[development] Re-Thinking Events in Drupal (and time zones too)

[Khalid B]

On 3/6/06, Adrian Rossouw <adrian at bryght.com> wrote:
>
> On 06 Mar 2006, at 11:37 AM, Rob Thorne wrote:
>
> > One of the best defenses of using Unix timestamps has to do with
> > handling daylight savings time/ summer time.
>
> complete aside and only mostly off topic :
>
> Am I the only person who thinks that timezones and especially
> daylight savings time are completely moronic
> inventions.
>
> It would just be so much simpler if everyone operated on GMT.
>
> I also wonder, that if one day when we end up living on other
> planets, are we going to insist on basing
> all our time keeping devices on the speed that some other celestial
> body spins on it's axis and orbits
> around some other celestial body.
>
> The entire idea of a decimal time system also appeals to me, and why
> i really liked the idea of swatch internet
> time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time
>
> But then again, when I was watching the animatrix and the robots
> named their first city '01' I was like "err. shouldn't that be 00"

Timezones are a pain.

The US just enacted new rules to extend daylight savings time by two months
every year, and will go in effect this year (I think).

Ontario followed suite saying lots of our customers are in the USA,
but complicating
things for out interaction with the rest of the world.

On the other hand, timezones tell you something that decimal time
or Swatch internet time would not: they give you an idea whether
the people you are trying to call are awake, at work or not. The
decimal/internet time would not tell me that, and it has to be looked up.
In other words, a city can be at astronomical noon at time 2345, yet
another has noon at 0934 (numbers are made up).

In any case, this is a reality forced on us, and it is not about to change
any time soon. Perhaps the powers that be will realize that with a more
connected world, something has to be done, and take steps to do it.