[LEAPSECS] it's WP7A week in Geneva

[Tony Finch]

On Thu, 10 Sep 2009, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

>

> Obviously, Neither ITU nor BIPM has any control over what "Human

> Time" is or how it works.  National and federal lawmakers decide

> that, often illadvisedly, and occationally very stupidly.   China,

> as I recall, is one single timezone, and some places countries have

> 30 minute offsets from UTC I belive.


China's single time zone causes some interesting problems that highlight
the political nature of "human time" (as if it needed any further
highlighting). In Xinjiang it's common for Uighurs to use UTC+6 whereas
Han Chinese observe UTC+8 China Standard Time. So your choice of time zone
doesn't depend on just your location, but also what you are trying to do
and who you are communicating with.

India is a prominent example of a half hour timezone offset.

(Sorry for straying off topic.)

Tony.
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