Time zones and why they change so damned often

[MRAB]

On 2014-01-10 18:22, Peter Pearson wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Jan 2014 15:14:55 +1100, Chris Angelico wrote:
> [snip]
>> What I find, most of the time, is that it's Americans who can't handle
>> DST. I run an international Dungeons and Dragons campaign (we play
>> online, and new players are most welcome, as are people watching!),
>> and the Aussies (myself included) know to check UTC time, the Brits
>> and Europeans check UTC or just know what UTC is, and the Americans
>> say "Doesn't that happen at 8 o'clock Eastern time?" and get confused.
>
> Around 30 years ago, the Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece
> advocating the abandonment of time zones and the unification of the
> globe into a single glorious time zone.  After enumerating the
> efficiencies to be achieved by this system, the writer briefly
> addressed the question of whose time zone would become the global
> standard, promptly arriving at the conclusion that, due to the
> concentration of important commerce, the logical choice was the
> east coast of the United States.
>
What a silly idea!

The logical choice is UTC. :-)

> My point: we deserve the teasing.
>