Comments on: A literary appreciation of the Olson/Zoneinfo/tz database http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/ Strategies for Internet citizens Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:40:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Michael Davidson http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-207704 Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:38:22 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-207704 Small world. I had to do much of the programming at the Mount Washington Observatory regarding timezones. It is surprisingly difficult to ask a computer to tell you if the timezone you are in is currently observing daylight saving time. The servers never followed DST, so the traditional date functions couldn’t tell me if everyone else in the Eastern Timezone was. I figured out I had to probe the tz files to determine this. The 2007 change to DST was the monkey wrench that forced the solution.

]]> By: X-WR-TIMEZONE considered harmful? « Jon Udell http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-189431 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:38:00 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-189431 [...] that VTIMEZONE component, it would interpret X-WR-TIMEZONE value as a TZID (timezone ID) from the Olson database. A Unix-based service would look up the TZID in Olson, find the rule for the timezone — i.e., [...]

]]> By: Stretch http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-183731 Thu, 15 Sep 2011 20:45:39 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-183731 Alakazaam-information found, prbloem solved, thanks!

]]> By: Four short links: 7 March 2011 | Boomeroo Web Resources http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-153781 Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:27:10 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-153781 [...] A Literary Appreciation of the Olson Timezone Database — timezones are fickle political creations, and this is a wonderful tribute to the one database which ruled them all for 25 years. [...]

]]> By: Ash Nallawalla http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-153282 Sat, 05 Mar 2011 04:20:22 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-153282 This “sheriff of Madura” tale seems to perpetuate in Unix circles. This title in Australia belongs to a court official, not a gun-toting policeman and I doubt that Madura has a courthouse, being just a truck stop.

More to the point, this region is UTC +8:45, not 20:45 hours from the date line. I haven’t heard of time zones being measured from that un-straight line.

]]> By: Dave http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-153105 Fri, 04 Mar 2011 05:26:22 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-153105 I’m not surprised that the two maintainers are such passionate experts that they document everything. The lead guys in all technical endeavours are of this type. It is the long list of contributors that has me surprised. A boring pedantic task in many cases, TZ data being made lively by such volunteer reports is plain awesome. As much to the 2 (or more) hermits, so also credit to the volunteers!

]]> By: Interesting reading (mike.magin.org) http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-153098 Fri, 04 Mar 2011 04:28:16 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-153098 [...] and ACM act against the interests of scholars? Redis Manifesto The Dekopon arrives in California A literary appreciation of the Olson/Zoneinfo/tz database The Value Of Being Aloof: Or, How Not To Get Absorbed In Someone Else’s Abdomen Hate Man: How a [...]

]]> By: Petr Baudis http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-153063 Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:52:37 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-153063 Another interesting, though certainly shorter, read is the GNU Units database. On your system, if you have units installed, you can find it in /usr/share/misc/units.dat.

]]> By: Raymond Cote http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-153049 Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:38:41 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-153049 If you’re interested in the calculation of time, then run and grab a copy of Calendrical Calculations by Nachum Dershowitz and Edward Reingold.

I discovered this book while browsing through the ‘other’ section of a technical bookstore about 15 years ago. Everything you ever wanted to know about calculating time. And I see on Amazon that they have a new edition out as well.

]]> By: Android OS news » Timezone Maintainer Retiring http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-153048 Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:34:55 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-153048 [...] and now he is retiring. IANA is developing a transition strategy. Jon Udell has an interesting literary appreciation of the timezone [...]

]]> By: Timezone Maintainer Retiring | JetLib News http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-153047 Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:27:02 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-153047 [...] and now he is retiring. IANA is developing a transition strategy. Jon Udell has an interesting literary appreciation of the timezone [...]

]]> By: Read any good timezones lately? « The CalConnect Blog http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-145814 Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:13:15 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-145814 [...] and timezones http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/ http://calconnect.org/CD1007%20Timezone%20Service.shtml [...]

]]> By: Why the Maya used a 260-day calendar « Jon Udell http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-132172 Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:51:13 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-132172 [...] more on the endlessly weird human reckoning of time, see A literay appreciation of the Olson/Zoneinfo/tz database. [...]

]]> By: Jim Monty http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-130626 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:20:42 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-130626 Arthur David Olson recently announced his impending retirement and the need to find a “new home for time zone stuff by 2012.”

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.time.tz/2822

It’s interesting to read the discussion that ensued on the tz mailing list.

]]> By: Garrett Wollman http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/#comment-130618 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:37:05 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1981#comment-130618 There isn’t an “HTML” archive, no, but the complete archive of the tz mailing-list (going back to 1986) is available from ADO’s server (ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzarchive.gz). Robert Elz maintains an archive of historical tzdata releases, but I can’t figure out where it is at the moment.

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