[geeks] Now for something completely geek

[Dan Duncan]

On Tue, 22 Aug 2006, sammy ominsky wrote:
> > Don't get me started on Congress' blunder with the new daylight
> > savings
> > time rule.  Grrrrr.
>
> What new rule?  I don't live in the US anymore, so I have no idea.

Congress passed a new law that changes the dates when it starts and
ends in 2007 so millions of computers that already knew when to adjust
for DST won't any more.  This is simple enough to fix on a server with
a current OS but what about a legacy OS?  What about my VCR which sets
the clock automatically?  NTP is no help because everything happens
in GMT and ntpd does a local adjustment.  Even then, which things were
patched and which weren't in the event they interoperate?  Switches,
routers, phone systems...  My production nodes all operate in GMT,
thankfully, but a lot of my dev/test stuff uses localtime.  I have
no idea if the New York Stock Exchange operates on Eastern or GMT.
Ditto for airlines.  To add insult to injury, this change is a TRIAL
change.  They MAY revert back to the old system for 2008 in which case
we get to go through this again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time#United_States

Wheeeeee.

(DST is a dinosaur that needs to die NOW.)

-DanD

-- 
#  Dan Duncan (kd4igw)  dand at pcisys.net  http://pcisys.net/~dand
# Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if
# he gets angry, he'll be a mile away - and barefoot.