dislocated time/space regions

[Alex Livingston]

Hi Rives and others.

The time kept in the three "towns" you mention is half way between the
times in Western Australia (WA) and South Australia (SA) only when South
Australia is NOT observing daylight-saving time. When it is, these towns
are 1&3/4 hours behind SA, but only 3/4 of an hour (less than half as much)
ahead of WA. This on-the-quarter hour offset must make it a pain in the
neck working out from local time what the times in WA and SA are (not to
mention the rest of the world, except Nepal and the Chatham Islands), and
it would seem to me much more sensible and convenient if their clocks were
kept a whole hour ahead of WA (making them 9 hours ahead of UTC and 21
hours ahead of the date line, the same as Japan and eastern Indonesia). If
they did that, they would be 1&1/2 hours behind SA during its
daylight-saving period (only a half-as-much again greater offset than from
WA) and 1/2 an hour behind for the rest of the year. This would also make
time-conversion arithmetic much easier for almost everywhere on earth.

Sorry; I've strayed into suggestion/prescription (as opposed to
description) again.

Rives: I'd love to know how I can get in touch with the sheriff of Madura,
so I can put my suggestion to him/her. (Am I right that Nepal and the
Chatham Islands are the only other surviving quarter-hour-offset zones in
the world? The Chatham Islands in particular are a basket case, having
simply added half an hour to their time along with the rest of New Zealand
in 1947, thus breaking their connection with mean solar time anyway, and
then adopting daylight saving as well! They "should" either go forward 1/4
of an hour or back 3/4 of an hour.)

:Alex

--------------------------------------------------------------
Alex Livingston
Macintosh & Lotus Notes Support, Information Technology
Australian Graduate School of Management
UNSW SYDNEY NSW 2052
Australia
Tel:   +61 2 9931-9264
Fax:   +61 2 9931-9349

Email: alex at agsm.edu.au
Web:   http://www.agsm.edu.au

 The Australian Graduate School of Management
    is a School of both The University of Sydney
         & The University of New South Wales.
          CRICOS Provider Number: 00098G


                                                                                                                   
                    Rives McDow                                                                                    
                    <rmcdow at entel        To:     elsie <tz at elsie.nci.nih.gov>                                      
                    es.com>              cc:                                                                       
                                         Subject:     dislocated time/space regions                                
                    2002-04-10                                                                                     
                    01:44                                                                                          
                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                   




The most interesting region I have found consists of three towns on the
southern coast of Australia, population 10 at last report, along with
50,000 sheep, about 100 kilometers long and 40 kilometers into the
continent.  The primary town is Madura, with the other towns being
Mundrabilla and Eucla.  According to the sheriff of Madura, the
residents got tired of having to change the time so often, as they are
located in a strip overlapping the border of South Australia and Western
Australia.  South Australia observes daylight saving time; Western
Australia does not.  The two states are one and a half hours apart.  The
residents decided to forget about this nonsense of changing the clock so
much and set the local time 20 hours and 45 minutes from the
international date line, or right in the middle of the time of South
Australia and Western Australia.  As it only affects about 10 people and
tourists staying at the Madura Motel, it has never really made as big an
impact as Broken Hill.  However, as tourist visiting there or anyone
calling the local sheriff will attest, they do keep time in this way.

           There are quite a few of these types of regions in the world;
I'll
try and post them as I get the time.

Rives McDow