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Samoa and Tokelau Are Skipping December 30th

Posted by Soulskill on from the custom-week-crafting dept.

ocean_soul writes "Starting January 1, 2012 Samoa and Tokelau will be in time zone +13 instead of -11. This means there will be no December 30, 2011 in these countries. The decision to switch time zone was based on the changing international business relations of Samoa. Samoa had adopted the -11 time zone to make business with the U.S. easier. However, currently Samoa's most important trading partners are Australia and New Zealand. By switching time zone the work-weeks and week-ends on Samoa and Tokelau will be synchronized with those in Australia and New Zealand."

2 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Re:SIgn of the "times" by ceoyoyo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Until you hit that darn international date line.

  2. Not really, no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, actually it's not.

    First, UT is a bit confusing. You have to specify which UT you mean: UTC, UT0, UT1, UT1R, etc...

    All these, except UTC, are based on celestial movement. Which means they will vary due to natural causes. A slight wobble in Earths orbit or a little bit of tectonic shift will cause seconds to be shorter or longer. UTC is based on 'artificial' timing (atomic timekeeping) and as such has slightly different seconds than the other UT's.

    So, no, UTC is not simply another UT without counting leap seconds.

    Timekeeping is hard. Really hard.