On Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:18:52 -0700, Dale Miller wrote:
>I would have to dispute Paul Gilmartin's assertion that "a majority
>want to adjust their work hours to follow the sunrise". I don't have
>a statistically-valid survey, but in discussing it with other people
>through the years, I've encountered a few who really like DST. I think
>most people just go with the flow, but a lot of people didn't like the
>hasseles.
>
Why, then, is DST so prevalent? Have you a conspiracy theory?
Someone to blame? It's hard to believe that legislative bodies
in so many countries are similarly clueless and heedless of their
constituents' concerns.
>Further, a recent article in "Scientific American" raised serious
>questions about the assertion of energy savings from DST, and pointed
>out health issues associated with the time changes, and called DST "an
>idea we can do without".
>
Yes, there's a divergence of opinions.
>... my daughter works in auditing in a
>company which has many processes involving Windows-based processors
>and instruments, and they recently discovered that time stamps on data
>recorded during the DST period are displayed one hour off during the
>non-DST part of the year. Microsoft apparently has no plans to correct
>the issue.
>
Surely that's as much an argument for eliminating Microsoft from
IT operations as for eliminating DST. Alas, I doubt you have the
clout to enforce either.
I don't much take sides here. But as this list so often admonishes
me on other topics, DST is a fact of life. You may struggle to
change it, but in the meantime, it's wise to attempt to accommodate
it.
>set the wrong Date/Time to a date in the future, whereupon, most of
>our third-party software promptly decided we were out of license. When
>the IPL failed, the systems staff were rousted out of bed and lost a
>lot of sleep.
>
Isn't that automated in z/OS nowadays; no need for operator
intervention?
And in UNIX (POSIX) the concept of a semiannual "change" doesn't
exist. There's simply a formula that for any given locale converts
system time (UTC) over a wide range to civil time. The technique
exists; z/OS would do well to embrace it in the legacy context as
well as in the UNIX.
And a colleague writes me:
https://lwn.net/Articles/463143/
It's back at a new location. You just can't keep a good database
down :)
becky
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/07/unix_time_zone_database_destroyed/
-- gil
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