Time zones and why they change so damned often (was: the Gravity of Python 2)

[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 2:54 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> I'm approaching it with the goal of knowing better what I'm talking
> about when I advocate scrapping the whole DST system :-)

I would definitely support the scrapping of DST. I'm less sure that we
need exactly 24 timezones around the world, though. It's not nearly as
big a problem to have the half-hour and quarter-hour timezones -
though it would be easier if timezone were strictly an integer number
of hours. But DST is the real pain.

What I find, most of the time, is that it's Americans who can't handle
DST. I run an international Dungeons and Dragons campaign (we play
online, and new players are most welcome, as are people watching!),
and the Aussies (myself included) know to check UTC time, the Brits
and Europeans check UTC or just know what UTC is, and the Americans
say "Doesn't that happen at 8 o'clock Eastern time?" and get confused.
I don't understand this. Are my players drawn exclusively from the
pool of people who've never worked with anyone in Arizona [1]? Yes,
I'm stereotyping a bit here, and not every US player has had problems
with this, but it's the occasional US player who knows to check, and
the rare European, British, or Aussie player who doesn't.

In any case, the world-wide abolition of DST would eliminate the
problem. The only remaining problem would be reminding people to
change the batteries in their smoke detectors.

ChrisA

[1] For those who aren't right up on timezone trivia, AZ has no DST.
Similarly the Australian state of Queensland does not shift its
clocks.