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North Korea Is Switching To a New Time Zone

Posted by samzenpus on from the best-time dept.

jones_supa writes: North Korea has announced that it is winding its clocks back by half a hour to create a new "Pyongyang Time" — breaking from a time standard imposed by what it called "wicked Japanese imperialists" more than a century ago. The change will put the standard time in North Korea at UTC +8:30. North Korea said that the time change, approved on Wednesday by its rubber-stamp parliament and officially announced on Friday, would come into effect from August 15, which this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Korean peninsula's liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule.

8 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Only half an hour by swimboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd think to ensure accuracy, they'd wind back their clocks 60 years.

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    1. Re:Only half an hour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm surprised that they decided on an even half hour offset. That's been done before - The glorious Democratic People's Republic of Korea should not be bound by convention!

      To counter the western imperialist timezone scheme and it's England-based meridian, they really should be at UTC+8:22:57 -- or rather, UTC should be such that it's PYT-8:22:57.

      All hail the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and its glorious leader Kim Jong-un, may he lead forever!

    2. Re:Only half an hour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Instead of making Pyongyang the meridian, they should use the glorious leader's real-time position. North Korea's UTC offset would be his longitude divided by 15. Citizens would have to follow his whereabouts to know what time it is, reinforcing general interest into the leader's activities.

  2. Time to update some code by Sneeka2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Darn, now I need to update all my timezone related code to handle all my North Korean customers correctly...

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  3. Re:be glad it's only a symbolic gesture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Koreans, even North Koreans, have very legitimate historical reasons to tell Japan to FUCK OFF.

    And everyone knows the best way to piss off a Japanese person is to be 1/2 an hour out of their timezone

  4. Re: You go little Un... by therufus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now all they need is some electricity to power them up.

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  5. Wait... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Funny

    North Korea has clocks?

  6. Re:13 minutes off, 27 hours per day by daremonai · · Score: 5, Funny

    do I have to get an ugly $2.00 haircut and gain 20 lbs in the gut ...?

    Admit it, you were probably going to do that anyway, Great Leader or no.