Time zone names (was REMINDER: CharMod Call Today)

Hmm.  Some thoughts around the topic...

> [1] Let's not use GMT (obsoleted almost 30 years ago). 

Since it's still in vigorous use here, obviously nobody dared tell the
British about that  ;-)  More seriously I've come across a lot of people
(not just in Europe) who don't know what UTC is, but recognise GMT - so
perhaps we should use both.  "UTC/GMT"

> Instead, we have to use UTC. And, 'Eastern' and 'Pacific' are 
> too US-centric, aren't they?
> :-) US EST and US PST would be better (or UTC -0500 and UTC 

Well US EST is pretty US centric too ;-).  I guess the key thing is that
people from that area recognise the location.

Actually note that EST stands for Eastern Standard Time, which becomes
EDT Eastern Daylight Time during the summer.  One is UTC-4 and the other
is UTC-5.  If daylight savings changes at the same time, as it did in
October, using a city name or "Eastern" may avoid a little confusion
here.

Btw, these 3 letter abbreviations are potentially problematic in more
ways than one.  Some areas don't use them at all.  Some acronyms are
ambiguous, eg. AST where A = Alaska or Atlantic.


> -0800). See  (cited in 
> http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=224744)
> 
> Short 
> and sweet: 
>
http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/1999/debian-boot-199901/msg00450.htm
l

>More than you ever wanted to know:
http://www.apparent-wind.com/gmt-explained.html


This and other places actually seem to me to make the point that GMT is
used as the starting point for time zones around the world.  UTC is for
GPS and other very precise measurements. Note also
http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/home.htm that says "Greenwich Mean Time
is international time, the basis of the world time clock.  ... Defines
date and time and exact time.  The atomic time clock is adjusted by leap
seconds to maintain synchronicity with GMT."  Not the other way around.

Received on Monday, 8 December 2003 06:17:32 UTC