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Censorship News

Russia Moves From Summer Time To Standard Time 158

Posted by Soulskill from the turn-back-the-clock dept.
jones_supa writes: Russia's legislature, often accused of metaphorically turning back the clock, has decided to do it literally – abandoning the policy of keeping the country on daylight-saving time all year. The 2011 move to impose permanent "summer time" in 2011 was one of the most memorable and least popular initiatives of Dmitry Medvedev's presidency. It forced tens of millions to travel to their jobs in pitch darkness during the winter. In the depths of December, the sun doesn't clear the horizon in Moscow until 10am. The State Duma, the lower house of parliament, voted 442-1 on Tuesday to return to standard time this autumn and stay there all year. The article also discusses a ban on swearing in books, plays, and films that went into effect today in Russia.
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Russia Moves From Summer Time To Standard Time More

Russia Moves From Summer Time To Standard Time

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  • A ban on swearing in books, plays, and films? (Score:5, Funny)

    by nitehawk214 ( 222219 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @10:18PM (#47365613)

    Fuck that.

  • Russia has very short summer

  • They knew that people will be swearing when the new time will become official, as such they made two laws at the same time. Russians themselves are, actually, unhappy and in their view this is a pure restriction of the free speech.
  • in Russia, TIME TELLS YOU

  • News? (Score:1, Troll)

    by qpqp ( 1969898 )
    So... How is this even tangentially related to being newsworthy for a tech site? Like, seriously, WTF?!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by TWX ( 665546 )
      I donno, I guess they gambled on us finding this story appropriate. A throw of the Dice if you will...

    • Re:News? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GigaplexNZ ( 1233886 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @10:43PM (#47365741)
      I'm a software developer, and dealing with unpredictable timezone changes is not fun. This is definitely relevant to me.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ptaff ( 165113 )

        I'm a software developer, and dealing with unpredictable timezone changes is not fun. [...]

        That's why you should never deal with dates/timezones yourself; use libraries and avoid lethal headaches. For instance, the good people taking care of tzdata are already working on it [icann.org].

        • Re:News? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @11:51PM (#47366049)

          Even then its still a headache.

          Just because someone else fixed the library, doesn't mean my servers and embedded devices have the update yet.

          • Even then its still a headache.

            Just because someone else fixed the library, doesn't mean my servers and embedded devices have the update yet.

            Presumably by "the library" you mean "the tzdata files"; this involves no code changes. The whole point of the Olson timezone database and library was to remove any knowledge of specific daylight savings time rules from any code whatsoever, so that changes to the rules could be handled without having to change source code, recompile, and relink every program (this was back in 1987, when shared libraries were still somewhat rare on UN*X systems). Thank you, Clorox and company. [thebokey.com]

            But there still needs to be a

        • And it takes zero effort to get updated tzdata on 'n' different platforms that a company might run? Including outdated ones (sad, but common).

          I was involved in the project to manage fan out the last time US changed DST rules a few years back. It's a project.

          At the time I would occasionally read the tzdata mailing list. I was amazed at how many countries kept changing the rules willy-nilly. No one in government has any understanding of computer systems. I assume these countries with frequent rule changes get

          • They're content with a flashing 0:00 on their clock. That flashing means it is working, right? For telling the time, there is a consultant.

        • We do use libraries, but as the other posters have mentioned, keeping these systems up to date is a nightmare. Relying on customers to keep their systems up to date too is even worse.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by GNious ( 953874 )

          What about the programmers writing the date/timezone libraries? It ain't turtles all the way down :)

        • What's to say that GigaplexNZ isn't actually working on tzdata?

          Palming the problem off on someone maintaining a library is great until you find out that you are infact the library maintainer.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ipstas ( 3573381 )
        and this is why UTC was invented.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mashiki ( 184564 )

        Give it time, we'll eventually hit a 36 hour day.

        • Nope the concept of a weekend off will disappear though.

        • Time should be recalibrated so that it's all in powers of 2. 64 seconds will be a minute, 64 minutes would be an hour, 32 hours a day, and so on. Readjust how long a second is so that the above adds up to a day.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by qpqp ( 1969898 )
        Ok, I stand corrected. There's the one touching point...

    • Re:News? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @10:47PM (#47365761)

      So... How is this even tangentially related to being newsworthy for a tech site?

      Like, seriously, WTF?!

      It's newsworthy because we finally have proof that another countries legislature is at least, just as ridiculous as our own.

      • So... How is this even tangentially related to being newsworthy for a tech site?

        Like, seriously, WTF?!

        It's newsworthy because we finally have proof that another countries legislature is at least, just as ridiculous as our own.

        Note that the quoted statement can be made in a number of different countries; if you want proof that a lot of countries fuck around with daylight savings time rules, etc., just download the tzdata files and read [iana.org].

      • At least this particular bit of ridiculousness is being undone.

        Which is more than I can say of the US government.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EEPROMS ( 889169 )
      says the man who has never had to manage servers in different countries where time zone changes can totally screw with automated management scripts.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hubie ( 108345 )
        Isn't that all handled these days in the tzdata file?
        • Some things have their own time implementations. Other things are not updated without manual intervention.
          Personally I see some merit in the Chinese option of having the entire place on Beijing time and adjusting work hours regionally instead - or just doing everything on UTC for the rest of us.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by qpqp ( 1969898 )
        Uhm... I really don't wanna break it to you this way, but ... My servers (in different time-zones) are centralized [openntpd.org].

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megol ( 3135005 )

        So you like fragile systems? If one have problems with something as simple as daylight saving time the codebase is sure to have a lot of other timing problems that require a lot more effort to manage.

    • So... How is this even tangentially related to being newsworthy for a tech site? Like, seriously, WTF?!

      It's not, really. I mean, some people here have to deal with maintaining time zone changes on servers and such, so it will be relevant to a few.

      But it's mostly to draw out two major types of people who love to debate time issues on Slashdot: (1) people who want to have the perpetual debate about whether Daylight Time EVER makes sense (or whether it ever "saves" anything), and (2) the people who love to propose their favorite "NEW" alternative time and calendar initiatives that are generally very similar

    • Re:News? (Score:5, Funny)

      by jones_supa ( 887896 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2014 @03:58AM (#47366741)

      So... How is this even tangentially related to being newsworthy for a tech site? Like, seriously, WTF?!

      Hi. As the submitter, my reasoning was that timezones are quite nerdy topic. There has also been lots of daylight saving articles in Slashdot over the years. As far as I know, Slashdot hasn't ever been purely tech site.

      Aw, scrap that. I actually submitted this only because I can totally annoy you with it, and because of all the possibilities for Soviet Russia jokes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rizole ( 666389 )

        In Soviet Russia censorship loses time???? .....No!

        In Soviet Russia....er..um.....In Capitalist Slashdot submitters troll you?

        Nah......It just doesn't work!

        In Capitalist /. expected "Russian Reversal" meme reversal, trolls troll submitter?

        Frankly I'm not convinced about "all the possibilities" dude....

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by qpqp ( 1969898 )

        because I can totally annoy you with it

        Job well done! I'd like to get back at you some day ; )

    • countries, states, regions changing their time zones has been the bane of developers for decades.

    • Sounds like something from the 1800's and the Indian wars in the USA.

      Only the government would believe that you can cut a foot from the top of the blanket, sew it to the bottom of the blanket, and have a longer blanket.
      http://lolzombie.com/wp-conten... [lolzombie.com]

  • Next lets hope that the US, Canda, and Europe abandon DSL.

    • Whoops. DST.

  • Illogical (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @10:48PM (#47365775) Homepage

    Consider the inherent illogical move of banning words. Everybody has to know the words if you want to ban them. They have to know the banned word in order to not use it, thus someone has to use it, to teach them not to use it !? One assumes Russian will simply use the English words khuy (cock), pizda (cunt), yebat (to fuck) and blyad (whore) instead.

    Surely the craziness of teaching people words they are not allowed to use to make sure they can adhere to the law and not use them will dawn on them.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I can't wait for them to publish the list of words that are illegal to publish...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )
      "It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought .... should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. " -- "1984", George Orwell

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Russia does not have the luxury of wide open boarders or just accepting a vast culture of drink, lyrics, drugs, health issues, poor quality food and a trade in neon colored laundry liquids.
      The Russian idea is to educate as many of its own people to a good average level and then sort out the best for further top quality higher education.
      Russia does not have the option to focus on the top 10% of its best people and letting the bottom 90% drop out into slums.
      Russia seeks to teach its own people: arts, cultu

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Actually those countries doing the best have specific multicultural zones, blending pots where many people of many cultures come together, not necessarily the whole country but at least specific cities (couple of US examples Seattle and San Francisco). If Russia wants to surge ahead, it needs to think outside of the box and promote a multicultural zone, bring in high value immigrants from many regions to conduct high tech activities. A slick move would be to turn the Crimea into a multi-cultural zone and a

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2014 @07:35AM (#47367269)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sribe ( 304414 )

      shitpisscuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits

      (Did I get that right???)

    • For a second there, I thought you said they just outlawed pizza (pidza).

  • This is how we do it in Saskatchewan. Permanent CST (Central Standard Time). And that's how we like it.

    We also have tempurature ranges from -45ÂC to +45ÂC,and 9 months of winter, 3 months of potholes. :-)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mirix ( 1649853 )

      But we are also permanently on DST, as it's more like 11 when the clock reads noon.

      No way you slice it, days are too short in winter, too long in the summer. shifting one way or the other makes no difference. In winter it's dark when you get up and dark when you go home.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sribe ( 304414 )

      We also have tempurature ranges from -45ÂC to +45ÂC,and 9 months of winter, 3 months of potholes. :-)

      Where I live the county government describes it to new residents this way: "The two weeks of summer are bracketed by one week each of spring and fall. The rest is winter."

  • Slashdot fails at reporting. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @11:19PM (#47365919)

    "It forced tens of millions to travel to their jobs in pitch darkness during the winter." This is called "living in northern latitudes", people have been doing it for millennia. It also forces millions to "suffer" through really long summer days. Those of us who live in NYC also call it the "running of the boobies' and you can pry it from our cold, dead hands.

    What is more concerning is your switch from ranting about day light savings time to an aside about censoring, well, everything.

    Shifting time an hour is the act of a mad-man but telling other people what they can say and how they can express themselves is an aside? You should get your priorities in order.

    • Re:Slashdot fails at reporting. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dargaud ( 518470 ) <slashdot2@@@gdargaud...net> on Wednesday July 02, 2014 @04:21AM (#47366795) Homepage
      Well, when the days are short, one hour of difference can mean a lot of light and temperature difference. When I was working in Antarctica Dome C, in order to 'simplify' things, 'they' decided we would have the same timezone has the logistical base of operation on the coast which was actually located 5 time zones ahead. So we had to get up when the sun was actually at 3am solar time. In other words the coldest time of day and in summer it was ofter -50C at that time while it could be a balmy -25C at noon even though there was little difference in sun elevation. To make a long story short after a few days we all started to get up at 11am to compensate. The next year they gave us our own proper timezone.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      .."running of the boobies"..?

      As a non-NY'er , please explain this! (at work, and NOT googling that!)

    • "It forced tens of millions to travel to their jobs in pitch darkness during the winter."

      I guess the Russians found out that under "Summer Time" the livin' wasn't...

      (puts on sunglasses)

      ...so easy.

      YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      "", people have been doing it for millennia. "
      are you stupid?
      1000 year ago people were going to work in the dark? You seriously think that?
      Tell me, slick, what work were they doing 1000 years ago that required them to do it a specific clock time? 500 years ago? 250 years ago?
      Going to work is a modern contrivance, going to work at the same specific clock time is a 20th century invention.

  • Fuck (Score:3)

    by pitchpipe ( 708843 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2014 @12:06AM (#47366109)
    In Putin's Russia, time fucks you.
  • Lacy underwear is banned. http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02... [cnn.com] You may laugh at a regulation like this, but it went into effect yesterday.

  • The State Duma, the lower house of parliament, voted 442-1 on Tuesday to return to standard time this autumn and stay there all year.

    Great move! And I guess that means it will take another three years before it sinks in that DST does still make sense in summer, when instead of being woken up by daylight two or three hours before the workday begins, you can have that extra summer daylight at the end of the day, when you can actually enjoy it in peace.

    • Not all of us like the sun still being up past 9pm. Some of us hate hearing lawnmowers and having the sun shine in when we're trying to put our kids to bed. Some of us want to look at the stars with our children, but can no longer do it.

      If we're basing the clock off the sun, then adjust to local time and leave it alone.
      If we're not basing the clock off the sun, we all should use UTC.

  • It's a distraction! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Flammon ( 4726 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2014 @07:50AM (#47367331) Journal

    The mainstream media is distracting you from what's really going on is Russia [paulcraigroberts.org].

    Anyhow, before condemning their new laws, have a look that what the FCC says.

    Obscene Broadcasts Are Prohibited at All Times

    Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution and cannot be broadcast at any time. The Supreme Court has established that, to be obscene, material must meet a three-pronged test:

    • An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
    • The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and
    • The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

    http://www.fcc.gov/guides/obsc... [fcc.gov]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      All you have showed us is that you can't think very deeply. You realize the law the FCC upholds is designed to change with the culture?
      Hannibal is broadcast TV.

    • So you quote the FCC saying "The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." And Russia specifically bans swearing in works of literary and artistic value. And you can't find the difference?

  • 442-1? (Score:4, Funny)

    by jbmartin6 ( 1232050 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2014 @08:10AM (#47367411)
    In other news, the one holdout was also revealed to be the one dentist who didn't recommend sugarless gum (for patients who chew gum).

  • The 2005 changes to daylight saving time policy in the USA had a small effect on energy-consumption [wikipedia.org]. Presumably there will be some effect in Russia, too.

  • So from now on they’ll have the luxury of seeing a glimpse of the sun when they drive to work, yet they’ll have to resort to pitch black darkness when they get back. In summer, the sun will rise at 4 in the morning and it will be dark before nine in the evening. It won’t be long till there is a popular backlash against it – people will demand their DST back because they want their beauty sleep unimpeded by the overly early sunrise, and they want their evenings to be light longer.

    At l

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