[ale] [EXTERNAL] Re: Stupid people and DST

[Bryan L. Gay]

They can all do what they want with the clocks. Doesn't bother me at
all. For one, I'm a night owl. But more importantly, I use UTC, or
Zulu time. So do our computers. Displaying the time uses a library
that gets updated with 'law' changes and translates the UTC into
whatever local time you've told your OS to use when displaying time.

Anyone writing software and trying to do their own time conversions is
silly. Use the existing UTC clock and the updatable library. There,
done.

Yes, I've worked in a shop where I had to write all the test cases and
edge rules for DST conversions. That's where I learned to not try to
re-invent the wheel.
Ever heard of leap-seconds?

Some folks don't know that it isn't just west Georgia, but many parts
of east Alabama are also on Eastern time, especially those parts very
near the Chattahoochee. Lanett, Shawmut, Valley, Langdale, Fairfax,
Riverview, etc. The reasoning is that these towns were cotton-mill
driven, and the cotton mills were headquartered in LaGrange, GA, so
they were all on the same time zone as LaGrange.

If you're driving north on I-85 and cross the Georgia state line, you
immediately see "Entering Eastern Time Zone", but if you're driving
south on I-85, you don't see "Entering Central Time Zone" until you're
between the 76 and 75 mile markers (the state line is mile marker 80).
In between these two signs, everyone is on Eastern Time, although the
map won't indicate this. The problem comes in with cell phone towers.
Depends on which tower you're attached to as to what time will be
displayed on your phone if it's set to automatically update the time
zone based on location.

Using Google Maps, it thinks you're in the Central Time Zone as soon
as you're in Alabama, which is wrong.

The county seat, LaFayette, is on Central Time, but their offices in
Valley are on Eastern Time. It's not just the 'people' on Eastern
Time, it's the government, too.

Don't even get me started on the whole local vs. long distance with
the phone company in this area. You can't even buy a phone# in the
local exchange through any of the VoIP providers. Anything you buy
will be long distance for anyone in this area.

On Sat, Mar 19, 2022 at 11:40 PM Jim Kinney via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>
> Had a vet run the clock back on the automatic blood analysis machine by one day. The sample vial had expired the day before and the system refused to run. It was the last vial in the clinic and the were closing for the day. The clock reset let the test complete and the cat was none the worse for wear and I saved a second visit.
>
> On March 19, 2022 2:29:05 PM EDT, Allen Beddingfield via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I'm pretty sure that for most cases, aside from the one running COBOL, they will just set the clock back a couple of decades and keep going.
>> --
>> Allen Beddingfield
>> Systems Engineer
>> Office of Information Technology
>> The University of Alabama
>> Office 205-348-2251
>> allen at ua.edu
>> ________________________________
>> Well, those people have 13 years to find an alternative. I recently
>> converted one of my 1985 Turbo Pascal 3.0 programs to FreePascal on
>> Linux. If they were using Clipper, Foxpro, DBASE, etc, there's the
>> modern Harbour Project to convert to a modern Linux executable,
>> although obviously a few source code tweaks will need to be made.
>>
>> I'm pretty sure a few source code tweaks are all that stand between an
>> SCO Openserver 5 Cobol program and a brand new GNUCobol program. 13
>> years.
>>
>>
>>> Not everyone upgrades things that just work....
>>
>>
>> I agree, almost completely. Upgraders following fashion trends deserve
>> what they get. But stuff breaks, and replacement parts become
>> unavailable, and eventually things that just work (until they don't)
>> become impractical.
>>
>> SteveT
>>
>> Steve Litt
>> March 2022 featured book: Making Mental Models: Advanced Edition
>> http://www.troubleshooters.com/mmm
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>
>
> --
> Computers amplify human error
> Super computers are really cool
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