Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 (MC830713); site hwcs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!mcvax!ukc!edcaad!hwcs!jim
From: jim@hwcs.UUCP (Jim Crammond)
Newsgroups: net.news.b
Subject: Re: Strange time warp???
Message-ID: <242@hwcs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Oct-84 08:45:05 EST
Article-I.D.: hwcs.242
Posted: Tue Oct 30 08:45:05 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Nov-84 04:52:53 EST
References: <544@rayssd.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Sci., Heriot-Watt U., Scotland
Lines: 28


> I have seen discussions here before about time warps whereby an article
> could get from one coast to the other several hours before it was posted
> but the trans-atlantic link has now got that beaten by a mile.  The 
> following article arrived here on 10/24 after having passed across the
> Atlantic and through several sites (not all of which are known for
> passing the news along in a timely fashion).

This bug is due to a combination of two things:
1. When getdate converts time from a timezone which is -11 hours from GMT
   it gets it wrong and returns a time which is one week (-11 hours) in the 
   future.

2. The standard (2.10.1) getdate.y considered "BST" to be "Bering Standard
   Time" which is clearly wrong because as everyone knows BST is really
   "British Summer Time".  Well, okay BST can mean Bering time too but
   surely there's no one on the net in the Aleutian Islands, is there?
   Anyway, Bering Standard Time happens to be -11 hours from GMT.

Most uk sites fixed their getdate.y so that BST was equivalent to "GMT DST"
which meant that the bug has all but gone. One site that is known still
to have this bug is ukc, hence your article got into a time warp.

Last Sunday we (in Britain) put our clocks back to GMT, so the bug will
sleep once again until next March.....

-Jim Crammond		Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
			..!ukc!kcl-cs!hwcs!jim