[LEAPSECS] "China move could call time on GMT"

[Tony Finch]

Ian Batten <igb at batten.eu.org> wrote:

> On 5 Jan 2012, at 23:49, Rob Seaman wrote:

> >

> > And I have reckoned the exact opposite.  A leap hour or timezone shift

> > per decade is way too frequent for people to put up with.

>

> Why not?  They handle DST shifts every six months.  What's the

> difference for 99% of the population?


DST shifts are predictable, whereas one-off changes cause all sorts of
pain. The most recent serious example was the North American change in
2007. One of the problems it exposed is that a lot of calendaring software
is not robust in the face of changes to timezones.

I said TZ changes are "easy to cope with if your timezone system is
already handling random political fluctuations" which is currently the
case in some parts of the world, but the rich world seems to be
rigidifying - for instance, changing the rules in Europe requires more
than two dozen countries to agree, so it's much less vulnerable to
interference from under-employed politicians. So I don't think the
timezone fudge will be as easy to implement in 600 years' time as recent
history suggests.

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/
North FitzRoy, Sole: Westerly or northwesterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 in Sole.
Very rough becoming moderate or rough. Occasional rain or drizzle. Good,
occasionally poor.