It's Daylight Savings Time in the US
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@JaredBusch said:
Most people use GMT and UTC interchangeably. But that is a typical response from @scottalanmiller on the correct usage of a misused word/phrase. I'm used to it.
It's a very critical difference, though. Some people do use it interchangeably but they aren't. And I've seen IT shops have huge issues because they thought that setting things to GMT meant UTC and they couldn't figure out why they were going in and out of British Summer Time. GMT is what England uses for their actual time, UTC is no one's actual time zone, it's the global one.
Using GMT is how explicitly state the time in England that switches with DST. If you use them interchangeably, you lose the ability to discuss the time in England.
Most people who use them interchangeably also think that England uses UTC.
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@JaredBusch said:
Of on a related note, does the UK not actually go for double summer time part of the summer nowadays?
Years of working for London and I've never seen a double summer time get applied.
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Perhaps slightly embarrassingly, I've never heard of UTC or double summer time. The latter sounds cool though, as I love summer - tell me more!
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Perhaps slightly embarrassingly, I've never heard of UTC or double summer time. The latter sounds cool though, as I love summer - tell me more!
Short version: double summer time is another layer of stupid on top of something already so moronic it defies logic and reason. UTC is the compromise between the french TUC and the english CUT, it's the universal global time, which sometimes lines up with GMT, but not always.
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CUT? TUC? Too many 3 letter acronyms!
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@Carnival-Boy said:
CUT? TUC? Too many 3 letter acronyms!
Just the french and english versions of the same thing, temps universel coordonné and coordinated universal time
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@scottalanmiller said:
Using GMT is how explicitly state the time in England that switches with DST. If you use them interchangeably, you lose the ability to discuss the time in England.
I don't get this or get the difference between GMT and UTC? GMT doesn't switch with DST as far as I knew. In the UK we use GMT in the winter and BST (GMT+1) in the summer.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Using GMT is how explicitly state the time in England that switches with DST. If you use them interchangeably, you lose the ability to discuss the time in England.
I don't get this or get the difference between GMT and UTC? GMT doesn't switch with DST as far as I knew. In the UK we use GMT in the winter and BST (GMT+1) in the summer.
UTC never changes - it's universal. Period. GMT changes based on the season.
This whole discussion came about because someone was saying that that they wanted the US to not use DST and stay simply related to GMT. Scott then informed them that GMT changes just like US timezones do. Scott added, that what the person meant to say was UTC, the non changing time.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@Dashrender said:
GMT changes based on the season.
No it doesn't. Unless I've gone mad.
Gives a whole new meaning to "it's the time of the season"
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Using GMT is how explicitly state the time in England that switches with DST. If you use them interchangeably, you lose the ability to discuss the time in England.
I don't get this or get the difference between GMT and UTC? GMT doesn't switch with DST as far as I knew. In the UK we use GMT in the winter and BST (GMT+1) in the summer.
Interesting - so you're saying GMT itself doesn't change... hmmm... Ok if that's correct, then using UTC and GMT interchangeably should be OK for the purpose of the OP's post.
Similarly in the US, we use EST and EDT to indicate the change standard versus daylight. So I suppose one could argue that EST never changes.
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@Dashrender said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Using GMT is how explicitly state the time in England that switches with DST. If you use them interchangeably, you lose the ability to discuss the time in England.
I don't get this or get the difference between GMT and UTC? GMT doesn't switch with DST as far as I knew. In the UK we use GMT in the winter and BST (GMT+1) in the summer.
Interesting - so you're saying GMT itself doesn't change... hmmm... Ok if that's correct, then using UTC and GMT interchangeably should be OK for the purpose of the OP's post.
Similarly in the US, we use EST and EDT to indicate the change standard versus daylight. So I suppose one could argue that EST never changes.
Well, I was not the OP, only the reply bitching about the switch being not needed
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Using GMT is how explicitly state the time in England that switches with DST. If you use them interchangeably, you lose the ability to discuss the time in England.
I don't get this or get the difference between GMT and UTC? GMT doesn't switch with DST as far as I knew. In the UK we use GMT in the winter and BST (GMT+1) in the summer.
Interesting - so you're saying GMT itself doesn't change... hmmm... Ok if that's correct, then using UTC and GMT interchangeably should be OK for the purpose of the OP's post.
Similarly in the US, we use EST and EDT to indicate the change standard versus daylight. So I suppose one could argue that EST never changes.
Well, I was not the OP, only the reply bitching about the switch being not needed
I completely agree. The paper had some recent stats about the saving of power by making the change and considering the losses to businesses those saving aren't worth it.
They also mentioned fewer traffic accidents, but that was an extremely low number too.
Definitely time to get rid of DST.
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I hate it. We only do it in the UK to keep the Scots happy apparently, so I was hoping that Scottish independence would mean we could abolish it.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I hate it. We only do it in the UK to keep the Scots happy apparently, so I was hoping that Scottish independence would mean we could abolish it.
How does it keep the Scots happy? It doesn't actually have any positive effect in any way.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't get this or get the difference between GMT and UTC? GMT doesn't switch with DST as far as I knew. In the UK we use GMT in the winter and BST (GMT+1) in the summer.
GMT is the designation for the "switching" time zone that goes between GMT and BST. BST is UTC +1. It "is" GMT. When you set your computer clock, for example, you don't set it to GMT then to BST then back. You set it to GMT and it switches back and forth for you.
It's the same in the US. Eastern Standard Time is what the US east cost uses for five months of the year (funny that we refer to it by the lesser of the two times.) The other seven months of the year it uses Eastern Daylight Time (EDT.) But EST is a "daylight time honoring zone". EST, like GMT, doesn't exist during the summer, it's summer time alternative does.
GMT and EST are living time zones - time zones as they are used. If you want to designate a rock solid time upon which those are based you use UTC, UTC + 1, UTC + 5, etc.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Perhaps slightly embarrassingly, I've never heard of UTC or double summer time. The latter sounds cool though, as I love summer - tell me more!
UTC. Coordinated Universal Time. Acronym is French, hence why the letters do not line up with the English term.
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@Dashrender said:
Similarly in the US, we use EST and EDT to indicate the change standard versus daylight. So I suppose one could argue that EST never changes.
Yeah, it gets weird. EST "never changes", it just disappears and does not exist when EDT exists. Using EST means you switch to EDT when EST goes away. Just like GMT goes away and BST replaces it.
