.gov/apps/lsa/session/billwatch/billinfo?year=2005&session=1&re...
... According to
http://www.in.gov/apps/lsa/session/billwatch/billinfo?year=2005&request=getA...
it was signed into law May 13, 2005.
Thanks for the legal references. I looked for something a bit less forbidding, and it appears to me that the short summary is as follows. So I'll propose a patch along those lines. # From Paul Eggert (2005-08-16): # http://www.mccsc.edu/time.html says that Indiana will use DST starting 2006, # and that many counties may switch either to Central or to Eastern time. # The county-by-county decisions have not been made yet, so for now assume # that no counties will switch: this assumption is most likely wrong, # but it's the best we can do for now.
Paul Eggert <eggert@CS.UCLA.EDU> wrote on Tue, 16 Aug 2005 at 17:09:17 -0700 in <873bp9e85u.fsf@penguin.cs.ucla.edu>:
[ I had originally sent a version of this on Tuesday morning, but it failed to go through because apparently lecserver.nci.nih.gov is still firewalled, and elsie works only because of an MX record. ]
lecserver now has an MX record, so I think this is all solved.
Can we wait until then and include that number?
I wouldn't wait. We can update the comment later.
Given how long its been, I suppose you're right. I was expecting it within a day of Arthur's patch, but it's been more than a week now.
p.s.: I keep wondering if its a good time to propose changing the default name of US timezones to US/Eastern -style rather than America/New_York, because our timezones are set based on national policy
Unfortunately that's not quite true. The daylight-saving rules are national policy, but whether to adopt daylight-saving is decided more locally.
Sure. But for the most part, when someone knows what time zone they're in, they know they're in US/Eastern, not "the same time zone as New York." Where a more specific entry is available, like Monticello, KY, (or US/East-Indiana) of course users should use that. But it doesn't seem to speak to the general case of whether US/Eastern should be prefered to America/New_York for people outside of New York, NY. Like Monticello, AR; Monticello, FL; Monticello, GA; Monticello, IA; Monticello, IL; Monticello, IN; Monticello, LA; Monticello, MN; Monticello, MO; Monticello, MS; Monticello, NY; Monticello, UT; and Monticello, WI. It certainly seems to make more sense from a user interface perspective.
We will continue to support names like US/Eastern indefinitely, but the location-based names are more accurate.
But only if you're in that location. Otherwise they're less accurate. My proposal isn't based on accuracy though -- I'm more concerned with usability... --jhawk
John Hawkinson <jhawk@mit.edu> writes:
Sure. But for the most part, when someone knows what time zone they're in, they know they're in US/Eastern, not "the same time zone as New York."
No, I think most new users won't know what "US/Eastern" is. They'll get a chooser like the tzselect command that is part of tzcode, and the chooser will walk them through to the correct setting without their having to know either "US/Eastern" or "America/New_York". Once you have a decent chooser, the zone names are somewhat arbitrary, and we might as well use more-accurate ones. Another issue is that place names like "New York" tend to be more stable than time zone labels like "Eastern standard time". It's easier for the tz database if we use the more-stable names. For example, the most recent change to US time zone labels occurred in December 2000 (with the introduction of Chamorro standard time), but since the tz database uses place names this didn't affect users' TZ settings. The rest of this message is a sample run of tzselect. The user input comes after the '#?'. Obviously tzselect can be improved upon (and there are alternate choosers if you don't like tzselect), but it should illustrate what I'm talking about. ----- Please identify a location so that time zone rules can be set correctly. Please select a continent or ocean. 1) Africa 2) Americas 3) Antarctica 4) Arctic Ocean 5) Asia 6) Atlantic Ocean 7) Australia 8) Europe 9) Indian Ocean 10) Pacific Ocean 11) none - I want to specify the time zone using the Posix TZ format. #? 2 Please select a country. 1) Anguilla 18) Ecuador 35) Paraguay 2) Antigua & Barbuda 19) El Salvador 36) Peru 3) Argentina 20) French Guiana 37) Puerto Rico 4) Aruba 21) Greenland 38) St Kitts & Nevis 5) Bahamas 22) Grenada 39) St Lucia 6) Barbados 23) Guadeloupe 40) St Pierre & Miquelon 7) Belize 24) Guatemala 41) St Vincent 8) Bolivia 25) Guyana 42) Suriname 9) Brazil 26) Haiti 43) Trinidad & Tobago 10) Canada 27) Honduras 44) Turks & Caicos Is 11) Cayman Islands 28) Jamaica 45) United States 12) Chile 29) Martinique 46) Uruguay 13) Colombia 30) Mexico 47) Venezuela 14) Costa Rica 31) Montserrat 48) Virgin Islands (UK) 15) Cuba 32) Netherlands Antilles 49) Virgin Islands (US) 16) Dominica 33) Nicaragua 17) Dominican Republic 34) Panama #? 45 Please select one of the following time zone regions. 1) Eastern Time 2) Eastern Time - Michigan - most locations 3) Eastern Time - Kentucky - Louisville area 4) Eastern Time - Kentucky - Wayne County 5) Eastern Standard Time - Indiana - most locations 6) Eastern Standard Time - Indiana - Crawford County 7) Eastern Standard Time - Indiana - Starke County 8) Eastern Standard Time - Indiana - Switzerland County 9) Central Time 10) Central Time - Michigan - Wisconsin border 11) Central Time - North Dakota - Oliver County 12) Mountain Time 13) Mountain Time - south Idaho & east Oregon 14) Mountain Time - Navajo 15) Mountain Standard Time - Arizona 16) Pacific Time 17) Alaska Time 18) Alaska Time - Alaska panhandle 19) Alaska Time - Alaska panhandle neck 20) Alaska Time - west Alaska 21) Aleutian Islands 22) Hawaii #? 1 The following information has been given: United States Eastern Time Therefore TZ='America/New_York' will be used. Local time is now: Wed Aug 17 01:51:23 EDT 2005. Universal Time is now: Wed Aug 17 05:51:23 UTC 2005. Is the above information OK? 1) Yes 2) No #? 1 You can make this change permanent for yourself by appending the line TZ='America/New_York'; export TZ to the file '.profile' in your home directory; then log out and log in again. Here is that TZ value again, this time on standard output so that you can use the ./tzselect command in shell scripts: America/New_York
participants (3)
-
Eric Fischer -
John Hawkinson -
Paul Eggert