One Small Step Back for Mankind

October 26, 2006 on 1:18 pm | In Funnyish, Insider View, Musings, Rants by Josh Jones |

Now THAT'S low gravity!

It’s that time of the year again!

The end of the world is coming! Armageddon is nigh! Armstrong is high! Ghosts and demons will rise from every nook and cranny, to consume the whole of our planet! Or at least the U.S.

Because this Sunday, it’s the end of Daylight Saving Time.

Oh, I’m sorry.. perhaps you thought I was referring to Y2K?

Wrong again, media!

I remember back in the summer of 1997 when I was working at my uncle’s company and he was like “we should do Y2K consulting!”

And I remember thinking to myself

“Why would anybody do that? The Y2K bug isn’t going to cause any more problems than any other computer bug. Every single day millions of computer glitches, programming bugs, human errors, usability defects, battery explosions, hardware failures, etc, etc, etc, happen… and the world keeps humming along. Why would a widely KNOWN and EASILY fixed bug, having to do with something as non-critical as DATE processing, be anything to give a duck’s fart about?”

(I used a lot of fowl language in my head back then.)

Think about it.. how many times have YOU personally called the cable company, or a store, or a restaurant, or a movie theater, or even a bleeding HOSPITAL and been told they couldn’t help you right now because their computers were down?

And yet somehow the world keeps humming along.

But, probably because 2000 seemed like a likely time for the world to end anyway, the media really latched onto it! Business folks (usually not the most technical ones) got on the bandwagon, and the general public pretty much followed behind.. all caught up in a giant vortex of hype and fear about how the world as we knew it would end come January 1st, 19100.

(A little aside.. the unix time command returns years in the format “the number of years since 1900″. Which means in 1999 it returned “99″. So, what you should have done if you wanted to show the full year, was just 

1900 + $time;

(Simply 1900 plus the number of years since 1900!)

What a lot of people did instead was just 

'19' . $time;

because, in the entire history of unix so far, the time command had always happened to return a two-digit year. This resulted in a lot of websites having the date as January 1st, 19100 when it all of the sudden became 100 years since 1900! In fact, WE had this very bug hit us.. it made the serial numbers we generated for our DNS entries all screwed up… Y2K strikes again! When we saw the problem, we fixed it in about eight minutes. Unfortunately it was too little too late, the world had already ended.)

The future of affordable space travel.

Ah yes, those were crazy times.

Now we can all sit back, have some fois gras, and laugh.

Or can we?

Not only is fois gras on the outs, maybe you’ve heard that Congress has recently legislated that starting in 2007, Daylight Saving Time will be extended for another four (or sometimes five) weeks!

POW! Just like that!

With less than two years warning, Congress decided to completely re-break what must again be millions of lines of time-related code across pretty much every computer in the world.

Future Fois Gras

Have we learned NOTHING in this new millenium?!

Did anybody even CONSIDER the implications of this? The billions upon billions of dollars of our economy that will be wasted re-tooling every elevator in Manhattan and every sprinkler system in LA to be Y27DST-compliant? The myriad tragic side effects of millions of computers have their clocks an hour off for three weeks in March and one week in November? The CHILDREN?

Even us, your beloved web host, has a few Y27DST bugs creeping up the pipeline. For one, we’re going to have to patch all our servers so they know about the new time zone rules. That will probably take somebody a few hours AT LEAST.

Secondly, call us insane, but we keep all our domain registration info in Pacific Time, even though Verisign has everything in UTC (the one true time). So, whenever we have to do any interfacing with them, we need to convert UTC to Pacific time, and/or convert Pacific time to UTC. Which would be one piece of cake if not for that cluckin’ Daylight Saving Time.

Thanks to DST, and the fact we don’t even keep time zone information with our date/time stamps (call us even insaner), there is not a one-to-one mapping of Pacific times to UTC times! Which causes problems for the two or three domains registered every year between the second 2am and 3am on the last Sunday of October. We just don’t know if those domains were actually registered at 9:30am UTC or 10:30am UTC!

Think about it.

It's close to midniiiiiiiiiiiiight.. and something evil's lurking in the dark!

Spooky stuff.

Which is one of the reasons I’m for abolishing Standard time! Who needs it?! It just causes programming headaches, not to mention just when the days are getting really short.. the sun starts setting even earlier! Heck, I’m for DOUBLE DST and make it permanent. Nobody’s children walk to school anymore anyway.

And apparently it wouldn’t be a big deal to change it.. Congress clearly thinks 20 months is more than enough warning to get ready!

Speaking of which.. I just patched our domain registration code!

my $thisyearsdsbegins = &ParseDate("first sunday in april $year 2am");
my $thisyearsdsends = &ParseDate("last sunday in october $year 2am");
if ($year >= 2007) { # crazy congress!
  $thisyearsdsbegins = &ParseDate(”second sunday in march $year 2am”);
  $thisyearsdsends = &ParseDate(”first sunday in november $year 2am”);
}

Now, nobody register any domains between (the second) 2 and 3am Pacific time this Sunday, please.

(We’ll all be at our Halloween party.)

37 Responses to “One Small Step Back for Mankind”

  1. lollypork Says:
    October 26th, 2006 at 1:40 pm

    Must.. resist… registering… sunday.

  2. Fascination Place » Blog Archive » Daylight Savings Time Without A Saving Throw Says:
    October 26th, 2006 at 1:58 pm

    [...] The official Dreamhost blog notes that computers will need to change their algorithms for handling Daylight Savings Time starting in 2007. [...]

  3. Wendel Says:
    October 26th, 2006 at 2:33 pm

    Ha, you talk about that DST of yours…

    Here in Brazil, the DST period changes *every* year! *That* is what I call insane!

    (and because of our election, they changed the starting day *again* - while yours will end now, ours will begin someday in November …)

  4. Anonymous Says:
    October 26th, 2006 at 2:56 pm

    i find this the most hard to read blog entry since i came here.

    Can’t you just buy new servers? :)

  5. SRHuston Dot Net » Blog Archive » Daylight Stupid Time Says:
    October 26th, 2006 at 3:45 pm

    [...] Seems it’s that time of year again - time to set the clocks back this Sunday. However the folks at Dreamhost have brought up the interesting (and maddening) problem of what Congress thinks will save everyone so much energy and make all our lives easier. [...]

  6. Dan Says:
    October 26th, 2006 at 4:26 pm

    The reason that applications around the world didn’t fail is because forward thinking folks (such as your uncle) started changing things around 1995. By the time 1999 ended, we had most things figured out.

    I don’t think we were ever in danger of planes falling from the sky, but I think the whole panic looked like overkill partially because it was taken care of behind the scenes.

  7. Skit Says:
    October 26th, 2006 at 4:39 pm

    You think you have it bad with 20months notice? Here in Western Australia they are thinking of trailing bringing Daylight savings back, starting 1st Dec 2006. Just over a month from now!

    Going to be fun trying to get all the Servers/PCs I manage onto the correct time without issue…

  8. mscha Says:
    October 26th, 2006 at 4:59 pm

    Shudder….
    Is that your actual code? At the very least, you should consider moving the first two lines into an “else”, but you shouldn’t have any business coding DST rules in the first place.
    Just make sure your servers’ time zone databases are up-to-date, and use any standard time conversion routines, like DateTime::TimeZone’s, or even simply Time::Local.

    (At least you’re not on Windoze - you aren’t, are you? - because it can’t handle changes in time zone logic at all. Starting next year, it’ll think that DST has always ended on the first Sunday in November.)

    - Michael

  9. sam Says:
    October 26th, 2006 at 5:33 pm

    Wow, people who don’t just use UTC do actually exist…

    Seriously, why bother - just use UTC like everyone else.

  10. Joe Says:
    October 26th, 2006 at 11:53 pm

    What about on the servers?? Who care about your domain registry code… I want to know how my applications behave!

  11. Vlad Says:
    October 27th, 2006 at 1:19 am

    We’re doomed.

    Dooooooomed!

  12. Schietschijf Says:
    October 27th, 2006 at 2:32 am

    Isn’t this problem solved by adding a single NTP server to your network and let all the other servers take their time from that ntp server?

  13. Leo Kennis Says:
    October 27th, 2006 at 2:53 am

    Actually it should be Y2K7DST.

    Also DST should end more than once a year since it means I have a 25 hour day and if I have enough of those days, I can time travel.

  14. BC Law IPTF Blog » Blog Archive » Congress Changes Daylight Savings - More Code to be Written Says:
    October 27th, 2006 at 7:14 am

    [...] As always, the Dreamhost Blog has a brilliantly funny post about the problems that Congress’s change in DST will have come 2007: [...]

  15. Toord Says:
    October 27th, 2006 at 7:21 am

    “Call us insane” : Sure. Insane!
    “Call us insaner”: Sure. Insaner!

    I could also call you lazy, inefficient, whinning hoes … but I won’t.

  16. michael Says:
    October 27th, 2006 at 9:51 am

    http://www.energy.ca.gov/daylightsaving.html

  17. Justin Says:
    October 27th, 2006 at 10:45 am

    There is also the year 2038 problem to worry about!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time#32-bit_overflow

  18. Simon Jessey Says:
    October 27th, 2006 at 12:25 pm

    I agree with Sam (comment #9). It makes more sense for everything to be running in UTC. It makes it easier for everyone.

  19. eric Says:
    October 27th, 2006 at 1:14 pm

    Speaking of mankind, has Dreamhost given serious thought to making small steps towards generating your own power through renewable resources?

    One hosting provider is 100% solar:

    http://www.inc.com/magazine/20061101/green50_integrators_pagen_4.html

    Of course, to go 100% would be ridiculous–I’d wager your hosting capabilities are a bit more capacious and reliable.

    But how do you wash an elephant? One scrub at a time.

    That would just be SO COOL if you guys made strides in the practical spirit of environmental stewardship.

  20. pkchukiss Says:
    October 27th, 2006 at 8:31 pm

    Well, I have never understood Daylights Savings Time, despite reading it up on Wikipedia. Anyone would like to explain exactly how it works to an Asian?

  21. Paul Says:
    October 28th, 2006 at 10:26 am

    Oh no, I guess there is no hope…lol.

  22. Jon Says:
    October 28th, 2006 at 11:34 am

    I believe that unix time starts from 1970, not 1900.

    Please can I have a prize, and a work permit. kthx.

  23. Shish Says:
    October 28th, 2006 at 2:16 pm

    UTC WTF? GMT, bitches.

  24. Jon Says:
    October 28th, 2006 at 3:01 pm

    Remember England, owned the world before America did?

  25. Toasty Says:
    October 28th, 2006 at 8:48 pm

    I’ve been supporting abolishing standard time for quite some time now. In fact, why should anyone be forced to adhere to ’standard’ time?? I really prefer to have 32 hours days myself - get a lot more done that way. What does it matter when the sun comes up and goes down, if I’m in front of a computer inside all day? Let the farmers keep thier precious 24 hour days, they’ll just grow old quicker! I’ve just cut 9 years off my age!!

  26. Toord Says:
    October 29th, 2006 at 3:44 am

    Sorry fellas,

    I didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but I deal with 400+ machines (many of them un-cetralizabe) that do depend on synchronicity of time for performing many client-server tasks. Instead of complaining what we did is make them all GMT/UTC and standard time conversions are done only after the fact and when needed.

  27. Torley Says:
    October 29th, 2006 at 5:24 pm

    The more I read this blog, the more I smile. It’s just such a treasury of insights AND humor! Ha-ha!

  28. Easy Does It University » Daylight savings time changed? Says:
    October 29th, 2006 at 7:14 pm

    [...] Source Posted by Eric on Sunday, October 29, 2006 8:13 pm Rate this post: (No Ratings Yet)  Loading … (Possibly) Related Posts: [...]

  29. mscha Says:
    October 30th, 2006 at 6:08 am

    So when are you finally going to swith to Metric time, like the rest of the civilized world?
    You know, a day has 10 metric hours of 100 metric minutes each, which are 100 metric seconds each.

    ;-)

    - Michael

  30. Nuno Says:
    October 30th, 2006 at 8:01 am

    Lol, very sarcastic :p

    DST changed the hour last Saturday, here in Portugal. Now I have to turn on the lights much sooner, because at 5 or 6 PM it’s already dark. What a drag… It hurts my eyes and my pocket!

    :/

  31. Barbara Says:
    October 30th, 2006 at 12:01 pm

    Just glad I live in Arizona and don’t have to worry about time changing!

  32. Tex Says:
    October 30th, 2006 at 3:01 pm

    Just be glad you aren’t in .au, at least in my state where daylight saving was stopped from happening because it was considered that the cows wouldn’t be able to adjust. Idjits!

    http://www.aboutheadaches.info

  33. David Says:
    October 30th, 2006 at 9:33 pm

    What about changing to internet time?

  34. hmm Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 1:39 am

    #32 is spam. Not hosted at DH.

  35. sam Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 1:10 pm

    #23

    UTC is the better term. GMT has been used to refer to a number of different times - that ambiguity means anyone with at leat two brain cells says UTC.

  36. Steve Says:
    November 1st, 2006 at 2:43 am

    Look I think the best thing really is to keep GMT.

    But I am for extending it, you those pesky problems when you have to look up international times, and figure out if thats ok to call them.

    Well how about everyone runs gmt, and every one is in the SAME time zone.

    Ok it will be dark, in LA at 9am, but think at 10pm it will be daylight, and think of the parties you could have on the beaches (that last all Night long!!) Aus get those benefits too.

    Get on to your senator, you know the benefits of being able to call anywhere any country at 9am, and know it 9am there too, the benefits really outweight the problems.

    ;-)

  37. Steve Says:
    November 1st, 2006 at 2:48 am

    Hey Cow-girl,

    how about making the cap image about 300% bigger.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress. Pool theme by Borja Fernandez, modified by DreamHost.
Entries and comments feeds. ^Top^