eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) (03/25/91)
Shouldn't news software eventually switch from saying `GMT' to saying `UT' in the date lines of news headers? `UT' is in the standard, it has a more international flavor than the English-centric `GMT', and it's one byte shorter. C News didn't support `UT' until its just-released patch set, so we shouldn't change to `UT' right now, but why not head in that direction eventually?
gamiddle@watmath.waterloo.edu (Guy Middleton) (03/26/91)
In article <1991Mar25.030637.8126@twinsun.com> eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) writes: > Shouldn't news software eventually switch from saying `GMT' to saying `UT' in > the date lines of news headers? `UT' is in the standard, it has a more > international flavor than the English-centric `GMT', and it's one byte shorter. Don't you mean "UTC"? I've never heard it called "UT".
moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes) (03/26/91)
gamiddle@watmath.waterloo.edu (Guy Middleton) writes: >Don't you mean "UTC"? I've never heard it called "UT". RFC822 and 1123 call it "UT". Canadian network status reports call it UTC :-) datetok.c in the current C News patch includes both "ut" and "utc". Mark.
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (03/26/91)
In article <91Mar25.204233edt.1103@smoke.cs.toronto.edu> moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes) writes: >>Don't you mean "UTC"? I've never heard it called "UT". > >RFC822 and 1123 call it "UT". Canadian network status reports call it UTC :-) As I understand the situation, the *English* name is "Universal Time", but the *standard Latin-alphabet* abbreviation -- which isn't an acronym for anything in particular in any specific Latin-alphabet language -- is "UTC". "UT" is improper; you are supposed to use "UTC" if your character set can possibly write it that way. The point of this is to have an internationally-accepted abbreviation that is not language-specific. "GMT" is understood almost everywhere, but it tends to irritate the non-English-speaking users. :-) -- "[Some people] positively *wish* to | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology believe ill of the modern world."-R.Peto| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti) (03/26/91)
Henry Spencer: "GMT" is understood almost everywhere, but it tends to irritate the non-English-speaking users. :-) "If Greenwich is still considered today to be the most natural position for the zero meridian, this merely represents the rump of the Eurocentric geographical world concept which now, at last, is crumbling away. The time has now come to reconsider this decision; in 1953 the famous observatory at Greenwich was moved to Herstmonceux near Hailsham, that is 20 minutes and 25 seconds to the east. The last reason for the retention of Greenwich as the zero meridian has thus vanished; the place is now just another London suburb. "The way is now finally clear to look for a natural location for the zero meridian; a place that is more than just a monument to the vanishing British Empire." Arno Peters, "The New Cartography", New York: Friendship Press, 1983 ISBN 0-377-00147-3 (Arno Peters is the designer of the Peters Projection, an equal area map projection which explicitly rejects the eurocentric distortions of designs like that of Mercator.) -- Msen Edward Vielmetti /|--- moderator, comp.archives emv@msen.com
fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) (03/26/91)
: On 26 Mar 91 07:48:22 GMT, emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti) said: > "The way is now finally clear to look for a natural location for the > zero meridian; a place that is more than just a monument to the > vanishing British Empire." > Arno Peters, "The New Cartography", > New York: Friendship Press, 1983 > ISBN 0-377-00147-3 Umm...but where? The place is basically round after all. I could come up with places more natural to one group or another but no place sticks out as obvious for everyone or even most people. Given that and the amount of difficulty involved in changing the system now I think its safe to say Greenwich is as good as anywhere else. Personally, Starkville Mississippi seems like a natural choice to me. Frank -- Frank Peters Internet: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu Bitnet: FWP1@MsState Phone: (601)325-2942 FAX: (601)325-8921
aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg) (03/26/91)
In <1991Mar26.070301.13119@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >As I understand the situation, the *English* name is "Universal Time", >but the *standard Latin-alphabet* abbreviation -- which isn't an acronym >for anything in particular in any specific Latin-alphabet language -- is >"UTC". On BBC and other shortwave english language news stations I've heard "Universal Coordinated Time", and *I believe* that somewhere I heard that UTC is the acronym for "Universal Coordinated Time" in French, but I'm afraid my French has degraded to the point where I can not determine whether this is possibly true or not. aem -- aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu ....................................................... The right to work, I had assumed, was the most precious liberty that man possessed. Man has indeed as much right to work as he has to live, to be free, to own property. - William O. Douglas
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (03/27/91)
In article <1991Mar26.155327.9194@mthvax.cs.miami.edu> aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu writes: >"Universal Coordinated Time", and *I believe* that somewhere I heard >that UTC is the acronym for "Universal Coordinated Time" in French... I forgot the "Coordinated". As for French, mine is fairly rusty too, but the acronym there would be TUC almost certainly. My understanding is that UTC was *deliberately* chosen *not* to be an acronym in any specific nasty colonial language. :-) -- "[Some people] positively *wish* to | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology believe ill of the modern world."-R.Peto| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
domo@tsa.co.uk (Dominic Dunlop) (03/27/91)
In article <1991Mar25.030637.8126@twinsun.com> eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) writes: > Nntp-Posting-Host: burns Sorry to hear that. :-) > Shouldn't news software eventually switch from saying `GMT' to saying `UT' in > the date lines of news headers? `UT' is in the standard, it has a more > international flavor than the English-centric `GMT', and it's one byte shorter. > C News didn't support `UT' until its just-released patch set, so we shouldn't > change to `UT' right now, but why not head in that direction eventually? Well, ISO 8601:1988, Representation of dates and times, designates a trailing Z as indicating Coordinated Universal Time (as in 20:30:30Z). This is derived from the old ``Zebra'' convention -- does your date command still support the -z option -- and differs from ``the standard'' (presumably the RFC, which I have to admit to not having to hand). I'd say that this was a good argument for not heading towards a future where UT is the only allowed form. And Z is one byte shorter yet than UT -- although I really don't think many people are counting. (Incidentally, ISO 8601, sidestepping the issue of timezone names just as it sidesteps the naming of days of the week and months, specifies signed two-digit hour offsets and optional two-digit minute offsets from UTC as indicating times in particular timezones -- for example 12:27:46-05 or 12:27:47-05:00. So news is OK on that score (isn't it?).) -- Dominic Dunlop
peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (03/28/91)
fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) writes: > Umm...but where? The place is basically round after all. I could come > up with places more natural to one group or another but no place sticks > out as obvious for everyone or even most people. Well, one place is obvious... Greenwich, since after all it *does* put the date line in the middle of the Pacific ocean instead of the middle of some random country. -- (peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com) `-_-' 'U`
msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (03/28/91)
> > Don't you mean "UTC"? I've never heard it called "UT". > As I understand the situation, the *English* name is "Universal Time", > but the *standard Latin-alphabet* abbreviation -- which isn't an acronym > for anything in particular in any specific Latin-alphabet language -- is > "UTC". "UT" is improper ... "UT" means Universal Time. There are several flavors of this, their definitions differing in details, but making no difference to the everyday user. These flavors are identified by what started life as subscripts, and are now commonly written as following letters. I know of three: "UT1", "UT2", and "UTC". The C is for Coordinated; "UTC" is formally "Coordinated Universal Time". I thought I'd seen "UTC" written as "TUC" in French, but it is entirely possible that "UTC", with the letters inline rather than the C as a subscript, has been adopted as a standard at some... time. -- Mark Brader To err is human, but to really mess things up SoftQuad Inc., Toronto you need a timetable planner! utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com -- Richard Porter This article is in the public domain.
dattier@vpnet.chi.il.us (David W. Tamkin) (03/29/91)
peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) wrote in <QPP2WSE@taronga.hackercorp.com>: | Well, one place is obvious... Greenwich, since after all it *does* put | the date line in the middle of the Pacific ocean instead of the middle of | some random country. And since, as others have stated, the earth *is* round, no location is better than Greenwich and therefore the effort of changing all longitudes to accommodate a new baseline isn't worthwhile. I can think of two spots on the earth that are unquestionably worse than Greenwich. One thing I don't get is this: how can calling something based on Greenwich "Greenwich" come off as more Anglocentric than calling something based on Greenwich "universal"? Surely it's a worse deification of Britain to call Greenwich the universe than to call it Greenwich. David Tamkin PO Box 7002 Des Plaines IL 60018-7002 dattier@vpnet.chi.il.us GEnie:D.W.TAMKIN CIS:73720,1570 MCIMail:426-1818 708 518 6769 312 693 0591 "Parker Lewis Can't Lose" mailing list: write flamingo-request@ddsw1.mcs.com
pst@Stanford.EDU (Paul Traina) (03/30/91)
It's clear to me, it should be at the north pole. :-) (1/2)