[tz] Missing entry for Heard Island and MacDonald Islands

[Tobias Conradi]

On Sat, May 12, 2012 at 4:31 AM, Sergiusz Wolicki <sergiusz at wolicki.com> wrote:
>
> ## What level of discussion is this?
>
> Actually, a funny
depends on the reader
>and intelligent answer
may depend on the intelligence of the reader

> True vacuum has no
> atoms. As temperature is understood to be the measure of how much atoms move
> relative to each other (or similar), it makes little sense to talk about
> temperature where there are no atoms.
The one who talks about it is you.

> Similarly, a long discussion about a
> time zone for a place where there is nobody
> to look at a clock seems futile.
Theory does not define that there needs to be someone to look at a clock.

Long discussions get shorter if people read Theory
"The tz database attempts to record the history and predicted future of
all computer-based clocks that track civil time."

> Small groups of temporary visitors do not count,
> because they will observe
> whatever time they want to.
Theory does not define a threshold for how small or big a group of
"visitors" should be to change observed time.

>They may, for example, decide to leave clocks
> at their home time zone, or set them as
> dictated by geographical time or
> whatever.


> On the other hand, if a governmental organization defines a time zone for an
> area, like for HM or Siberia, then it makes sense to consider this time zone
> as applying to the area.  The real question to answer is, if we want the tz
> database to have a time zone for each ISO territory code or not.
Who is "we"? Some contributors to the tz mailing list already wrote
they would like a zone for HM. Others talk about vacuum. Others try to
make sense of the Theory file.

> If not,
> then UTC+5 is good enough.
Even if it is not set up for each ISO territory, UTC+5 is
insufficient, as it violates tzcode2012b/Theory

"The tz database attempts to record the history and predicted future of
all computer-based clocks that track civil time.  To represent this
data, the world is partitioned into regions whose clocks all agree
about time stamps that occur after the somewhat-arbitrary cutoff point
of the POSIX Epoch (1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC). For each such region,
the database records all known clock transitions, and labels the region
with a notable location."

UTC+5 is not a location and can therefor not be a label for a region
as defined above.

> It is really waste of time to try to define
> history of observed time for a generally inhabited island.
It can be considered waste of time to make the preceding statement.

Some of those that support a zone for HM do not "try to define history
of observed time", but have a definition already.


-- 
Tobias Conradi
Rheinsberger Str. 18
10115 Berlin
Germany

http://tobiasconradi.com/