Contributing Advent 21: Timezone database
Timezones have always been a pain, and Daylight Saving(s) time does not make it a lot easier. Then of course you have governments that decide to change the rules. Often that is done nicely in advance, but once in a while the rule changes are announced at the absolutely last moment, or, sometimes even after the new rules have come into effect. To track the craziness, have a look at Time Zone News, and this image to see how many different rules there are!
So, does anybody else think that 24x7x365=7 years?
Coding, Fast and Slow: Developers and the Psychology of Overconfidence
This is an excellent take on why (we the) developers suck at time estimations. Basically, it boils down to two reasons: unknown details of the project and overconfendence.
First off, there are, I believe, really two reasons why we’re so bad at making estimates. The first is the sort of irreducible one: writing software involves figuring out something in such incredibly precise detail that you can tell a computer how to do it. And the problem is that, hidden in the parts you don’t fully understand when you start, there are often these problems that will explode and just utterly screw you.
And this is genuinely irreducible. If you do “fully understand” something, you’ve got a library or existing piece of software that does that thing, and you’re not writing anything. Otherwise, there is uncertainty, and it will often blow up. And those blow ups can take anywhere from one day to one year to beyond the heat death of the universe to resolve.
Read the whole thing, it’s worth it.
Real-time clock, with builders. Video
This is absolutely awesome!
70 workers are building a wooden 4 x 12 m “digital” time display in real time: a work that involves 1611 changes within 24 hour period.
Seamlessly documented and shot on video, a 24 hours movie or clock is now available.
Standard Time is an artwork of Mark Formanek, realized by Datenstrudel.
A few websites around the web have it synchronized to the actual time…