[LEAPSECS] max acceptable rate of TZ fudge/IDL creep

Richard Clark rclark at noao.edu
Fri Jan 6 15:21:25 EST 2012


The timezone fudge could be by redefining the offsets or redrawing the
boundaries.

Redefine the offset would likely be at the national or possibly
state/province level (e.g. Newfoundland in Canada or Darwin in
Australia have, or have had, half-hour rather than hour offsets to
the local flavor of their timezones)

Redefine the boundaries would more likely be at a more local level of
county or metropolitan areas (some areas in Indiana or Arizona in the
US, but also the IDL creep recently seen in Samoa)

And as for people handling DST...
I live in Arizona: no DST (except for the Navajo reservation which
does use DST). I have friends and family elsewhere in the country.
I would question that people easily handle DST.

But this would take place essentially everywhere every decade or so,
and on a fairly piecemeal basis.

I anticipate chaos.

Richard Clark
NSO/GONG
Tucson, Az, USA

Ian Batten wrote:

> On 5 Jan 2012, at 23:49, Rob Seaman wrote:

>

>> Tony Finch wrote:

>>

>>> I reckon the timezone fudge is workable for rate errors as large as 1e-5,

>>> which would imply a timezone change every 11 years.

>>>

>>> More speculation along these lines: http://fanf.livejournal.com/116480.html

>>

>> And I have reckoned the exact opposite. A leap hour or timezone shift

>> per decade is way too frequent for people to put up with.

>

> Why not? They handle DST shifts every six months. What's the difference

> for 99% of the population?

>

> ian

>

>



More information about the LEAPSECS mailing list