Topic
The problem with EST
Has anyone noticed that EST is in a few different countries, when you post EST, always remember to include your country, so there's not mix-ups!
Replies
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EST is Eastern Standard Time. It is a time zone that runs through eastern Canada, the US, and parts of South America.
If it is 2 pm in Montreal it is 2 pm in New York City and in Havana and in Lima Peru and in Bogota Columbia. They are all in the Eastern time zone (UTC -05)
There's no need to include a country, because it's the same time no matter which country you are in. - Isn't it just EST (UTC-05) and *A*EST (UTC+10)?And if we're using time zones as a locator, that just seems like a bad idea since it gives a pretty wide range of latitudes to work with.
- In Aus we have EST which is about 12 hours ahead of the US, etc EST. I have learnt to put up with this and assume people are referring to the northern hemisphere time zones. it would be nice to put countries tho.
- Good to know there's more than one EST!
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Cleops, EST (UTC -5) is not just in the northern hemisphere. It is a time zone that covers South America as well as North America.
It sounds like people need to distinguish between Australian EST (UTC +10) and EST (UTC -05) -
There must be a differentiating IEC abbreviation for EST and the Australian time zone. Somebody should dig in the files in their /etc/ directory (/etc/timezones ?) to find out.
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Checked, on a NetBSD box.
In the /usr/share/zoneinfo folder, there is an EST. It corresponds to the UTC-5 zone. Then there is /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Eastern in the US subdirectory. In the /usr/share/zoneinfo/Australia subdirectory there are only Australian city names and North, South, and West (but no East). So you can't specify /usr/share/zoneinfo/Australia/East to zoneinfo but you can do so with the other cardinal directions. Very curious....
I suspect what popular culture uses ('as seen on TeeVee') is what people are used to, so EST is used for both zones. -
Sorry to be a complete English Arse but I really struggle with anything other than GMT. Surely everyone knows when that is... It would be even nicer if people put:
I'm in EST time zone which is GMT + or - yadda. Because that is where it all started, and where everyone knows their time. Plus I'm very very lazy and selfish.
If I did post anything other than GMT or BST (british summer time) I would either provide a link to a time change or give one other time area just to be sure. - Grenwich Mean Time has been an obsolete name for years. (Didn't you hear the French and their Metric system had taken over?) The World Standards Bodies refers to it as 'Coordinated Universal Time'
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WindBorn - to be fair to Miss Purple, it's the difference between Australian EST and *American* EST. There are a lot of time zones that share abbreviations.
It's a fair request to ask that people put their country along with the time of their event or the UTC offset, since Glitch has players across the world. -
Even in Australia the correct term is AEST (or AEDT for daylight savings).
That being said I know that my time zone is GMT+10.
I don't really mind what time zone people use.
I alter my spelling based on what I think my current conversation partners are primarily made up of (English or American English), and if I'm on twitter or not (every character counts, lol), so I am use to considering where my fellow chat partners are when it comes to time as well. I assume that people will question me as to where I am if I say it's night currently and they say it's day and they're actually curious.
It's the internet. It's global. It's what I like about it :)
PS: Anyone else remember Swatch Internet Time? - Razzalle, I hate to think what that is shortened to....and I doubt its just CUT.
- An alternative to all this confusion is just posting your event to glinvite.com/ and let that great resource do all the time converting for you.
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If you're picking your time zone from a list and you see your time zone with several different areas represented I think (I'm not sure, as I'm just guessing here and someone please correct me if you know I'm wrong.) it could mean one of two things:
1) The web site is trying to give you a point of reference. For instance, if you don't know your timezone is Central and you're currently in Standard Time, but you know you share a time zone with St. Louis, you pick CST-St Louis from the list. But if you're in South America and also at CST, St. Louis isn't a great point of reference for you.
2) Some places recognize daylight savings time and some places don't. If you want the website to auto-detect for you, they can only do that by knowing which location you most identify with. Especially websites that do not require you to tell them where exactly you live.
As far as posting events goes, post it in the time zone you know. If you don't want people to have to look up where your time zone is compared to theirs, give the GMT time. Most people either already know that relationship to their own time zone or they know where to find it. Unless they're new to the internet, which is possible, I guess. - UTC = Universal Time, Coordinated.
- Thank you Jewel.. much nicer than my imagination.
- Has anyone apologized to miss purple for making fun of her on her last post about the hell party? If not I will be the first. I am very sorry and I am sure that the hell party would have been a smash. You taught a lot of people on here these few days.
- re Swatch time @xombiekitty shake it to the beat !
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Shrugs.
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The game is hosted on US servers. The company is based out of San Fransisco, California, which might surprise our NWO, jet set, neo-colonial masters, but is still part of the US. Around 70% of Glitch players are from the US and of the remainder, another ~20% are from Canada.
I almost find it humorous that a minority of players from outside my country's borders is attempting to dictate what I should and shouldn't do in my own country, on my own country's internet backbone, on a game whose company is headquartered in an American city and hosted on American infrastructure. Almost. If it weren't for the small fact that for the past 30 years, every dick and jane who's invaded seems to think we need to move out of their way while they redefine every aspect of our country to their suiting.
Sorry, I generally try to be a reasonable person, but this is (like most of the world elite's demand that the US comply with their standards, as if we were still "someone's" colony) a bit ridiculous. Eastern Standard Time, abbreviated to EST, is a well established timezone "name" in common parlance. deal with it. - Woochi, I don't see anyone demanding anything. I personally think it's useful to be gently reminded every once in a while that I live in a larger world, and that not everyone's frame of reference is the USA. YMMV, of course.
- EDIT: I'm only editing this entire statement because I had responded in anger towards a "person" that was raised differently from me which means they have different views. Everyone is not going to always say things I like. It does not mean I should attack and throw wood on the fire. My views stay to myself about this "persons" statement.
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Folks, the General Forum on Glitch is not the place to debate colonial policy.
Nor is it a place to post personal "How dare you......." barbs. Probably a good idea to clean up some of the personal attacks before staff does it for you. - @windborb you're right but I really didn't like that. I apologize for responding. Should have kept it to myself.
- Time stamps should be to international standards and should always be to GMT (London)
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It would be a good idea to edit your post above (click on the little 'edit' link under it) and make it more polite.
Also, note that you have edited it. - Don't forget that the seasons are different in the northern and southern hemispheres; I had a friend in Melbourne Australia (I'm in the UK) and at this time of year he is 11 hours ahead of me, but after March it will be 9 hours.......
- Woochi it's only a reasonable timezone to those who use it I'm with jiva, I'm english don't understand anything except gmt or bst with daylight saving and gmt still exists it's commonly used all over the wod after all on most sites I see when you choose your timezone and I say most as not all ask but they say bbladahbladahadh gmt + blah
- Hence why it makes sense just for everyone to stick with GMT, which is constant.
- actually, somewhere above an intelligent soul proposed UTC. which is the right thing to do. It is adopted by an international body regardless of country. I know my country is +5:30 and that's ok with me.
- and woochi, just because glitch is a US-based company doesn't mean it wants to remain in US only. It wants to be a basket for global community and therefore it will go an extra step to be global in spirit. And actually, they have done that with a spotless record until now. :)
- How about we just use Glitchtime? It's universal, if not easy to calculate... =P
- www.timeanddate.com/library...
- I do hope that woochi and others understand it was just my opinion and no demand to anyone else and just an example of what I would do if needed. I would never demand anything from TS or you lot.
- GMT+10 here!
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Wow, what did I miss?
I thought this thread was an interesting discussion on how we all view time zones and how we share the information.
How did it turn into something nasty?
Even better, why? - I know, I was just doing this thread to help people see that times are different