Subject: Re: Time zones in IETF agenda

From: t.p. <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 12:21:55 +0000

Can anyone help an ignorant European?  Given a meeting time of 12:00
Noon ET [sic] on Sunday 10th March 2013, what is that in UTC?  Daylight
saving will have started by then in the USA but not in Europe so the
scope for being an hour late or an hour early is much increased.

Tom Petch

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Chown" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 9:20 AM
Subject: Time zones in IETF agenda

On 26 Feb 2013, at 20:28, Martin Rex <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I have a recurring remote participation problem with the
> IETF Meeting Agendas, because it specifies the time of WG meeting
slots
> in local time (local to the IETF Meeting), but does not give the
> local time zone *anywhere*.
>
> I would appreciate if the local time zone indication would be added
> like somewhere at the top of the page, to each IETF meeting agenda.

So in this interesting discussion of UTC, Martin has actually made an
excellent point.  Having UTC listings for the agenda would be very
helpful, or an alternative agenda showing UTC.

Tim

---

From: Mikael Abrahamsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 13:41:27 +0100 (CET)

> scope for being an hour late or an hour early is much increased.

$ date -u -d "CET 12:00 Mar 10 2013"
Sun Mar 10 11:00:00 UTC 2013
$ date -u -d "EST 12:00 Mar 10 2013"
Sun Mar 10 17:00:00 UTC 2013
$ date -u -d "PST 12:00 Mar 10 2013"
Sun Mar 10 20:00:00 UTC 2013

Though, the daylight savings is a bit confusing:

$ date -u -d "CEST 12:00 Mar 10 2013"
Sun Mar 10 10:00:00 UTC 2013
$ date -u -d "EDT 12:00 Mar 10 2013"
Sun Mar 10 16:00:00 UTC 2013
$ date -u -d "PDT 12:00 Mar 10 2013"
Sun Mar 10 19:00:00 UTC 2013

So I guess one still has to keep track of daylight savings. Personally I 
prefer to have local time for meetings, otherwise UTC is nice.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: [email-masked]

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:05:35 +0000

> scope for being an hour late or an hour early is much increased.

My lifesaver is http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/personal.html

  Brian

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:17:25 +0000

Brian

---

From: Mattia Rossi <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:54:09 +0100

> My lifesaver is http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/personal.html
+ 1

and this one:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 1 Mar 2013 16:09:04 -0000

>So I guess one still has to keep track of daylight savings.

I've been trying to explain this to people for years, that I cannot
tell when their meeting is if they will not tell me what time zone
they're using.  

It turns out most people don't actually know what time zone they're
using (no, San Francisco is not on PST in July) so I've found the
least error prone approach is to ask what place their time is for,
since even if they don't know what time zone their city is in, I do.

> Personally I 

We should meet in Iceland, where the local time is always UTC.  It has
other advantages, too, roughly equal ping times to the US and Europe.

R's,
John

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 11:29:29 -0600

On 3/1/13 6:21 AM, t.p. wrote:
> Noon ET [sic] on Sunday 10th March 2013, what is that in UTC?

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20130310T12&p1=179

pr

-- 
Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 1 Mar 2013 19:13:44 -0000

>scope for being an hour late or an hour early is much increased.

Florida will be at UTC-4 (which we call EDT) as of early Sunday
morning, so a meeting at noon in Florida any day of IETF 86 will
be at 0800 UTC.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly

---

From: Cyrus Daboo <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:13:59 -0500

Hi John,

> morning, so a meeting at noon in Florida any day of IETF 86 will

Yow - wrong way around. The correct time for a noon meeting in Florida is 
16:00 UTC (12:00 - (-4:00)).

-- 
Cyrus Daboo

---

From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:20:01 -0800

On 03/01/2013 12:13 PM, Cyrus Daboo wrote:
> Yow - wrong way around. The correct time for a noon meeting in Florida
> is 16:00 UTC (12:00 - (-4:00)).

Yow is right. You're both wrong. :)

Add 4 hours to the Florida daylight time zone to get UTC. Or, just go here:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converted.html?iso=20130301T00&p1=1440&p2=867

---

From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:21:38 -0800

> Yow is right. You're both wrong. :)

Oops, sorry Cyrus, you're right, I still had the midnight thread in my 
mind. Anyways, the site below is hopefully helpful to someone. :)

Doug

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 15:36:55 -0500

> other advantages, too, roughly equal ping times to the US and Europe.

It's a good place for meetings, and surprisingly easy to get to from
most of the world.

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:39:09 -0700

On 3/1/13 1:36 PM, Scott Brim wrote:
>> We should meet in Iceland, where the local time is always UTC.
>> It has other advantages, too, roughly equal ping times to the US
>> and Europe.
> 
> It's a good place for meetings, and surprisingly easy to get to
> from most of the world.

I've said it before: just go back and forth between Iceland and
Hawaii. Oh, and maybe Minneapolis for old-time's sake. ;-)

Peter

- -- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

---

From: "John R. Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 1 Mar 2013 15:41:09 -0500

> 16:00 UTC (12:00 - (-4:00)).

Sorry, you are quite right.

Regards,

---

From: "John R. Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 1 Mar 2013 15:41:45 -0500

> Hawaii. Oh, and maybe Minneapolis for old-time's sake. ;-)

New Zealand, please, in easy to remember UTC+12

Regards,

---

From: "Robin Uyeshiro" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 11:28:12 -1000

Only for half the year.  New Zealand has daylight savings time, while Hawaii
does not.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of John
R. Levine
Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 10:42 AM
To: Peter Saint-Andre
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Time zones in IETF agenda

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for
Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:53:23 -0800

> New Zealand, please, in easy to remember UTC+12

A Brit who'd recently moved to Sidney said that he was still getting 
used to its relationship to the rest of the world:

      You fly for 8 hours, and then you start your trip.

  New Zealand is even better:

      You fly for /12/ hours, and then start your trip.

d/

-- 
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 02 Mar 2013 08:07:00 +0100

> New Zealand, please, in easy to remember UTC+12

New Zealand would be quite appropriate, given it was the place that had
the first standardized offset in 1868.

Eliot

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2013 23:09:08 +0100

On 2013-02-27 10:20 Tim Chown said the following:
>> IETF Meeting Agendas, because it specifies the time of WG meeting slots

Now available:

  http://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/agenda-utc

Best regards,

	Henrik

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2013 23:12:45 +0100

> prefer to have local time for meetings, otherwise UTC is nice.

Local timezone indication is now available, calculated for the particular date
and time for each session, so will show daylight saving transitions correctly
too):

  http://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/agenda

Best regards,

	Henrik

---

From: [email-masked] (Martin Rex)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2013 23:50:38 +0100 (CET)

>   http://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/agenda-utc

The agenda that I actually use (and prefer by a significant margin)
is this one:  http://tools.ietf.org/agenda/86/

Since I don't live in a DST-less UTC timezone myself, I will have to
convert (for the purpuse of plannying my remote participation) the
listed times in both, the traditional agendas and any agenda that
uses UTC time.  I actually prefer the agendas with local time.

The little thing that I would appreciate is really an indication of
the local time zone on *ALL* published agendas.  Since the IETF-86
agenda include a code sprint event on Saturday, which as I understand
is still EST(-05:00), while the rest of IETF-86 happens in EDT(-04:00),
so there is no longer a "single" timezone for the entire agenda.

How about adding the timezone info after each day's name?

e.g.:

  SATURDAY, March 9, 2013  (EST -05:00)
  0930-1800  Code Sprint - Grand Sierra A    

  SUNDAY, March 10, 2013  (EDT -04:00)
  1100-1900  IETF Registration - Caribbean Registration

-Martin

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 08:40:23 +0000

>  http://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/agenda-utc

Many thanks, as always, Henrik.

Tim

---

From: Andrew McGregor <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:39:21 -0400

Heh.

NZDT is UTC+13...

Having just moved to Australia from New Zealand... NZ has better airline
connections, especially for flying eastward across the Pacific.

As for being far away... well, you get used to that.  My personal
definition of 'long flight' starts at 9 hours... 'short flight' would be
less than 3.

On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 4:53 PM, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:

> A Brit who'd recently moved to Sidney said that he was still getting used
> to its relationship to the rest of the world:
>