Did Patched Versions Of Software Foul Up The Time At Gatwick Airport?

from the did-everything-right-but-figure-out-which-country dept

Yesterday we wrote about the minor glitches spotted thanks to computers not knowing that Congress moved out Daylight Saving Day. However, there was an odd time glitch over in the UK that is worth examining. Apparently, at Gatwick airport, computers were all screwed up because they hadn't changed times properly. You see, in the UK this past weekend was the conclusion of British Summer Time, the equivalent of our Daylight Saving Time. So what happened here? My guess is that the systems that run the computers at Gatwick were patched... for the US change. In other words, while the computers would have made the change properly beforehand, somehow there was some confusion and a patch meant for US users was applied (or some other setting indicated that it was a US-based computer system), meaning that the computers didn't switch -- not because of confusion over the date of the hour shift, but because the system had been patched for the wrong country.

Filed Under: daylight savings

Daylight Savings Day Massacre... Part II

from the not-so-bad... dept

Back in the spring time, we noted how there was as lot of hype coming in the press about how the change in when Daylight Saving Time started would be just like another Y2K. In the end, it turned out to be pretty much exactly like Y2K: a lot of hype, a few minor issues that were easily taken care of and no major problems. Given that, it appears the press didn't bother to whip everyone up into a frenzy for this past weekend, which is when the latest time shift would have happened if Congress hadn't changed the schedule. In fact, we hadn't heard anything at all, but it didn't seem to change the results. Joseph Beck writes in to let us know of assorted minor time change problems including screwed up parking meters. In other words, basically the same totally minor problems that happened in the spring... or in years past when people simply forgot to change their clocks. My cell phone was among those that got the time shift wrong, but it wasn't too difficult to figure out the problem and fix it Sunday morning when I noticed it had the wrong time. So, basically, hype or no hype, every time there's a time change, there are going to be a few minor problems, but it's no "aclockalypse now".

Filed Under: daylight savings