The Stupidity of a Government - Argentina’s Upcoming DST Changes on 12/30
As if no lessons were learned by the impacts of DST changes to North America earlier this year, the government of Argentina decided on December 21, 2007 to implement Daylight Saving Time rules for the first time since 2000. These changes are set to be in effect on December 30, 2007, just nine days after the decision was made by the Dodo’s in the Argentine government. Are they, as a country, really that flexible, or do they simply have the impression that the rest of the world does not notice nor care about the eighth largest country on the planet?
The current time zone for Buenos Aires, Argentina and Georgetown, Guyana is SA Eastern Standard Time, which does not recognize any Daylight Saving Time rules. Guyana will remain on this time zone, although Argentina will move to a new time zone, appropriately named Argentina Standard Time.
Daylight Saving Time begins: Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 00:00 AM
Daylight Saving Time ends: Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 00:00 AM
As far as the all-important technical impact that the Argentine government apparently failed to recognize as a factor in their decision, here’s what we know for major applications and platforms:
Windows: Microsoft does not have an updated Windows DST patch for the Argentina changes. Workaround: Adjust the registry to add the new time zone and reflect changes for the current time zone (see link below).
Exchange: Microsoft does not have an updated CDO.DLL patch for the Argentina changes. Workaround: None.
Outlook/Exchange Calendar: The Microsoft Office Outlook Tool can be used to update calendar appointments to use the new time zone. Note: The registry changes mentioned above for the Windows section will need to be applied first, as the Outlook Tool pulls it’s data from the local system registry.
BlackBerry Enterprise Server: See notes on Exchange above, as CDO.DLL will be the point of fault on BES. Workaround: None.
BlackBerry Devices: RIM has a case open with their software development group, but there is no current ETR for a device patch or SQL update for time zone table synchronization. Calendar appointments should be expected to be off by one hour during the DST period. Workaround: Change the time on the device up by one hour (12:00 AM becomes 1:00 AM).
Interesting, I’m always curious to see the countries justification of DST.
and whats this jibi doing an article not RIM related?
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Well, keep in mind that my day job is a Windows System Engineer, but this is sort of RIM related, as this DST change does impact BlackBerry. RIM’s current workaround is to change the time by one hour. I’ve updated the article to reflect a few more technical updates, as it seems to add more value that way. :)
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i am rather offended by this post. First, if the stupidity of web bloggers was nonexistent, you would know that Argentina, being a country near the equator, is unaffected by seasonal daylight times such as in the very northern and upper hemisphere. And second, if the stupidity of web bloggers was nonexistent, you would know know calling a country stupid offends many people.
oh the great digital era! where any ignorant jackass can post his ideosyncratic ramblings and still be listened to.
Thank you Boy Genius Report, for making the decision to stop reading your blog that much easier.
Carlos.
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The new president of Argentina wants to appear to care a lot about energy savings, since last winter the former president (her husband) suffered through a small energy crisis that was detrimental to his government (they cut energy to industries at a time when the Argentine economy has been growing at 8/9 % annually). That said, this was not well thought out, as it typically happens with government decisions in my country of origin…I am flying there January 3rd. Most people are actually unhappy about it, and the provinces in the western side of the country along the Andes are really upset about it…there is only time zone in Argentina but the country is really big, so they are getting screwed out west. I doubt the president and legislators thought about computers at all…
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Mas allá de estar de acuerdo o no con el cambio de horario, no me queda claro el objetivo de escribir una crítica sobre y para Argentina en un idioma foráneo.
Sobre el tema del post, es el software quien debe adaptarse a la realidad, y no la realidad al software.
Los cambios de horarios pasan, gusten o no. El no contemplarlos en un desarrollo, según veo en el detalle que publicas, me parece estúpido.
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jibi, the stupidity of a country could be to move your timezone just half hour asi Venezuela did and you said nothing about it.
And, the stupidity of a blogger lies in calling a country stupid just because you dont have a simple line of code that knows when a DST is implemented in argentina.
A small off-topic, If you call the president a Dodo you are from this country…
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Hmmm, now they were 2 hours ahead of EST at this time of year, does that mean they will be 3? Have to figure that one out since I have meeting with them for work. Annoying to say the least.
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Este la tiene clara:
http://twitter.com/amartino/statuses/542584752
xD
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I can’t believe that you call them stupid, I am from Venezuela and I am offended by your post…. Shame on you Boy Retard, shame on you…
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Wow…that’s a strong headline. I guess calling a country stupid because of its government is reason enough.
I wonder what people are saying about the good ‘ol USA…
You should think these things through before you title something so offensive. Perhaps you should stick to your day job as an engineer.
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The Stupidity of Microsoft and RIM, cant add an option for the new Argentina time change.
bluehorseshoe, you know what they call the USA, and its justified.
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I’m a big time reader when it comes to BGR and this headline is too strong. If you wanna stay with your stupidity headline then have it changed “the stupidity of an government” and not “of a country”. The people of the country had no part in the change.
As a blogger you have the freedom of speech but you still need to be more considerate on what you say Jibi. I hope you change the headline.
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He called them stupid because they,
Argentina didnt think this through. Venezuela at least took 6-8 months to study the issue and educate their population as well as give computer companies time to develop patches.
Argentina made the decision to switch to DST on December 21st 2007. Their cutover date was December 31st 2007. Thats 10 days in the middle of Christmas and New Years. Do you really think they had time to educate the population or advise computer companies or businesses that depend on the correct time? How many missed meetings and lost deals do you think will occur in the first month? There was no government study. On top off all that, Argentina is a few degrees off the equator in the north and as such, their days and nights are fairly equal) so daylight savings time buys you little if your day is 12 hours long and your night is 12 hours long. It only makes sense for countries that have a winter in which there are shortened daylight hours. A better decision (had they studied it) would be to make the areas of Argentina that are affected by winter months have DST while the other areas not have it. This is a case of a unilateral government decision that occurred without regard to consequences. So yes, they are stupid.
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@ Luke
I think what everyone here is trying to say is that the ‘government’ made the bad decision, not the ‘country’. The people of the country have nothing to do with the decision. The phrase in the headline of ‘Stupidity of a Country’ was just as stupid as the decision made by their country. Obviously the author didn’t put much thought into his/her writing, thus being just as stupid. Perhaps being more specific would have addressed their intention better regarding getting their point across.
How would you feel being called stupid for something your government has done in err? Many people outside our great nation realize we’re not a dumb country, just lack in a pool of credible and intelligent leaders.
Bad decision…yes. ‘Stupid’ country?…comon’.
Wonder how they’d feel if AT&T said “Stupid Site” and stopped giving them phones, info, and sponsorship to parties and event invites. Stupid author, but do we hold everyone accountable?
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Just a few things:
Presidence of Argentina decided the DST implementation last 12/21, but the congress aproved the new law this 12/26 - only four days before the actual change - congress aproved the law to implement the DST with 191 votes for and only two votes against the change.
They are now three hours behind UTC. After the change, they will be (UTC -2:00).
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I agree that some may find the title of this article to be offensive, however that was not my intent. The government of a country often times represents the country and its people. Actually, the government should be a direct representation of its people. We often hear that "Americans are pompous" or "Americans are stupid" because of the decisions of our government and our pencil-neck President (whom could easily lose on the 5th Grader game show). Anyhow, as far as the United States government being stupid in reference to our DST changes, I would say they weren’t. They passed the law in August 2005 for the changes to be made in March / April 2007. The stupid people with regards to North American DST changes were the American businesses and software vendors oblivious to the changes. Perhaps the only blame that could be placed on the American government would be their failure to properly notify the American public and businesses and the rest of the world. Needless to say, the Argentine government did not only fail in notifying anyone (as of yesterday, "Argentina DST" returned 0 results in Google News), but they also failed to give proper time for planning to those involved with recents points of failure with DST changes.
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There’s no reason that the country is stupid, the government is just a little off, then again look at our brilliant U.S. government.
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Agreed. I changed the post title to reflect that. I guess we need to make Jibster stick to BlackBerry related posts from now on.
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@ carlos
Argentina near the ecuator ???
well… only the north of it… what about Usuahia, the southest city in the world ?
Carlos, I’m from Argentina also but I have to agree that doing this DST thing IN ONE WEEK is really stupid. They should have considered all the changes that have to be made to everything.
Next time do as I did last time and do NOT vote for her…
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The main issue at hand is the lack of time to reprogram many systems over this short time period during the holidays. I understand it is only changing a timezone, but many systems are custom designed, such as those in use by power, telephone, banking, etc… No I am not saying this is going to be a y2k issue, but it will cause errors. How many systems bill things at certain times? I know here in the USA many telco’s have unlimited nites at 9pm. Electric compaines vary rates depending on the time of day. Going deeper into the systems, the interal systems talk to each other and expect to communicate at certain times, hopefully they all go by GMT or UTC time. If you do a quick search of the forums, there are still many issues from the change here in the USA, and we had plenty of time to correct it. I know my bank does all of its end of day processing at 5am EST, would that change? Time will tell, pun intended. How many companies do you think actually started to work on this till the law passed?
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Carlos:
Your arrogant post resembles that of an ignorant jackass as well. Jibi never said the people were ignorant, but rather the government. That jumps off the page in the headline but you elected to be offended before learning the complete facts.
As others have suggested, you might also want to learn a little geography yourself as Buenos Aires is at 34deg 35min South. Fresno California is at 36deg North and they do use DST there.
Fernando appears to have come to the most correct conclusion when he stated that the new president wanted to appear “green friendly.” Let’s face it, stupid politicians who pander to the public to get their votes are the real imbeciles throughout the world because all they want to do is stay in power.
Roberto from Venezuela:
Your ignorant Marxist president is the worst of all stupid dictators. Venezuela, just to be different offset the time by 30 minutes so they are out of step with the remainder of the Western world. Those of us in the mainstream take great offense at the likes of a two-bit dictator like Hugo Chavez.
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Yeh well, many stupid things are being done in Argentina. This one as many others was done thinking only about president’s image which is stupid of course. Your title was also stupid because it’s only goal was to provoke and get attention. You must know What Latin Americans usually think about Americans and you are giving them a reason. You shouldn’t say stupid country nor stupid government. Stupid decision will be enough…
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You should read better. The title says the government is stupid, not the country nor the people.
I’m argentinian and i agree completly with jibi, the desicion taken by our government was stupid, not because of the implementation of DST but for doing it with only 9 days of warning.
Microsoft released DST patches for several time zones early this year, they could have included Argentina to the list if the government had announced earlier this DST imposition.
That would have given time to RIM to release their patches and to us, the IT people, to plan the change a little bit better.
Is there no one in the whole government smart enough as to understand the impact of such a change or do they simply don’t care ?!?
If you ask me, the title could have been “The stupid assholes in the government changed the time and fucked us all”
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@ HomeroArg
Perhaps you should have read the other posts…you’re a bit late on this one. BG changed the title of the headline from ‘country’ to ‘government’. Everyone isn’t disputing the issue with the government, just the label of pooling the rest of the country in with the phrase ’stupid country’.
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Again, the previous title that included ‘Country’ rather than ‘Government’ was not intended to be directed at the persons not involved with the decision. This was stated many times in the article with the descriptive phrases such as “Argentine government” and “government of Argentina”. Honestly, for those who were offended by the title, I apologize. There was no ill-will towards the citizens of Argentina meant with the title.
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