tzdata

[geezer]

2 questions, but I'll put the other question in another thread to keep them separated.

I've noticed that the tzdata packages are being updated quite frequently.

Does anybody have an insight into why?

I was wondering why the time zone data is so volatile? The geographical distribution of the time zones doesn't change only the legal definition of who is in what time zone and when the daylight saving time starts/stops.

It doesn't seem that countries/legal entities would be changing their status that often.

Just seems that would be a type of data that woould be fairly stable, yet it is changing often.

Just curious.

[Rog131]

Re: tzdata

> APT HOWTO Chapter 5 - Getting information about packages.

5.5 How to keep informed about the changes in the packages.

Every package installs in its documentation directory (/usr/share/doc/packagename) a file called changelog.Debian.gz which contains the list of changes made to the package since the last version. You can read these files with zless' help, for example,...

Before the installation ( > FAQ: Package Managers) :

Aptitude:

aptitude changelog <package_name>

Synaptic: Package > Download Changelog...

[geezer]

Re: tzdata

Thanks - interesting (I guess) - the DST rules seem to be changing for some countries fairly often

[monte48lowes]

Re: tzdata

the DST rules seem to be changing for some countries fairly often

They are trying to save energy.

Mike

[geezer]

Re: tzdata

the DST rules seem to be changing for some countries fairly often

They are trying to save energy.

Mike

Unfortunately - the latest study I have seen of the effect of DST on energy consumption indicates that it has almost zero effect. Probably even uses more energy when you take into account all of the hot air created in legislative bodies to pass it.

[eddieg780]

Re: tzdata

It seems you are right....

"The question remains, however, whether the earlier DST will save additional energy. The California Energy Commission's Demand Analysis Office published a report titled The Effect of Early Daylight Saving Time on California Electricity Consumption: A Statistical Analysis, Commission publication # CEC-200-2007-004, in May 2007. (PDF file, 592 kilobytes).

It concludes that, "The extension of Daylight Saving Time (DST) to March 2007 had little or no effect on energy consumption in California, according to a statistical analysis. The most likely approximation is a 0.2% decrease during these three weeks. Given the natural variation in consumption, however, the margin of electricity use change associated with early DST could have been one and a half percent of increase or decrease without such effects showing up statistically. Formally, weather- and lighting-corrected savings from DST were estimated at 0.18% with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 1.5% savings to a 1.4% increase."

[Snowhog]

Re: tzdata

Daylight saving time (for the inquisitive among us)