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Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 3:37 pm
by feyd
enough on drinking and debauchery, boys.

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 3:40 pm
by alvinphp
Bill H wrote:Except in the US it's 05/04/06.

I've always thought the European method made so much more sense, put things in ascending order. Metric. All that.
Yeah, who thought of month, day, year. It makes no sense. Personally I think it should be year, month, day.

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 3:44 pm
by Bill H
Personally I think it should be year, month, day.
...and in MySQL it is.

If you count Alaska, the Aleutians and Hawii we have, oh crap, I don't know how many time zones we have.

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 4:07 pm
by phpdevuk
its guinness ;) 2 n's and one of my favourite drinks, lol

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 4:21 pm
by Roja
Bill H wrote:If you count Alaska, the Aleutians and Hawii we have, oh crap, I don't know how many time zones we have.
During standard time, 8.

However, during daylight savings time it depends on how you are defining "zones". If you mean regions on a particular difference from GMT, its less than 8, since large portions of the US (Hawaii, Alaska, and others) do not follow Daylight savings time.

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 4:29 pm
by jayshields
I don't understand why some countries (even "zones" as said above) can have DST and others can't. I don't see the point of it personally, time is time, so either everyone or no-one should have it, in my opinion.

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 4:55 pm
by pickle
I think it's an issue with latitude. People in Ecuador don't care about daylight savings because the hours of daylight don't change at the equator. People in Canada, Russia, and other northern areas do care though - where I live usable light shifts between ~17 hours in the summer to ~9 in the winter. Daylight saving time really helps because it essentially shifts your day earlier one hour - more light.

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 5:22 pm
by alex.barylski
pickle wrote:I think it's an issue with latitude. People in Ecuador don't care about daylight savings because the hours of daylight don't change at the equator. People in Canada, Russia, and other northern areas do care though - where I live usable light shifts between ~17 hours in the summer to ~9 in the winter. Daylight saving time really helps because it essentially shifts your day earlier one hour - more light.
Being to lazy to lookup a map where 53 degrees north...and whatever west you are...

I ask the question: Where are you?

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 5:29 pm
by pickle
Alberta - about 45 minutes south of Edmonton

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 5:30 pm
by Roja
jayshields wrote:I don't understand why some countries (even "zones" as said above) can have DST and others can't. I don't see the point of it personally, time is time, so either everyone or no-one should have it, in my opinion.
Its tricky cause the world is round. In some areas, it makes a huge amount of sense. In Florida, you can gain a full hour of actual sunlight time thanks to daylight savings time - so it makes sense.

However, in Alaska, it literally doesn't change a thing for the majority of the year. Doesn't make much sense there.

And of course, in the US, getting two states to agree to something is simple, while 10-20 is quite unlikely. We're a very inconsistent bunch, and we're very invested in our preferences.

I see the point of it, but frankly, its just too confusing and complicated. I prefer the dark anyway.

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 8:00 pm
by Bill H
..large portions of the US (Hawaii, Alaska, and others) do not follow Daylight savings time.
Including Arizona. Dumbass state.

My cell phone displays the time on its face, and every time I drive from San Diego to Tucson I try to keep an eye on it to see when it's going to change when I cross the time zone. It does it somewhere about four miles west of the border, because it doesn't care about the state line, it cares about which tower it's getting its signel from, of course. But I've never seen it happen, which torques me off. I have to watch the dratted road and always miss the actual change.

Can't play that fun little game in summer, though, because AZ doesn't go on DST so AZ and CA are on the same time.

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 8:21 pm
by RobertGonzalez
All I know is that in the summer, it gets dark at about 9:00 PM. In the winter, at about 5:00 PM. As a kid I loved that part about daylight savings. As a working adult, getting in the parking lot at 5:30 in the rain and trying to find my car in the dark is a pain in the booty. But I guess for those that work, or play, outdoors daylight savings is a good thing.

Still seems rather confusing to me. Even more so since next year, daylight savings will start like three weeks earlier than normal and end like a month after when it normall does. Who sets the parameters for this, anyway?

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 8:34 pm
by Christopher
I don't know how we got off on daylight savings time, but this forum is self-selecting for people who would probably benefit the least from it -- given that most programmers I know are not really "morning people." ;)
Dumbass state.
Does that make California the Bearass state?

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 9:28 pm
by Burrito
Bill H wrote:Including Arizona. Dumbass state.
Who is calling what dumb...driving while watching your cell phone? Honestly I think the reason we don't change here is because it's soo damn hot. By not having DST, it gets light much earlier in the morning which is a good time for people to get up and do something outside before it gets to 118 by mid-day.