Time Zone Preferences ?

November 13, 2008 5:29 PM

Why are times shown on the green (apparently) somewhere in middle-east ?

A new post just added at 01:07 UTC shows up as 5:07AM (apparently Dubai time ?). Is there some preferences setting I'm meant to be using ?

posted by southof40 to Bugs at 5:29 PM (18 comments total)

Yep, you got it! Hit that "Preferences" link up.
posted by carsonb at 5:31 PM on November 13, 2008

There is indeed a preference for this; head up to "Preferences" and find "Time Offset" near the bottom of the first big box of options. Default is server time, I think, which is actually Pacific; 5:07pm local was just a little bit ago. Sure you didn't misread pm as am?
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:31 PM on November 13, 2008

I was in Dubai once, but not this week. I'd like a 24 hour clock option.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:32 PM on November 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'll get that to you at 02350 metric hours.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:52 PM on November 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Mystery solved. When I set up my prefs originally I used +12 hours (which is what I usually use when it's relative to UTC but it turns out I'm working relative to the USA W.Coast and +12 takes you to ... da-na .. Dubai. Thanks for help.
posted by southof40 at 6:00 PM on November 13, 2008

Can I throw in something I noticed with the Time Offset?

In preferences, I can only set my time offset by up to +20 hours, which works well for six months of the year. The wonderful (somewhat out of the way) part of the world I reside in happens to be +21 hours at the moment because we just hit daylight savings time.

In the unlikely event that you'll be taking DST calendars into account to dynamically set people's time offset, how hard would it be to add +21 as an additional time offset?

Or am I just missing something because I'm too new to have figured it out?
posted by MatJ at 6:32 PM on November 13, 2008

MatJ, we'll just add +21 to the mix. They used to correspond to timezones, which is why there are some slots extra and some missing.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:59 PM on November 13, 2008

Legend
posted by MatJ at 7:06 PM on November 13, 2008

Oh, from New Zealand! I hear it's beautiful. Um, there's Vikings there, right?
posted by puke & cry at 7:34 PM on November 13, 2008

MatJ,

I can't even get up to eleven, and you're at +21. I'm seriously impressed.
posted by lukemeister at 7:39 PM on November 13, 2008

Ah, I was very confused at the idea of someplace that is UTC+2100 until I glanced at the preferences page to see that the base time is Metafilter Standard Time, not UTC.
posted by jepler at 7:40 PM on November 13, 2008

Oh, from New Zealand! I hear it's beautiful. Um, there's Vikings there, right?

no, gnikivs
posted by pyramid termite at 8:47 PM on November 13, 2008

Oh boy, peels!
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:09 PM on November 13, 2008

We've been promised the mythical +21 before and it has yet to materialise :-(
posted by shelleycat at 9:30 PM on November 13, 2008

This is why Metafilter needs to finally move into the new millenial cyber age and adopt Swatch Time.
posted by bunnytricks at 10:18 PM on November 13, 2008

I want my in UTC * 4 corner Time³
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:24 PM on November 13, 2008

That would actually be sƃuıʞıʌ to you
posted by MatJ at 11:55 PM on November 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

There was a MeFite from Dubai,
Whose hours offset was awry;
He chose the wrong coast
For the time of his post,
So the answers preceded his "Why?"
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 3:05 AM on November 14, 2008 [5 favorites]