4 ms·

Samoa cancels Friday 30th and travels one day forward in time

77 points by tjriley82 15y ago

ars 15y ago
I'm quite curious if local churches will follow along with the change. I know Jews wouldn't, and I doubt Muslims would, but I don't think there are any Jews there anyway, not sure about Muslims.
- jonknee 15y ago
  Why not? It's arbitrary anyways--as the article mentions the same place previously switched (which means if the Jews didn't like change they would still be on the time that everyone is now switching back to).
  - ars 15y ago
    The Jewish religion has it's own date line that does not correspond to the international one. My question was what does Christianity do, and I guess no one here knows.
    - protomyth 15y ago
      Christianity is actually split on which day to keep. Those that follow the Catholic Church (via canon 29 of the Council of Laodicea) worship on Lord's Day[1] (Sunday). Those that feel the church could not change the day of worship (e.g. Seventh Day Baptists) worship on the Sabbath (Saturday). Wikipedia has a small breakdown for the 7th day in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath - some going with local, some going with time in Israel. Not being Jewish, I am not sure how accurate this one is for Jews: http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-trav-dateline.htm http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-trav-dateline.htm It was my understanding that Catholics go with local to determine Sunday. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Day
    - noonespecial 15y ago
      I'd say that except for a few groups(1), Christians just want a day and aren't too concerned about which day. (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_Church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_Church
- alecperkins 15y ago
  What's to follow? It's just a one-time change that makes a lot of sense given their location. They aren't permanently getting rid of Friday. Besides, Hebrew and Muslim calendars are lunar-based and I would imagine not affected by this.
  - ars 15y ago
    Not the calendar, the day of the week. There is no provision in the religious rules for Jews or Muslims for a "one time change". I'm not super familiar with the Muslim rules, but I know the Jewish rules have their own date line that does not correspond to the international one. I don't know what the Christian rules are about the international date line and that's what I was asking.
- protomyth 15y ago
  With Samoa calendar change, question for Jews: When is Shabbat? http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/12/30/3090969/samoa-calendar-change-impacts-sabbath-but-affects-few http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/12/30/3090969/samoa-cal...
rmc 15y ago
It's cases like this that show that you should use a proper timezone library in your code. Too often I see websites where the timezone field is given as "+/- X from GMT". Just store everything in UTC, and use tzdata fields (e.g. "Europe/London") to convert to something nice to show the user, and People Cleverer Than You™ will make sure everything works.
- naz 15y ago
  Would timezone libraries handle this specific case? Genuinely curious, not being sarcastic.
  - jeltz 15y ago
    Yes they will, but this time they seems to have missed it so the updated database will be released after the change. See the thread about this in the Olson database mailing list. http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2011-December/008457.html http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2011-December/008457.html EDIT: Correction, that thread was about Tokelau and not Samoa. The Samoan change seems to already be in the latest version of the database.
- grimlck 15y ago
  Storing everything in UTC is a huge improvement, but is still an imperfect solution because the Tz database changes over time. Suppose you are writing a appointment tracking system, and, at some point before the olson tz database has been updated with this change, the user in the Samoa timezone creates an future appointment for Jun 2, 2012. That would be stored in UTC. Now, you upgrade the olson TZ database file on your server to a newer version, which incorporates the Somoa tz change. Now, without any user input, the appointment is suddenly on Jun 3, 2012! (because the same UTC date, with the updated TZ database, is Jun 3, 2012) Is that what a user would have expected if they created the appointment for Jun 2, 2012? I would say no. But that said, what if the appointment was for Dec 30 2011? That date no longer exists, so it would have be pushed ahead automatically. Conclusion: time zones are hard
  - natrius 15y ago
Pelayo 15y ago
And they become the first to celebrate the new year on the last new year there will ever be.
qntm 15y ago
It's actually quite lucky that the world has a sensible longitude upon which an International Date Line can be dropped. Imagine if there was an unbroken ring of industrialised nations going all the way around the Earth, I can see a situation where each nation wants to do business with the nation to its immediate west so badly that they just adjust their clocks forward and forward over the course of decades. Eventually, every nation on Earth has done it, and an entire day has essentially disappeared from the calendar - except that the UK is at UTC+24:00 now.
- dkasper 15y ago
  Perhaps we would have a different notation of time if this were the case.
jorisw 15y ago
I would not want to be a calendar software developer right now.
- jonknee 15y ago
  Why not? It's a simple timezone change. Moreover, it's a timezone change that effects a very small number of people.
- rmc 15y ago
  It's easy, just use tzdata (you are using tzdata, right) and it'll take care of most of the transformations.
tlholaday 15y ago
I was pleased that the author, Seth Mydans described January 1, 2000 as "what was called the new millennium."
finnw 15y ago
Another version of the story for non-NYT subscribers: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16351377 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16351377
redthrowaway 15y ago
Who decided to cancel Friday? Surely there would have been greater agreement for cancelling Monday.
- marquis 15y ago
  Then tuesday is the new monday.. you can't escape it. Also, easier to cope with changes over the weekend for those doing international business.
languagehacker 15y ago
Samoa will do anything to make it easier to trade with Australia, including switching what side of the road drivers should use. It's getting a little ridiculous.
- marquis 15y ago
  Samoans mostly live and work in/with Australia and New Zealand. Doesn't that make more sense, than pretending they are closer to the U.S.?
malvim 15y ago
Here's hoping no samoans have their birthdays on December 30th. It would sure suck if my government cancelled the entire day of my birthday!
AngryParsley 15y ago
The change in timezone data exposed a bug in pytz: https://bugs.launchpad.net/pytz/+bug/885163 https://bugs.launchpad.net/pytz/+bug/885163
technomancy 15y ago
I love it when the news prompts flashbacks to Umberto Eco. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_the_Day_Before http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_the_Day_Before

77 points by tjriley82 15y ago

ars 15y ago

I'm quite curious if local churches will follow along with the change. I know Jews wouldn't, and I doubt Muslims would, but I don't think there are any Jews there anyway, not sure about Muslims.

jonknee 15y ago
Why not? It's arbitrary anyways--as the article mentions the same place previously switched (which means if the Jews didn't like change they would still be on the time that everyone is now switching back to).
- ars 15y ago
  The Jewish religion has it's own date line that does not correspond to the international one. My question was what does Christianity do, and I guess no one here knows.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    Christianity is actually split on which day to keep. Those that follow the Catholic Church (via canon 29 of the Council of Laodicea) worship on Lord's Day[1] (Sunday). Those that feel the church could not change the day of worship (e.g. Seventh Day Baptists) worship on the Sabbath (Saturday). Wikipedia has a small breakdown for the 7th day in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath - some going with local, some going with time in Israel. Not being Jewish, I am not sure how accurate this one is for Jews: http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-trav-dateline.htm http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-trav-dateline.htm It was my understanding that Catholics go with local to determine Sunday. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Day
  - noonespecial 15y ago
    I'd say that except for a few groups(1), Christians just want a day and aren't too concerned about which day. (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_Church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_Church
alecperkins 15y ago
What's to follow? It's just a one-time change that makes a lot of sense given their location. They aren't permanently getting rid of Friday. Besides, Hebrew and Muslim calendars are lunar-based and I would imagine not affected by this.
- ars 15y ago
  Not the calendar, the day of the week. There is no provision in the religious rules for Jews or Muslims for a "one time change". I'm not super familiar with the Muslim rules, but I know the Jewish rules have their own date line that does not correspond to the international one. I don't know what the Christian rules are about the international date line and that's what I was asking.
protomyth 15y ago
With Samoa calendar change, question for Jews: When is Shabbat? http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/12/30/3090969/samoa-calendar-change-impacts-sabbath-but-affects-few http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/12/30/3090969/samoa-cal...

rmc 15y ago

It's cases like this that show that you should use a proper timezone library in your code. Too often I see websites where the timezone field is given as "+/- X from GMT". Just store everything in UTC, and use tzdata fields (e.g. "Europe/London") to convert to something nice to show the user, and People Cleverer Than You™ will make sure everything works.

naz 15y ago
Would timezone libraries handle this specific case? Genuinely curious, not being sarcastic.
- jeltz 15y ago
  Yes they will, but this time they seems to have missed it so the updated database will be released after the change. See the thread about this in the Olson database mailing list. http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2011-December/008457.html http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2011-December/008457.html EDIT: Correction, that thread was about Tokelau and not Samoa. The Samoan change seems to already be in the latest version of the database.
grimlck 15y ago
Storing everything in UTC is a huge improvement, but is still an imperfect solution because the Tz database changes over time. Suppose you are writing a appointment tracking system, and, at some point before the olson tz database has been updated with this change, the user in the Samoa timezone creates an future appointment for Jun 2, 2012. That would be stored in UTC. Now, you upgrade the olson TZ database file on your server to a newer version, which incorporates the Somoa tz change. Now, without any user input, the appointment is suddenly on Jun 3, 2012! (because the same UTC date, with the updated TZ database, is Jun 3, 2012) Is that what a user would have expected if they created the appointment for Jun 2, 2012? I would say no. But that said, what if the appointment was for Dec 30 2011? That date no longer exists, so it would have be pushed ahead automatically. Conclusion: time zones are hard
- natrius 15y ago

Pelayo 15y ago

And they become the first to celebrate the new year on the last new year there will ever be.

qntm 15y ago

It's actually quite lucky that the world has a sensible longitude upon which an International Date Line can be dropped. Imagine if there was an unbroken ring of industrialised nations going all the way around the Earth, I can see a situation where each nation wants to do business with the nation to its immediate west so badly that they just adjust their clocks forward and forward over the course of decades. Eventually, every nation on Earth has done it, and an entire day has essentially disappeared from the calendar - except that the UK is at UTC+24:00 now.

dkasper 15y ago
Perhaps we would have a different notation of time if this were the case.

jorisw 15y ago

I would not want to be a calendar software developer right now.

jonknee 15y ago
Why not? It's a simple timezone change. Moreover, it's a timezone change that effects a very small number of people.
rmc 15y ago
It's easy, just use tzdata (you are using tzdata, right) and it'll take care of most of the transformations.

tlholaday 15y ago

I was pleased that the author, Seth Mydans described January 1, 2000 as "what was called the new millennium."

finnw 15y ago

Another version of the story for non-NYT subscribers: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16351377 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16351377

redthrowaway 15y ago

Who decided to cancel Friday? Surely there would have been greater agreement for cancelling Monday.

marquis 15y ago
Then tuesday is the new monday.. you can't escape it. Also, easier to cope with changes over the weekend for those doing international business.

languagehacker 15y ago

Samoa will do anything to make it easier to trade with Australia, including switching what side of the road drivers should use. It's getting a little ridiculous.

marquis 15y ago
Samoans mostly live and work in/with Australia and New Zealand. Doesn't that make more sense, than pretending they are closer to the U.S.?

malvim 15y ago

Here's hoping no samoans have their birthdays on December 30th. It would sure suck if my government cancelled the entire day of my birthday!

AngryParsley 15y ago

The change in timezone data exposed a bug in pytz: https://bugs.launchpad.net/pytz/+bug/885163 https://bugs.launchpad.net/pytz/+bug/885163

technomancy 15y ago

I love it when the news prompts flashbacks to Umberto Eco. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_the_Day_Before http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_the_Day_Before