Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!UHHEPG.BITNET!RALPH
From: RALPH@UHHEPG.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: The ongoing DST debate: a stupid suggestion
Message-ID: <8805240152.AA29407@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 19 May 88 22:04:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 30

Date: 19-MAY-1988 14:56:16.39
From: Ralph Becker-Szendy RALPH AT UHHEPG
To:   0::"info-vax@kl.sri.com",RALPH
Subj: The ongoing DST debate: a stupid suggestion
From a recent message:
> Ittai Hershman's proposal suggests a simple solution to the problem faced
> by VMS users in Indiana, where DST is not used:  just set DST_INVERVAL to
> zero.  I like that.

Or even easier, do it like most data acquisition machines used in astronomy:
run the clock in UT. That is "Universal Time", also known as Greenwich Mean
Time. You never have any problems with time-zones or daylight saving time. You
just have to educate your users that the clock is always going to be some hours
off (here in Hawaii it's 10 hours). You can even synchronize your computer
clock to the nearest WWV transmitter, and the time on your computer will be
accurate to a microsecond.

Or you emigrate to Hawaii (like I did). First of all, we don't have daylight
saving time; there is enough sunshine to make saving it ridiculous. Second,
there are only two different times known in Hawaii: Surf's Up, and Surf's not
up.

By the way, this posting is NOT meant serious, if you haven't figured that out
yet.

Just coincidentally, I don't surf. I work on the VAX in my office in an ugly
concrete building all the time.

Ralph Becker-Szendy                            RALPH@UHHEPG.PHYS.HAWAII.EDU
University of Hawaii / High Energy Physics Group        RALPH@UHHEPG.BITNET
Watanabe Hall #203, 2505 Correa Road, Honolulu, HI 96822      (808)948-7391