Time zones and why they change so damned often

[Alister]

On Fri, 10 Jan 2014 07:31:11 +0000, Bob Martin wrote:

> in 714232 20140109 120741 Alister <alister.ware at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>On Thu, 09 Jan 2014 07:17:25 +0000, Mark Lawrence wrote:
>>
>>> On 09/01/2014 04:14, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I remember this "From February 1968 to November 1971 the UK kept
>>> daylight saving time throughout the year mainly for commercial
>>> reasons, especially regarding time conformity with other European
>>> countries".  My source
>>> http://www.timeanddate.com/time/uk/time-zone-background.html
>>
>>we dont have "Daylight saving time" we switch between GMT (Greenwich
>>Mean Time) and BST (British Summer Time) at some point in the past we
>>have also used DST (Double Summer Time).
> 
> British Summer Time *is* Daylight Saving Time.

My point is in the UK we have never refered to it as Daylight saving Time
that is an Americanism :-)



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