datetime question

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 1:14 AM, Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> wrote:
> We've got a data supplier who (for reasons I cannot fathom), runs their
> network in local time.  Every time we talk to them about problems, it's
> a mess just trying to figure out what time we're talking about.  We say,
> "we saw a latency spike at 2243 UTC, what caused that?", and then we
> play 20-questions trying to figure out if that's 1443 PDT, or 1543 PST,
> or who knows what.  Further complicated by them occasionally asking us
> off-the-wall questions like, "Is that UTC daylight savings time?"

UGH. Yes. I get the same thing from some of the US players in my
Dungeons & Dragons campaign. To avoid the hassles of international
times, everything's scheduled in UTC; the Aussies, the Europeans, and
_some of_ the Americans an handle it, but there are a few who keep
asking me crazy questions about DST and UTC. I'm like... no, there is
no daylight time! Just look at the current UTC time and see how that
compares! There's even a command in-game that shows current UTC time.

Fortunately, those people are in the minority. Most of the players can
handle the time conversions.

ChrisA