I was recently messaging ('Messenger-ing') with a friend in Nepal. When
I asked him the local time, it sounded odd when he gave me a time which
was neither a full-hour nor even a half-hour different. We puzzled why
this would have been set thus by the authorities.

I was surprised to find that similar quarter-hour offsets exist
elsewhere in the world. Australia, for example:

https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/australias-weird-little-time-zone/

By way of an explanation:

"Perhaps only a couple hundred people live within the narrow ACWST
strip. This of course made it much easier for them to agree upon a
standard time. A couple hundred people can probably come to consensus on
just about anything, apparently even the complete departure from a
standard time that the government say should apply to them. That doesn’t
concern them. They set their clocks as they please. It’s such a small
population that the authorities turn a blind eye and allows ACWST to
continue albeit without official sanction."

On 28/10/2022 3:36 a.m., occam wrote:
> I was recently messaging ('Messenger-ing') with a friend in Nepal. When
> I asked him the local time, it sounded odd when he gave me a time which
> was neither a full-hour nor even a half-hour different. We puzzled why
> this would have been set thus by the authorities.
>
> I was surprised to find that similar quarter-hour offsets exist
> elsewhere in the world. Australia, for example:
>
> https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/australias-weird-little-time-zone/

Unfortunately, the Howder Family's home-made web site completely jammed
up my poor old computer.

The +8:45 zone is mentioned here, so it must not be entirely home-made:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_time_zones_by_country

It also mentions Nepal and the Chatham Islands, which are +:45 to the
rest of New Zealand.

>
> By way of an explanation:
>
> "Perhaps only a couple hundred people live within the narrow ACWST
> strip. This of course made it much easier for them to agree upon a
> standard time. A couple hundred people can probably come to consensus on
> just about anything, apparently even the complete departure from a
> standard time that the government say should apply to them. That doesn’t
> concern them. They set their clocks as they please. It’s such a small
> population that the authorities turn a blind eye and allows ACWST to
> continue albeit without official sanction."
>
>

On 2022-10-27 20:06:19 +0000, Ross Clark said:

> On 28/10/2022 3:36 a.m., occam wrote:
>> I was recently messaging ('Messenger-ing') with a friend in Nepal. When
>> I asked him the local time, it sounded odd when he gave me a time which
>> was neither a full-hour nor even a half-hour different. We puzzled why
>> this would have been set thus by the authorities.
>>
>> I was surprised to find that similar quarter-hour offsets exist
>> elsewhere in the world. Australia, for example:
>>
>> https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/australias-weird-little-time-zone/
>
> Unfortunately, the Howder Family's home-made web site completely jammed
> up my poor old computer.
>
> The +8:45 zone is mentioned here, so it must not be entirely home-made:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_time_zones_by_country
>
> It also mentions Nepal and the Chatham Islands, which are +:45 to the
> rest of New Zealand.

I had an idea that the three Guianas went in steps of 15 minutes, but
either I imagined that or it was once true but no longer.
>>
>> By way of an explanation:
>>
>> "Perhaps only a couple hundred people live within the narrow ACWST
>> strip. This of course made it much easier for them to agree upon a
>> standard time. A couple hundred people can probably come to consensus on
>> just about anything, apparently even the complete departure from a
>> standard time that the government say should apply to them. That doesn’t
>> concern them. They set their clocks as they please. It’s such a small
>> population that the authorities turn a blind eye and allows ACWST to
>> continue albeit without official sanction."

--
Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

On 28/10/22 01:36, occam wrote:

> I was recently messaging ('Messenger-ing') with a friend in Nepal.
> When I asked him the local time, it sounded odd when he gave me a
> time which was neither a full-hour nor even a half-hour different. We
> puzzled why this would have been set thus by the authorities.
>
> I was surprised to find that similar quarter-hour offsets exist
> elsewhere in the world. Australia, for example:
>
> https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/australias-weird-little-time-zone/
>
> By way of an explanation:
>
> "Perhaps only a couple hundred people live within the narrow ACWST
> strip. This of course made it much easier for them to agree upon a
> standard time. A couple hundred people can probably come to consensus
> on just about anything, apparently even the complete departure from
> a standard time that the government say should apply to them. That
> doesn’t concern them. They set their clocks as they please. It’s such
> a small population that the authorities turn a blind eye and allows
> ACWST to continue albeit without official sanction."

The Australian example is easy to explain. There is a 90-minute gap
between Australian Western Standard Time (UTC+8:00) and Central Standard
Time (UTC+9:30). That's in winter; it summer it becomes a 150-minute
gap. Either choice would be unnatural for Eucla, which is 1400 km from
Perth and almost as far from Adelaide.

A separate time zone for one small town? Well, by accident of geography
it's the biggest inhabited place at that longitude.

Similar reasoning applies to other places, like Nepal, where it's a long
way to the next town.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

* Peter Moylan <tjf7u0$2si49$1@dont-email.me> :
Wrote on Fri, 28 Oct 2022 11:31:57 +1100:

> The Australian example is easy to explain. There is a 90-minute gap
> between Australian Western Standard Time (UTC+8:00) and Central Standard
> Time (UTC+9:30). That's in winter; it summer it becomes a 150-minute
> gap. Either choice would be unnatural for Eucla, which is 1400 km from
> Perth and almost as far from Adelaide.
>
> A separate time zone for one small town? Well, by accident of geography
> it's the biggest inhabited place at that longitude.
>
> Similar reasoning applies to other places, like Nepal, where it's a long
> way to the next town.

Hardly. Nepal is a tiny country. Buses ply across the country within a
day, and I'm sure you can walk across it within a few weeks (lengthwise)

On Thursday, October 27, 2022 at 7:36:26 AM UTC-7, occam wrote:
> I was recently messaging ('Messenger-ing') with a friend in Nepal. When
> I asked him the local time, it sounded odd when he gave me a time which
> was neither a full-hour nor even a half-hour different. We puzzled why
> this would have been set thus by the authorities.
>
> I was surprised to find that similar quarter-hour offsets exist
> elsewhere in the world. Australia, for example:
>
> https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/australias-weird-little-time-zone/
>
> By way of an explanation:
>
> "Perhaps only a couple hundred people live within the narrow ACWST
> strip. This of course made it much easier for them to agree upon a
> standard time. A couple hundred people can probably come to consensus on
> just about anything, apparently even the complete departure from a
> standard time that the government say should apply to them. That doesn’t
> concern them. They set their clocks as they please. It’s such a small
> population that the authorities turn a blind eye and allows ACWST to
> continue albeit without official sanction."

I've had an even odder idea. Start India's day at, or around 4:24AM
and use a 24 hr clock with no AM and PM. That would put India's
Standard Time on par with Paris time and British Summer Time.

Why should a day start at midnight? Brahmamuhurta (4:24 AM)
was the traditional start of a day in India. The rest of the world
starts their day at midnight but why must India depart from
their traditional day and follow the rest of the world?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmamuhurtha

Le 28/10/2022 à 03:22, Dingbat a écrit :
>
> I've had an even odder idea. Start India's day at, or around 4:24AM
> and use a 24 hr clock with no AM and PM. That would put India's
> Standard Time on par with Paris time and British Summer Time.
>
> Why should a day start at midnight? Brahmamuhurta (4:24 AM)
> was the traditional start of a day in India. The rest of the world
> starts their day at midnight but why must India depart from
> their traditional day and follow the rest of the world?
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmamuhurtha

Bah, that's not nearly odd enough. A long time ago, I was involved in a
discussion of a system in which now would always be time 0, and all
other times and dates positive or negative relative to now. Only now
would be constant; all the others would change at one hour per hour, one
day per day.

No need for time zones - but even with the aid of electronics, it seemed
impracticable, so we lost interest.

On 28/10/2022 02:31, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 28/10/22 01:36, occam wrote:
>
>> I was recently messaging ('Messenger-ing') with a friend in Nepal.
>> When I asked him the local time, it sounded odd when he gave me a
>> time which was neither a full-hour nor even a half-hour different. We
>> puzzled why this would have been set thus by the authorities.
>>
>> I was surprised to find that similar quarter-hour offsets exist
>> elsewhere in the world. Australia, for example:
>>
>> https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/australias-weird-little-time-zone/
>>
>> By way of an explanation:
>>
>> "Perhaps only a couple hundred people live within the narrow ACWST
>> strip. This of course made it much easier for them to agree upon a
>> standard time. A couple hundred people can probably come to consensus
>> on just about anything, apparently even the complete departure from
>> a standard time that the government say should apply to them. That
>> doesn’t concern them. They set their clocks as they please. It’s such
>> a small population that the authorities turn a blind eye and allows
>> ACWST to continue albeit without official sanction."
>
> The Australian example is easy to explain. There is a 90-minute gap
> between Australian Western Standard Time (UTC+8:00) and Central Standard
> Time (UTC+9:30). That's in winter; it summer it becomes a 150-minute
> gap. Either choice would be unnatural for Eucla, which is 1400 km from
> Perth and almost as far from Adelaide.
>
> A separate time zone for one small town? Well, by accident of geography
> it's the biggest inhabited place at that longitude.
>

[Major Diversion] This raises the SF question of what 'time zone' will
the first off-planet colonies adopt? It always amuses me when I watch
SF films when the benchmark reference to time is invariably 'Earth
rotations' or 'Earth hours' - no matter how many other alien species are
involved in the story.

Don't the Klingons have planets of their own? Don't the inhabitants of
Alderaan have a time-system to refer to? Anyone care to guess the actual
year from a 'Stardate' reference in the captain's log?

I have never heard a request for clarification in the exchanges:
"Captain, do you mean the rendezvous is at 14:00 hours UTC, or local
Bajor III time?"

occam <occam@nowhere.nix> wrote:

> I was recently messaging ('Messenger-ing') with a friend in Nepal. When
> I asked him the local time, it sounded odd when he gave me a time which
> was neither a full-hour nor even a half-hour different. We puzzled why
> this would have been set thus by the authorities.
>
> I was surprised to find that similar quarter-hour offsets exist
> elsewhere in the world. Australia, for example:
>
> https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/australias-weird-little-time-zone/
>
> By way of an explanation:
>
> "Perhaps only a couple hundred people live within the narrow ACWST
> strip. This of course made it much easier for them to agree upon a
> standard time. A couple hundred people can probably come to consensus on
> just about anything, apparently even the complete departure from a
> standard time that the government say should apply to them. That doesn't
> concern them. They set their clocks as they please. It's such a small
> population that the authorities turn a blind eye and allows ACWST to
> continue albeit without official sanction."

Stranger offsets have existed.
Before WWII the Netherlands had Amsterdam Time,
which was GMT +0h 19m 32,13 offically.
In practice people reckoned with GMT +0h 20,
and this was formalised shortly before WWII.

The very first thing the Germans did
after their military occupation in May 1940
was to abolish it, and to replace it by CET, aka Berlin Time.
The Netherlands remained at CET after the war. (later with DST added)

The reason for the strange offset was that is was defined to be
the mean solar time at the 'Westertoren', Amsterdam.

Jan

On 28/10/22 20:15, Hibou wrote:
>
> Bah, that's not nearly odd enough. A long time ago, I was involved in
> a discussion of a system in which now would always be time 0, and all
> other times and dates positive or negative relative to now. Only now
> would be constant; all the others would change at one hour per hour,
> one day per day.

I recently finished re-reading /The Left Hand of Darkness/, well-known
as one of the SF Classics, and I noticed a feature I'd forgotten about.
On the world where the story is set, it is always Year 1, and past and
future dates are adjusted accordingly. Presumably all history has to be
re-written at the start of each new year, but the book didn't go into
that detail.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

On 28/10/2022 11:57, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> The very first thing the Germans did
> after their military occupation in May 1940
> was to abolish it, and to replace it by CET, aka Berlin Time.
> The Netherlands remained at CET after the war. (later with DST added)

So, they were not *all* bad, after all? ;-)

occam <occam@nowhere.nix> wrote:

> On 28/10/2022 11:57, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > The very first thing the Germans did
> > after their military occupation in May 1940
> > was to abolish it, and to replace it by CET, aka Berlin Time.
> > The Netherlands remained at CET after the war. (later with DST added)
>
> So, they were not *all* bad, after all? ;-)

If you don't count being hanged at Nurnberg as evidence for badness,

Jan

On 10/28/2022 6:27 AM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> Hibou wrote:

>> Bah, that's not nearly odd enough. A long time ago, I was involved
>> in a discussion of a system in which now would always be time 0,
>> and all other times and dates positive or negative relative to now.
>> Only now would be constant; all the others would change at one hour
>> per hour, one day per day.

> I recently finished re-reading /The Left Hand of Darkness/,
> well-known as one of the SF Classics, and I noticed a feature I'd
> forgotten about. On the world where the story is set, it is always
> Year 1, and past and future dates are adjusted accordingly.
> Presumably all history has to be re-written at the start of each new
> year, but the book didn't go into that detail.

I think the author may have had several purposes for that invention. It
illustrates the centred independence of the Karhider (the people of
Orgoreyn count years from the time of Meshe). It also points the reader
to the way the story is structured: the central chapter, "Estraven the
Traitor" is the first occurrence of the theme of reaching out in the
darkness that culminates and is echoed in the story of the modern
Estraven and the stranger he reaches out to ("Ai" can arguably mean
"love"), which begins and ends the novel. There is a coda in the last
chapter, where the young man of Estre feels the pull of the unknown,
"the other worlds, the other lives".

I called the last character mentioned "he" because Le Guin did that when
she wrote the book.

I think I can defend my use of the buzzphrase "reach out", because in
this case it applies more-or-less literally.

On 28/10/2022 13:48, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> occam <occam@nowhere.nix> wrote:
>
>> On 28/10/2022 11:57, J. J. Lodder wrote:
>>> The very first thing the Germans did
>>> after their military occupation in May 1940
>>> was to abolish it, and to replace it by CET, aka Berlin Time.
>>> The Netherlands remained at CET after the war. (later with DST added)
>>
>> So, they were not *all* bad, after all? ;-)
>
> If you don't count being hanged at Nurnberg as evidence for badness,
>

Were they hanged for abolishing the peculiar time-zoning of Amsterdam
Time? Those Nuremberg judges were super strict!

On Friday, October 28, 2022 at 3:53:18 AM UTC-7, occam wrote:
> On 28/10/2022 11:57, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > The very first thing the Germans did
> > after their military occupation in May 1940
> > was to abolish it, and to replace it by CET, aka Berlin Time.
> > The Netherlands remained at CET after the war. (later with DST added)
> So, they were not *all* bad, after all? ;-)

That is still not an acceptable joke. I can't ask my family members who
were murdered or starved to death by the Nazis whether they think it is
funny, but I can guess.

bill

bil...@shaw.ca <billvan@shaw.ca> wrote:

> On Friday, October 28, 2022 at 3:53:18 AM UTC-7, occam wrote:
> > On 28/10/2022 11:57, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > > The very first thing the Germans did
> > > after their military occupation in May 1940
> > > was to abolish it, and to replace it by CET, aka Berlin Time.
> > > The Netherlands remained at CET after the war. (later with DST added)
> > So, they were not *all* bad, after all? ;-)
>
> That is still not an acceptable joke. I can't ask my family members who
> were murdered or starved to death by the Nazis whether they think it is
> funny, but I can guess.

I guess he is alluding to Monthy Python's Romans,

Jan

On Friday, October 28, 2022 at 4:48:12 AM UTC-7, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> occam <oc...@nowhere.nix> wrote:
>
> > On 28/10/2022 11:57, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > > The very first thing the Germans did
> > > after their military occupation in May 1940
> > > was to abolish it, and to replace it by CET, aka Berlin Time.
> > > The Netherlands remained at CET after the war. (later with DST added)
> >
> > So, they were not *all* bad, after all? ;-)
> If you don't count being hanged at Nurnberg as evidence for badness,
>
Most of those hanged didn't think it was evidence of their badness:

“None of these indictments concerns me in the least. Typical American humour.”
- Karl Dönitz
“If I have been made guilty of the acts by error or ignorance my guilt is a human
tragedy not a crime.” - Walther Funk
“I do not feel guilty of any war crimes. I have only done my duty as an intelligence
organ and I refuse to act as an ersatz for Himmler.” - Ernst Kaltenbrunner
“The indictment is directed against the wrong people." - Joachim von Ribbentrop
“I die an innocent man, my sentence is unjust. God protect Germany!”
- Fritz Sauckel
https://www.vaguelyinteresting.co.uk/last-words-from-nuremburg/

* Ross Clark:

> On 28/10/2022 3:36 a.m., occam wrote:
>> I was recently messaging ('Messenger-ing') with a friend in Nepal. When
>> I asked him the local time, it sounded odd when he gave me a time which
>> was neither a full-hour nor even a half-hour different. We puzzled why
>> this would have been set thus by the authorities.
>>
>> I was surprised to find that similar quarter-hour offsets exist
>> elsewhere in the world. Australia, for example:
>>
>> https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/australias-weird-little-time-zone/
>
> Unfortunately, the Howder Family's home-made web site completely jammed
> up my poor old computer.
>
> The +8:45 zone is mentioned here, so it must not be entirely home-made:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_time_zones_by_country
>
> It also mentions Nepal and the Chatham Islands, which are +:45 to the
> rest of New Zealand.

The Australian time zone sits at the border of the time zones +8:00 and
+9:30, and uses a time just in the middle.

Nepal's time zone is halfway between those of India and Bangladesh
(another oddity is that India and its one time zone extend to the east
of Bangladesh, so that at the eastern border between the two countries,
you'd have to change your clock in the opposite of the expected
direction.)

Chatham Islands seems to use the closest quarter hour to local time,
plus one hour. I can't explain the last part. They also have summer time
(UTC+13:45), so maybe it was an attempt to be the first to enter the New
Year (but in fact the Line Islands of Kiribati beat them at UTC+14:00.)

--
There is no freedom for men unless there is freedom for women.
If women mustn't bring their will to the fore, why should men
be allowed to?
-- Hedwig Dohm (1876), my translation

* (J. J. Lodder) <1q0jfd4.19y8xak115auvmN%nospam @de-ster.demon.nl> :
Wrote on Fri, 28 Oct 2022 13:48:08 +0200:
> If you don't count being hanged at Nurnberg as evidence for badness,

Way before the trials, was there any medieval mythology associated with
Nuremberg? ISTR reading about horror tales of an Executioner of
Nuremberg or the butcher/Monster of Nuremberg (like the Krakow monster)
but I couldn't look it up on teh internet

Madhu <enometh@meer.net> wrote:

> * (J. J. Lodder) <1q0jfd4.19y8xak115auvmN%nospam @de-ster.demon.nl> :
> Wrote on Fri, 28 Oct 2022 13:48:08 +0200:
> > If you don't count being hanged at Nurnberg as evidence for badness,
>
> Way before the trials, was there any medieval mythology associated with
> Nuremberg? ISTR reading about horror tales of an Executioner of
> Nuremberg or the butcher/Monster of Nuremberg (like the Krakow monster)
> but I couldn't look it up on teh internet

You probably heard echos of echos of the 'Nuremberg Chronicles'.
It is a richly illustrated late medieval encyclopedia.

It depicts the state of knowledge as it was then,
so it also contains lots of pictures of mythological monsters.

These have been used and reused over and over again,

Jan

On Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 12:24:47 PM UTC-4, Madhu wrote:
> * (J. J. Lodder) <1q0jfd4.19y8xak115auvmN%nospam @de-ster.demon.nl> :
> Wrote on Fri, 28 Oct 2022 13:48:08 +0200:

> > If you don't count being hanged at Nurnberg as evidence for badness,
>
> Way before the trials, was there any medieval mythology associated with
> Nuremberg? ISTR reading about horror tales of an Executioner of
> Nuremberg or the butcher/Monster of Nuremberg (like the Krakow monster)
> but I couldn't look it up on teh internet

Mastersingers.

On Fri, 28 Oct 2022, at 13:48:08, J. J. Lodder posted:
>occam <occam@nowhere.nix> wrote:
>
>> On 28/10/2022 11:57, J. J. Lodder wrote:
>> > The very first thing the Germans did
>> > after their military occupation in May 1940
>> > was to abolish it, and to replace it by CET, aka Berlin Time.
>> > The Netherlands remained at CET after the war. (later with DST added)
>>
>> So, they were not *all* bad, after all? ;-)
>
>If you don't count being hanged at Nurnberg as evidence for badness,
>
We all know that being hanged is hearsay evidence, inadmissible on the
question of actual guilt.
--
Paul

On 30/10/2022 4:05 a.m., Quinn C wrote:
> * Ross Clark:
>
>> On 28/10/2022 3:36 a.m., occam wrote:
>>> I was recently messaging ('Messenger-ing') with a friend in Nepal. When
>>> I asked him the local time, it sounded odd when he gave me a time which
>>> was neither a full-hour nor even a half-hour different. We puzzled why
>>> this would have been set thus by the authorities.
>>>
>>> I was surprised to find that similar quarter-hour offsets exist
>>> elsewhere in the world. Australia, for example:
>>>
>>> https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/australias-weird-little-time-zone/
>>
>> Unfortunately, the Howder Family's home-made web site completely jammed
>> up my poor old computer.
>>
>> The +8:45 zone is mentioned here, so it must not be entirely home-made:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_time_zones_by_country
>>
>> It also mentions Nepal and the Chatham Islands, which are +:45 to the
>> rest of New Zealand.
>
> The Australian time zone sits at the border of the time zones +8:00 and
> +9:30, and uses a time just in the middle.
>
> Nepal's time zone is halfway between those of India and Bangladesh
> (another oddity is that India and its one time zone extend to the east
> of Bangladesh, so that at the eastern border between the two countries,
> you'd have to change your clock in the opposite of the expected
> direction.)
>
> Chatham Islands seems to use the closest quarter hour to local time,
> plus one hour. I can't explain the last part. They also have summer time
> (UTC+13:45), so maybe it was an attempt to be the first to enter the New
> Year (but in fact the Line Islands of Kiribati beat them at UTC+14:00.)
>

Don't know what you mean by "the last part".

Chatham Islands time as NZ +:45 goes back to 1868.
The islands are roughly 10 degrees longitude from Lyttleton, the nearest
port in the same latitude. (It may also be relevant that the South
Island then had a majority of NZ's population.)

At that time NZST was UTC+11:30.
In 1946 this was changed to UTC+12:00, even though the 180th meridian
runs some miles offshore from the easternmost point of the North Island.

You might have thought that treating the main islands as further east
than they really are would mean the Chathams could comfortably fall in
with NZST. But they decided to keep the difference the same.

All this happened long before all the "first to enter the New Year"
stuff, which as I recall it only became a Thing towards the end of the
millennium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_New_Zealand

* Ross Clark:

> On 30/10/2022 4:05 a.m., Quinn C wrote:
>> * Ross Clark:
>>
>>> On 28/10/2022 3:36 a.m., occam wrote:
>>>> I was recently messaging ('Messenger-ing') with a friend in Nepal. When
>>>> I asked him the local time, it sounded odd when he gave me a time which
>>>> was neither a full-hour nor even a half-hour different. We puzzled why
>>>> this would have been set thus by the authorities.
>>>>
>>>> I was surprised to find that similar quarter-hour offsets exist
>>>> elsewhere in the world. Australia, for example:
>>>>
>>>> https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/australias-weird-little-time-zone/
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, the Howder Family's home-made web site completely jammed
>>> up my poor old computer.
>>>
>>> The +8:45 zone is mentioned here, so it must not be entirely home-made:
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_time_zones_by_country
>>>
>>> It also mentions Nepal and the Chatham Islands, which are +:45 to the
>>> rest of New Zealand.
>>
>> The Australian time zone sits at the border of the time zones +8:00 and
>> +9:30, and uses a time just in the middle.
>>
>> Nepal's time zone is halfway between those of India and Bangladesh
>> (another oddity is that India and its one time zone extend to the east
>> of Bangladesh, so that at the eastern border between the two countries,
>> you'd have to change your clock in the opposite of the expected
>> direction.)
>>
>> Chatham Islands seems to use the closest quarter hour to local time,
>> plus one hour. I can't explain the last part. They also have summer time
>> (UTC+13:45), so maybe it was an attempt to be the first to enter the New
>> Year (but in fact the Line Islands of Kiribati beat them at UTC+14:00.)
>>
>
> Don't know what you mean by "the last part".

The "plus one hour". Local solar time is very close to UTC+11:45 by my
calculation.
> Chatham Islands time as NZ +:45 goes back to 1868.
> The islands are roughly 10 degrees longitude from Lyttleton, the nearest
> port in the same latitude. (It may also be relevant that the South
> Island then had a majority of NZ's population.)
>
> At that time NZST was UTC+11:30.

I'm still getting confused that "S" doesn't mean "summer", as in CEST.

> In 1946 this was changed to UTC+12:00, even though the 180th meridian
> runs some miles offshore from the easternmost point of the North Island.
>
> You might have thought that treating the main islands as further east
> than they really are would mean the Chathams could comfortably fall in
> with NZST. But they decided to keep the difference the same.
>
> All this happened long before all the "first to enter the New Year"
> stuff, which as I recall it only became a Thing towards the end of the
> millennium.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_New_Zealand

--
Quinn C
My pronouns are they/them
(or other gender-neutral ones)

On Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 8:31:13 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:

> > At that time NZST was UTC+11:30.
>
> I'm still getting confused that "S" doesn't mean "summer", as in CEST.

You can take the German out of Germany, but you can't take the
Germany out of the German. On Saturday night you'll presumably
turn your timepieces back and enter Eastern Standard Time.