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Daylight Saving Changes Could Confuse Gadgets

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 9:11 am
by hawleyjr
I worked the Y2k bug. woo hoo more money for simple fixes :)

http://www.news4jax.com/technology/4821072/detail.html
Some Compare Problem To Y2K Bug

POSTED: 6:46 am EDT August 8, 2005

NEW YORK -- Just when you thought it was safe to stop worrying about Y2K, some technology experts are warning that we might need to be on our toes once the U.S. starts switching to daylight-saving time earlier than usual.

The switch is to come in 2007, in keeping with a law President George W. Bush plans to sign Monday extending daylight hours as an energy-saving measure.

One thing it might mean is that your VCR or DVR may record shows an hour late. It may also affect cell-phone calling plans, especially if billing is based on what time calls are made.

As was the case with Y2K, there is disagreement over how serious the problem will be.

Some observers say any effects from the change will be small, since it only affects the time a device operates, rather than pose the risk of it crashing altogether.

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 9:38 am
by theda
Great, Bush screwed up Electronics too now. And I was a Bush supporter... Anything to save a buck or two...

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 10:31 am
by Ambush Commander
Our whole notions about "time" is fundamentally flawed because we have to make 24 hours equal one day (not the same), plus all the jumps and changes needed to be made for timezones, daylight savings, etc.

What we should have is sorta like a Unix Timestamp, but have no correlation to actually days (if you tack on an extra second, the timestamp doesn't care, but you'll have to change the algorithm that processes the timestamp).

Convenience has its cost.

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 10:43 am
by Grim...
Not only do we lose days (when it's not a leap year) but we also lose seconds too - I used to work for a time and attendance and these 'leap seconds' used to screw things up (and probably still do).

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:20 pm
by timvw
Well, with the new datetime stuff coming with php5.1 it shouldn't be too hard to convert ;))

http://www.derickrethans.nl/files/time-ac2005.pdf

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:32 pm
by Ambush Commander
That looks really amazing...

Unfortunantely, we as PHP programmers have it easy (it's a high-level language, so a lot of things are managed for us). Low-level languages have to do this all themselves... must be pretty awful for them.
Alan Perlis wrote:A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.