Re: distro project comming soon... Till then...

["N. Heer" <heer at u dot washington dot edu>]

	When I was living in Saudi Arabia in the late fifties Saudis reset
their watches every day at sunset.  That way they knew when the correct
prayer times were.  I don't know whether they still do that or not.

Nicholas

On 5 Sep 2003, Munzir wrote:

> > >>When one chooses Saudi Arabia as one's country, one will be face
> with city options that include: Riyadh, Riyadh87, Riyadh88 and Riyadh89.
> What are these?! I don't know from where these names come from. After
> checking some related websites Riyadh87,88,89 has the very same timezone
> which is 7 mins and 4 secs different from Riyadh. I am still confused.
>
> You finally make me look at the glibc sources :)
> Riyadh is defined in "glibc-2.2.3/timezone/asia" file as this:
>
> # Saudi Arabia
> # Zone  NAME            GMTOFF  RULES   FORMAT  [UNTIL]
> Zone    Asia/Riyadh     3:06:52 -       LMT     1950
>                         3:00    -       AST
>
> That is, until 1950 it used a quite special offset of 3h 06min 52sec.
> After 1950 it uses 3:00.
>
> The other names come from glibc-2.2.3/timezone/solar8[789]
> they define a very special "timelight saving" mode, progressibe, with
> each day having a different offset (insted of having 6months +3h and
> 6months +2h, there is something like +3h0min5sec on 1st January,
> +3h,1min2sec on 2nd January and so on... each of the solar87, 88, 89
> defines each and every one of the 365 days of the year with a unique
> rule for each day. the trigonometric and astronomic formulas for the
> calculations were given as comments.
>
> So, the timezone for those three years was different each and every one
> of the days of the year!
> Did Saudi Arabia actually used such a special time count those three
> years?! (I have hard to believe that all saudi people had to change
> their clocks each day in so subtle way)
>
> Anyway, it is for past years, should probably be removed to avoid
> confusions.
> --
> I think we have an astronomer in arabeyes lists. Rabah?
>
>
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