Back to the Future?

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Cheopis

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Message 1256792 - Posted: 7 Jul 2012, 4:00:56 UTC

Errr server status page...

[As of 7 Jul 2012 | 3:50:08 UTC]

OK, when did we buy Matt a Delorean?

I'm assuming this is why the backup database is 102,000 seconds behind the master?
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Message 1256826 - Posted: 7 Jul 2012, 5:24:03 UTC - in response to Message 1256792.  
Last modified: 7 Jul 2012, 5:24:30 UTC

Errr server status page...

[As of 7 Jul 2012 | 3:50:08 UTC]

OK, when did we buy Matt a Delorean?

I'm assuming this is why the backup database is 102,000 seconds behind the master?


After 5PM PDT (0:00UTC), the date rolls over to the next day. (e.g., 7PM PDT 7/6/12 is 0200UTC 7/7/12.)
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Message 1257356 - Posted: 8 Jul 2012, 4:08:32 UTC

Wait. So SETI and BOINC are both in Berkley, and yet they are dating their results by some random European time zone? Is there a method to the madness?
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Message 1257377 - Posted: 8 Jul 2012, 4:48:25 UTC - in response to Message 1257356.  

Wait. So SETI and BOINC are both in Berkley, and yet they are dating their results by some random European time zone? Is there a method to the madness?

It's not random. It's coordinated universal time which is basically GMT. Boinc and Seti aren't the only ones doing this. Most Unix and Linux OSs use GMT and your time zone to show you the right time.
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Message 1257429 - Posted: 8 Jul 2012, 7:50:48 UTC - in response to Message 1257356.  

Californian time isn't set, isn't constant, it changes once a year to summer time and once a year to winter time. It also makes it quite difficult to calculate what time it is at any other time zone, when BOINC would use Californian time.

UTC doesn't use summer or winter time, it's set to the prime meridian of the Earth, and is therefore a constant of time (outside the leap seconds).
(See also GMT vs UTC explained)

You can always easily calculate what time it is in your neighborhood by knowing what time UTC it is plus the time zone you're in. While it may not be so easy to do that if Californian time were used and you're in Australia, running this program.
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Message 1257430 - Posted: 8 Jul 2012, 7:53:58 UTC
Last modified: 8 Jul 2012, 7:57:54 UTC

Still makes no sense to me. I could understand it if the webpage used whatever random timezone as a base timezone, and displayed either my timezone, or the timezone where the project is located, but I still can't understand why a project in California would have any interest in setting a clock to a timezone where they are not. Unless, for some reason they are linked to another project somewhere else that I've never heard of? Financial and travel companies frequently have clocks for other timezones available because it's handy to know what time it is somewhere else when you want to do business in that other time zone, but what reason is there for SETI to do such a thing?

What critical aspect of SETI@home requires that the webpage display a time that has nothing to do with the actual time at the project, or at the viewer's location?

I imagine that there probably is a reason. SETI seems to be run by some pretty levelheaded folks, but I simply can't see it from where I'm sitting.

How does this universal time make it easier for my computer to display the time where I am or where Berkley is? It's just using a lookup table or a calculation anyway?
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Message 1257472 - Posted: 8 Jul 2012, 10:25:53 UTC - in response to Message 1257430.  

If you didn't have a fixed point of reference for time, the Message Boards would make no sense at all, well, even less than they do now! Now consider, when WUs are sent out and results received back....the servers don't know which time zone that each WU was sent to or what time zone the result came from. Don't forgot, that each WU has a completion time and date. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue in all the databases, if the servers had to make corrections for time zones? This is 1st day kindergarten stuff, on Gallifrey - they like order in matters of time, there.



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Message 1258029 - Posted: 9 Jul 2012, 13:28:57 UTC - in response to Message 1257430.  
Last modified: 9 Jul 2012, 13:37:35 UTC

Still makes no sense to me. I could understand it if the webpage used whatever random timezone as a base timezone, and displayed either my timezone, or the timezone where the project is located, but I still can't understand why a project in California would have any interest in setting a clock to a timezone where they are not. Unless, for some reason they are linked to another project somewhere else that I've never heard of? Financial and travel companies frequently have clocks for other timezones available because it's handy to know what time it is somewhere else when you want to do business in that other time zone, but what reason is there for SETI to do such a thing?

What critical aspect of SETI@home requires that the webpage display a time that has nothing to do with the actual time at the project, or at the viewer's location?

I imagine that there probably is a reason. SETI seems to be run by some pretty levelheaded folks, but I simply can't see it from where I'm sitting.

How does this universal time make it easier for my computer to display the time where I am or where Berkley is? It's just using a lookup table or a calculation anyway?

I often see people that people don't use the correct name when referring to their time zone. In that people often don't distinguish between their daylight and standard time. Such as using EST or EDT year round.

UTC is the time reference for our planet. Your time zone is just UTC with an offset so your day makes sense. Most network hardware, including web servers, use UTC instead of having to bother with time zones. The key part is in the name "Universal". Also as Seti@Home is a scientific project they would naturally use it for their clocks. I would imagine most, if not all, scientific projects would use UTC to log time.

Your Windows OS also uses UTC for its time basis. No matter what time zone you set. If you look in your System log at event ID 1. You will see the time change event recorded like this:
"The system time has changed to ‎2012‎-‎07‎-‎01T05:03:13.280000000Z from ‎2012‎-‎07‎-‎01T05:03:11.439450000Z."
The Z on the end denotes "Zulu". Which occurred at 1:03AM for me on EDT.

You will also find that the forum clock uses UTC. So your post at "Message 1256792 - Posted: 7 Jul 2012 | 4:00:56 UTC" does look a bit odd.
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Message 1258032 - Posted: 9 Jul 2012, 13:41:12 UTC - in response to Message 1257429.  
Last modified: 9 Jul 2012, 13:42:09 UTC

While it may not be so easy to do that if Californian time were used and you're in Australia, running this program.

I concur!

I find it disappointing that much of the Internet - now an international mechanism - chooses to ignore UTC in favour of a site's local time which is, more often than not, a US-specific time-zone. And as mentioned, standard/summer time variances also causes confusion between northern and southern hemisphere countries. This is especially a problem with some forum software.

It really isn't that hard to work out your local time with reference to UTC once you get used to it. But constantly having to work with a US time-zone as a point of reference does seem to be the norm rather than the exception. :/ HAL makes some good points as to the universal nature of UTC in contrast with using local time-zones.
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Message 1258079 - Posted: 9 Jul 2012, 16:41:11 UTC - in response to Message 1258029.  


I often see people that people don't use the correct name when referring to their time zone. In that people often don't distinguish between their daylight and standard time. Such as using EST or EDT year round.


I always use MST for mine, but I do live in Arizona.

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Message 1258113 - Posted: 9 Jul 2012, 17:49:57 UTC - in response to Message 1258079.  


I often see people that people don't use the correct name when referring to their time zone. In that people often don't distinguish between their daylight and standard time. Such as using EST or EDT year round.


I always use MST for mine, but I do live in Arizona.

I guess it is worth noting that SETI@Home also uses UNIX time for tracking purposes. At least in the client_state files.

A good example of people using the wrong nomenclature can be found on http://www.unixtimestamp.com. Where is it currently indicating EST to me instead of EDT. They may be reading the time zone of the machine connecting to the site. So you may see your local time zone instead.
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Message 1258332 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 4:17:37 UTC - in response to Message 1257472.  
Last modified: 10 Jul 2012, 4:20:52 UTC

If you didn't have a fixed point of reference for time, the Message Boards would make no sense at all, well, even less than they do now! Now consider, when WUs are sent out and results received back....the servers don't know which time zone that each WU was sent to or what time zone the result came from. Don't forgot, that each WU has a completion time and date. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue in all the databases, if the servers had to make corrections for time zones? This is 1st day kindergarten stuff, on Gallifrey - they like order in matters of time, there.




I can imagine no chaos from using the time zone of the location where the project is located. There is no difference between arbitrarily chosen "base" time zones.

If there is a reason why the project needs to be based on the time at some arbitrary place on the planet, that's fine, but it's not conceivable that it's any sort of calculation or simplification of process that the project is getting for doing so. There are plenty of possible reasons why an arbitrary non-project time was chosen. I'm just curious as to the WHY because I've seen nothing to indicate a real reason why the project time isn't based on the time at the project.

If they are aligning time because all astological measurements worldwide are standardized to some agreed upon standard for date and time, then that's enough of an explanation. Heck, if it's an EFFORT to try to bolster such a standardized time, since the SETI@home project is collecting data from many places, that's fine too.

Heck, it's fine even if nobody bothers to every give a real reason at all. I don't need to know why my neighbor wears a blue shirt every Tuesday, and without a real reason, I'll just have to consider the project's use of an arbitrary time of day to be a "neighbor-wears-blue-shirt-on-Tuesday" class phenomenon.
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Message 1258387 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 5:19:10 UTC - in response to Message 1258332.  
Last modified: 10 Jul 2012, 5:21:34 UTC

If you didn't have a fixed point of reference for time, the Message Boards would make no sense at all, well, even less than they do now! Now consider, when WUs are sent out and results received back....the servers don't know which time zone that each WU was sent to or what time zone the result came from. Don't forgot, that each WU has a completion time and date. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue in all the databases, if the servers had to make corrections for time zones? This is 1st day kindergarten stuff, on Gallifrey - they like order in matters of time, there.




I can imagine no chaos from using the time zone of the location where the project is located. There is no difference between arbitrarily chosen "base" time zones.



OK, so what happens during switchover from Summer to Winter time? At the chosen time of transition, the servers go back in time 1 hour. Work could be returned 'before' it was sent.....

And the converse? Going from Winter to Summer? How about tasks timing out if they were being processed close up to their original deadline....

And lets not even start to consider timestamps on log entries etc.

Berkeley time varies - it is not constant. The solution? Use a time datum that avoids these and other issues by not varying with the seasons. There happens to be such a datum, its called UTC. That it doesn't coincide with 'local server time' is irrelevant to the project but its use precludes a whole bunch of issues that would cause serious headaches for any sysadmin.
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Message 1258418 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 6:18:12 UTC

I grew up with GMT. Get used to it. Not hard to figure out the timezones. Somewhere in the Q and A thread is a converter. Dig it out and I am sure we Mods can make it sticky.
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Message 1258468 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 7:40:02 UTC

How many times does it need to be said? There is nothing arbitrary about using Co-ordinated Universal Time in an international setting - it is, in fact, the simplest and sensible thing to do. On the contrary, to use a project's local time-zone would be an arbitrary choice.
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Message 1258475 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 8:04:20 UTC - in response to Message 1258418.  

I grew up with GMT. Get used to it. Not hard to figure out the timezones. Somewhere in the Q and A thread is a converter. Dig it out and I am sure we Mods can make it sticky.

Or use a search engine: Time Zone Converter
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Message 1258501 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 9:56:45 UTC
Last modified: 10 Jul 2012, 9:57:14 UTC

And if anyone wants to know how late it is in Berkeley, the Cricket graphs show the local time. ;-)

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Message 1258504 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 10:06:40 UTC

My sticky should answer all questions. If not, the red x is your friend. If you need a drink, Rocky.s in the Cafe is open 24/7.
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Message 1258540 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 13:36:54 UTC - in response to Message 1258468.  

How many times does it need to be said? There is nothing arbitrary about using Co-ordinated Universal Time in an international setting - it is, in fact, the simplest and sensible thing to do. On the contrary, to use a project's local time-zone would be an arbitrary choice.

The way arbitrary keeps getting used it makes me think of that line from the princess bride.

I guess it comes down to if you don't understand why the standard reference that all clocks are based upon is used. Then you just have to accept it and move on.

Also I am unable to find any other BOINC projects that use a time other than UTC for their clock.
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Message 1258542 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 13:48:53 UTC - in response to Message 1258332.  

If you didn't have a fixed point of reference for time, the Message Boards would make no sense at all, well, even less than they do now! Now consider, when WUs are sent out and results received back....the servers don't know which time zone that each WU was sent to or what time zone the result came from. Don't forgot, that each WU has a completion time and date. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue in all the databases, if the servers had to make corrections for time zones? This is 1st day kindergarten stuff, on Gallifrey - they like order in matters of time, there.




I can imagine no chaos from using the time zone of the location where the project is located. There is no difference between arbitrarily chosen "base" time zones.

If there is a reason why the project needs to be based on the time at some arbitrary place on the planet, that's fine, but it's not conceivable that it's any sort of calculation or simplification of process that the project is getting for doing so. There are plenty of possible reasons why an arbitrary non-project time was chosen. I'm just curious as to the WHY because I've seen nothing to indicate a real reason why the project time isn't based on the time at the project.

If they are aligning time because all astological measurements worldwide are standardized to some agreed upon standard for date and time, then that's enough of an explanation. Heck, if it's an EFFORT to try to bolster such a standardized time, since the SETI@home project is collecting data from many places, that's fine too.

Heck, it's fine even if nobody bothers to every give a real reason at all. I don't need to know why my neighbor wears a blue shirt every Tuesday, and without a real reason, I'll just have to consider the project's use of an arbitrary time of day to be a "neighbor-wears-blue-shirt-on-Tuesday" class phenomenon.

Your neighbor wears a blue shirt on Tuesday because Tuesday is bluesday ...
Also, for your future reference,
Sunday is funday
Monday is punday
Wednesday is friendsday
Thursday is herday
Friday is myday
Saturday is batterday (unless your a physicist, then Saturday is matterday)

Your other questions have been answered, ad-infinitum.
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