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189 points rmason | 1 comments | | HN request time: 1.925s | source
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Flundstrom2 ◴[] No.44371152[source]
Time is a mess. Always. The author only scratched the surface on all the issues. Even if we exclude the time dilation of relativity which affects GPS/GNSS satellites - independent of if it is due to difference in gravitational pull or their relative speed over ground, it's still a mess.

Timezones; sure. But what about before timezones got into use? Or even halfway through - which timezone, considering Königsberg used CET when it was part of Germany, but switched to EET after it became Russian. There's even countries that have timezones differenting by 15 minutes.

And dont get me started on daylight savings time. There's been at least one instance where DST was - and was not - in use in Lebanon - at the same time! Good luck booking an appointment...

Not to mention the transition from Julian calendar to Gregorian, which took place over many, many years - different by different countries - as defined by the country borders at that time...

We've even had countries that forgot to insert a leap day in certain years, causing March 1 to occur on different days altogether for a couple of years.

Time is a mess. Is, and aways have been, and always will be.

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voidUpdate ◴[] No.44374940[source]
Even worse, there are some areas where the timezone depends on your religion. Lebanon had "Muslim time" and "Christian time" at one point (Unsure if that's still a thing)
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1. exe34 ◴[] No.44375628[source]
There's a joke about Northern Ireland, where if you claim to be an atheist, they would ask you, yes but which side - Catholic or Protestant?