Time zone fix?

April 4, 2006 8:04 AM

TimezonePony .... It's that time of the year again. Instead of showing the false EST/PST/etc standard timezone stamps, can the system be tweaked to either show the correct EDT/PDT/etc, or at least ET/PT/etc? Cue snarks.
posted by intermod to bugs at 8:04 AM (29 comments total)

Not everywhere uses DST.

(stuborn places in the world REPRESENT!)
posted by raedyn at 8:10 AM on April 4, 2006

Cue snarks.

What, does your computer not have a down arrow?

/ snark
posted by dersins at 8:20 AM on April 4, 2006

Is this somehow related to this? What's an EST/PST/EDT/PDT/etc/Cue snarks?
posted by tellurian at 8:20 AM on April 4, 2006

jinx *dersins*
posted by tellurian at 8:22 AM on April 4, 2006

Second prize: narebuc award
posted by tellurian at 8:31 AM on April 4, 2006

cue sharks
posted by wakko at 8:38 AM on April 4, 2006

i snarked your cue btw
posted by cortex at 8:52 AM on April 4, 2006

cue cards?
posted by antifuse at 8:57 AM on April 4, 2006

queue sparks
posted by 327.ca at 9:00 AM on April 4, 2006

Timezones are a bitch. In the US, people rarely use "EDT, PDT" and you often see "EST, MST, CST, PST" used year-round. If I wanted to be correct about it, I would not only have to code in a switch depending on the date, but keep track of DST for each and every timezone. There are hundreds of exceptions and it's a nightmare to deal with. I chose the easy path and just added hourly offsets from GMT.
posted by mathowie at 9:01 AM on April 4, 2006

The bonus of living in GMT time... it's ALWAYS 0 hours away from GMT... woohoo! :)
posted by antifuse at 9:04 AM on April 4, 2006

Actually during summer Ireland is GMT+1
posted by cillit bang at 9:09 AM on April 4, 2006

yeah but what about GDT omg
posted by cortex at 9:10 AM on April 4, 2006

Hrmm... then I spent 6 months not noticing that the time on the site was an hour off... how bout that!
posted by antifuse at 9:11 AM on April 4, 2006

During summer on MeFi "GMT" is really GMT+1, so it all works out Except last week when Ireland was already on GMT+1 but MeFi GMT hadn't changed to being GMT+1 yet
posted by cillit bang at 9:15 AM on April 4, 2006

Okay, but what about next year, when Daylight Savings Time in the U.S. is for seven months of the year? That means the timestamp will be off by an hour for most people more often than it's accurate. Perhaps it would be better in 2007 to use EDT year-round instead of EST?

(Thanks for leaving the thread open, btw.)
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 9:16 AM on April 4, 2006

Even if there is no fix to handle time zones properly, the 'S' should be dropped.

In the US, people rarely use "EDT, PDT" and you often see "EST, MST, CST, PST" used year-round.

If Bobby jumped off the CN Tower would you jump too?
posted by Chuckles at 9:26 AM on April 4, 2006

Can't we just switch to internet time?
posted by blue_beetle at 9:46 AM on April 4, 2006

*synchronizes Swatch*
posted by cortex at 9:50 AM on April 4, 2006

That means the timestamp will be off by an hour for most people more often than it's accurate.

You forget that about 80% of the membership is from the US, so the time will work fine.
posted by mathowie at 10:17 AM on April 4, 2006

Oh, ok. I had it backwards, I think. I assumed that where this page refers to the time from April-October as "Daylight Time", that that's what "EDT" meant, and that "EST" was the time from Nov-March. I take it all back.

by the way, cortex, I think Chuckles would prefer that you *ynchronize watch*.
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 10:52 AM on April 4, 2006

Touche.
posted by cortex at 10:54 AM on April 4, 2006

Is this something you'd need to be able to tell time to understand?
posted by Zozo at 10:56 AM on April 4, 2006

I assumed that where this page refers to the time from April-October as "Daylight Time", that that's what "EDT" meant, and that "EST" was the time from Nov-March.

That's all correct. If you live in the timezone on the eastern seaboard of the U.S.
posted by grouse at 12:35 PM on April 4, 2006

petition to change December to Diosember
posted by moift at 5:21 PM on April 4, 2006

Moiftoberfest.
posted by veronitron at 5:38 PM on April 4, 2006

Just drop the S for standard, year-round.
posted by Eideteker at 6:05 PM on April 4, 2006

Yes, what Eideteker said. mathowie, you don't need to bother with the daylight calc (which is indeed the path to madness), just drop the S ...
posted by intermod at 9:35 AM on April 5, 2006

That makes a lot of sense. I think that's what CNN does IIRC to avoid confusing people who don't know what EDT means.
posted by grouse at 10:46 AM on April 5, 2006