FW: Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude didn't change time zone, same MSK+5. New Russia map without DST.

[Clive D.W. Feather]

> Alexander, Derick, and the TZ group:
> 
> Is there any one person (or subgroup of people) within the TZ Group 
> who is (are) advocating that time zones be pulled out of the UTC offset
> and that time zones be known simply as TZ 1-to-24?
> 
> My reference on this topic is within the right column of this page:
> http://smallbusinessschool.org/page2424.html

I don't think anyone in the "TZ Group", as you call it, would be that
silly.

> Is this a silly concept?  Is so, I would be very interested to learn why..

Yes.

Off the top of my head:
(1) What about places that are *ahead* of your "TZ#1"? Right now it's 02:09
in New Zealand, western Kiribati, and Fiji, but it's 03:09 in central Kiribati
("TZ#0"?) and 04:09 in eastern Kiribati ("TZ#minus1"?).
(2) What about all the half-hour zones, such as Norfolk Island, Southern
Australia, and India? India is *not* in your "TZ#7".
(3) What about all the fractional zones, such as Chatham Island (currently
02:54)?
(4) What about summer time? Are you going to say that I shift twice a year
between TZ#12 and TZ#13?
(5) You don't appear to understand what UTC actually is.

Very simply, time zones are far more complicated than can be addressed by a
simple numbering from 1 to 24. Times relative to UTC change twice a year in
many countries, and *not* all on the same date. Even your examples are
wrong: right now it's 02:09 in New Zealand and 09:09 in New Orleans. That's
a 17 hour difference, not an 18 hour one.

> Now, is there any good reason that England defines UTC 0 and the rest of
> the world is  UTC + or - 1-to-12? 

Because all the major nations of the world, including the USA, agreed that
the reference point for longitude (i.e. the boundary between "east" and
"west") should be Greenwich, in east London. When formal definitions of
time were being agreed, they were originally astronomy-based and so it was
sensible to use the same reference point.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather          | If you lie to the compiler,
Email: clive at davros.org     | it will get its revenge.
Web: http://www.davros.org  |   - Henry Spencer
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