Hello, everyone.
It is that time of year again. The time when half of the planet goes batshit insane and tries to bend an instrument of measurement to somehow make it fit their view of reality. The time when confusion sets in. The time when noone really knows what time it is.
I'm talking about the phenomenon known as summer time, of course, or in USA as daylight saving time.
The problem is that most Quakeworld players don't seem to know what time zone they are in. There also seems to be widespread confusion as to what their offset from GMT is. This post will try to clean up after the gigantic mess created by summer time, by trying to explain how it works and what time zones people are in.
Let's start with a short introduction to summer time. The goal of summer time is to shift the time of day where the sun is shining to better utilise the light it gives us. Of course, even the people who came up with this weird idea realised that it would be impossible to halt earth's rotation for an hour, so they came up with a different idea: They simply change the time zone they are in, having everyone adjust their clocks twice a year, and they achieve the same net effect, save whatever negative effects this has on people's (and related animals') biological clocks. But that's another discussion.
Now, to most people, this simply means changing your clock twice per year, although in these modern times, this happens automatically on computers, mobile phones, radio controlled alarm clocks and a lot of other devices, so you might simply wake up one Sunday and feel you didn't quite rest enough, and that's all you'll ever notice of summer time. For this reason, most people are completely unaware of how summer time is implemented, and how it relates to time zones and international relationships, causing confusion when they try to specify an absolute time of some event.
The most common mistake is to specify the wrong time zone associated with a specific absolute point in time. More often than not when it comes to Quakeworld, I see people write 'CET' when they probably meant 'CEST'. The distinction is important, as the two time zones are an hour apart. If you think you're currently in the CET time zone, then you are wrong. There are currently no countries using the CET timezone, although there are plenty of countries, and a couple in Europe, which have a 1 hour offset from GMT, specified as +0100. The European countries currently in the +0100 offset are Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom and Portugal. Yes, that's it. Only those 3. The only country in Europe currently having a +0000 offset from GMT is Iceland.
So what time zones are you guys in? Here's a short list of European countries known to have at least a few active QW players, the time zone they are in and their offset from GMT:
Belgium: CEST, +0200
Czech Republic: CEST, +0200
Denmark: CEST, +0200
Finland: EEST, +0300
Germany: CEST, +0200
Ireland, Republic of: IST, +0100
Netherlands: CEST, +0200
Norway: CEST, +0200
Poland: CEST, +0200
Portugal: WEST, +0100
Russia: See below
Spain: CEST, +0200
Sweden: CEST, +0200
United Kingdom: BST, +0100
If I left your country out, be sure it is not done on purpose. If you'd like to see me update the list with a particular country, post a reply and I'll edit this post to include it.
Russia spans a total of 9 time zones, making this one a bit more different. At least 2 of those time zones are fully or partially in Europe, namely (with summer time in effect) USZ1S, +0300 ('Kaliningrad Time') and MSD, +0400 ('Moscow Time'). If someone knowledgeable on the topic of time zones in Russia wishes to comment further on this, please do so in a reply to this post. Thanks
Now, I hope this post has cleared up some of the confusion associated with summer time, and that I in the future won't have to guess which time zone people mean when they write at which time a Quakeworld event starts.
That's it for this time. Till next rant!
It is that time of year again. The time when half of the planet goes batshit insane and tries to bend an instrument of measurement to somehow make it fit their view of reality. The time when confusion sets in. The time when noone really knows what time it is.
I'm talking about the phenomenon known as summer time, of course, or in USA as daylight saving time.
The problem is that most Quakeworld players don't seem to know what time zone they are in. There also seems to be widespread confusion as to what their offset from GMT is. This post will try to clean up after the gigantic mess created by summer time, by trying to explain how it works and what time zones people are in.
Let's start with a short introduction to summer time. The goal of summer time is to shift the time of day where the sun is shining to better utilise the light it gives us. Of course, even the people who came up with this weird idea realised that it would be impossible to halt earth's rotation for an hour, so they came up with a different idea: They simply change the time zone they are in, having everyone adjust their clocks twice a year, and they achieve the same net effect, save whatever negative effects this has on people's (and related animals') biological clocks. But that's another discussion.
Now, to most people, this simply means changing your clock twice per year, although in these modern times, this happens automatically on computers, mobile phones, radio controlled alarm clocks and a lot of other devices, so you might simply wake up one Sunday and feel you didn't quite rest enough, and that's all you'll ever notice of summer time. For this reason, most people are completely unaware of how summer time is implemented, and how it relates to time zones and international relationships, causing confusion when they try to specify an absolute time of some event.
The most common mistake is to specify the wrong time zone associated with a specific absolute point in time. More often than not when it comes to Quakeworld, I see people write 'CET' when they probably meant 'CEST'. The distinction is important, as the two time zones are an hour apart. If you think you're currently in the CET time zone, then you are wrong. There are currently no countries using the CET timezone, although there are plenty of countries, and a couple in Europe, which have a 1 hour offset from GMT, specified as +0100. The European countries currently in the +0100 offset are Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom and Portugal. Yes, that's it. Only those 3. The only country in Europe currently having a +0000 offset from GMT is Iceland.
So what time zones are you guys in? Here's a short list of European countries known to have at least a few active QW players, the time zone they are in and their offset from GMT:
Belgium: CEST, +0200
Czech Republic: CEST, +0200
Denmark: CEST, +0200
Finland: EEST, +0300
Germany: CEST, +0200
Ireland, Republic of: IST, +0100
Netherlands: CEST, +0200
Norway: CEST, +0200
Poland: CEST, +0200
Portugal: WEST, +0100
Russia: See below
Spain: CEST, +0200
Sweden: CEST, +0200
United Kingdom: BST, +0100
If I left your country out, be sure it is not done on purpose. If you'd like to see me update the list with a particular country, post a reply and I'll edit this post to include it.
Russia spans a total of 9 time zones, making this one a bit more different. At least 2 of those time zones are fully or partially in Europe, namely (with summer time in effect) USZ1S, +0300 ('Kaliningrad Time') and MSD, +0400 ('Moscow Time'). If someone knowledgeable on the topic of time zones in Russia wishes to comment further on this, please do so in a reply to this post. Thanks
Now, I hope this post has cleared up some of the confusion associated with summer time, and that I in the future won't have to guess which time zone people mean when they write at which time a Quakeworld event starts.
That's it for this time. Till next rant!
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