Happy New Year's...again

Discussion
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Nearing New Year’s Eve here in the US, I was looking at some facts I thought would be interesting to share. Some of you may already know about these, but I did not.

Three Steps for Three Midnights in Australia
Where can you go to celebrate the most in a single day? A good strategy is to make your way Down Under, to the border of three Australian states, where three different time zones come together at a tiny dot on the map called Cameron Corner.

This dusty, 2-person outback settlement straddles New South Wales (UTC+11), South Australia (UTC +10.30), and Queensland (UTC +10). So a three-pronged New Year’s celebration can be as simple as taking up a position on the Corner Post, a survey marker in the desert, and stepping from state to state as midnight rolls through the three time zones—half an hour apart.

An Icy Stroll Back in Time in Scandinavia

If Australia is a bit out of reach, another option is to base yourself on the Finnish/Swedish border in the arctic Finnish town of Kaaresuvanto, which becomes the Swedish village of Karesuando once you take the short walk over the bridge spanning the Muonio River.

Illustration image

Crossing the Muonio river from Finland to Sweden means changing nations and time zones.

©iStockphoto.com/Francesca Maria Costantino

The waterway dividing the two communities also represents a border of time zones. So New Year’s Day happens first on the Finnish side, in the UTC +2 time zone. You could pop the champagne at midnight there, bundle up, make the frozen trek across the bridge to the Swedish side of the town in the UTC +1 zone, and witness the New Year born again an hour later.

South Pacific Celebration

To give yourself even more time to party, recover, and celebrate once more, try enjoying New Year’s Eve on the green Isle of Majuro in Micronesia. Then, on the morning of January 1, board a flight to Honolulu, Hawaii. This five-hour journey crosses the International Date Line and arrives some 17 hours before you took off, local time. So you would have plenty of time to charge up for a second chance to revel at the stroke of midnight in the Hawaiian capital.

Happy New Year to everyone, everywhere! :smile:

Sheila Flanagan

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Love it.
When I was young, I worked in Far Western NSW, at a remote
research station.
The time zone issue is real there. You have to think before
phoning anywhere not local.
It is a beautiful place, unique vegetation and animals and a desert-like climate… hot days and cold nights.
The people there are very aware of the problems of isolation
and community self support is always a priority. It can even be a matter of life and death.
I loved my time there and it made a lifetime impact on the way
I view things.

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Awesome. I could not believe the “Corner Post” was real.

Sheila

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Happy NY to you Sheila - I didn’t realise you were in the US - so when you visit your mum - you have to fly to Ireland?

Both South Australia, and Western Australia, have two time zones each - or maybe not? I forget - but WA does have two timezones, one’s called “Eucla” which is 30 minutes ahead of Perth. Perth is GMT+8 and same timezone as Irkutsk in Russia, on Lake Baikal, and the capital of Mongolia Ulaanbataar…

I had an “interesting” experience as a child, sailing across the Pacific, from Sydney to Wellington NZ, then we didn’t touch land for 14 days (at Punta Arenas in Chile - the harbour wasn’t deep enough for our “boat” [The Achille Lauro - which is kinda “famous” as it was hijacked in the late 80’s off Alexandria Egypt] - so we had to get flat bottomed cattle barges to the shore - and when I got off [I was 8 but remember it distinctly] I couldn’t find my land legs!) - anyway - I digress - the boat was Italian, and the only mass on the boat on Sundays, was Catholic, and I was raised a catholic, and my Dad insisted we attend mass every Sunday. I DETESTED it - I was even an altar boy (not on this boat though), which was slightly better than being in the congregation - but I still hated it - “altar boy” duties entailed going to mass TWICE a week, when ONCE was too much for me.

Anyway - we crossed the international date line on a Sunday, so the following day was a Sunday - and we (me and my two brothers - for some strange reason - our youngest sibling, a sister, LOVED mass) had to go to F–KING MASS two days in a row! Me and my youngest brother still talk/email about how much we hated mass (sadly my next brother - Ben, passed away in 2014, and this NYE marks 10 years since the last time we spent NYE together - and it’s now my favourite NYE).

I should note - we were just about the only Anglo-Irish family on that boat - nearly everyone else was of Italian heritage - some born in Italy, some 2 or 3 generations Australian/Italian - they were “returning” to Italy to catch up with relatives. Australia is one of the few countries to have “long service leave” - 3 months paid leave - this was mostly to keep many immigrant workers employed after 10 years (and in state service, after 7 years) - so they could return to the “old country” for an extended visit - which was important when a boat trip to Europe took a month or more… Now with jumbos and massive airbus, the point is moot - it’s a tad over 24 hours away - but - the 3 month break still applies after 10 years service in the Commonwealth (and after 7 years for most state government employees - and - employees in general in most jurisdictions) .

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I see what you did there :smile:

I can’t imagine arriving somewhere before I left by a whole day. I have always wanted to visit the Great Barrier Reef, but only by boat, as I HATE flying and could never travel that far in a plane. My cruising trips have never extended beyond a week.

I guess I don’t remember that hijacking event, but quickly read the history and how the US military was involved in bringing them down once they were airborne.

What is strange to me is the time zone differences of 30 min. All time zones in the US are based on +/- 1 hour. So I just assumed all countries were the same.

Thanks,

Sheila Flanagan

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Sat here waiting for the new year to arrive, my wife insists we stay up till midnight to see it in, i tried to suggest that its already passed in Australia so we should just celebrate that and have a drink for everybody there.
Like a child something magical happens at midnight… very much doubt it, perhpas i am just getting old

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Yes, here on the east coast of the US. I will be up at mid-night. Some 8 hours from now.

2024

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The sun is on the opposite side of earth to you, so its gravity increases the Earth’s pull, and you feel heavy.
In the northern hemisphere midnight on New Years Eve is also
close to the middle of the longest night of the year ( actually
Dec 21-23), so Christmas Eve is actually closer.

So we should feel very down, but we celebrate instead.
The situation can only improve from here.

In Australia , of course, it is is close to the shortest night.

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Still 6 hours to go. I might need a nap 1757L, Pacific Time Zone.

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I guess it’s new year almost everywhere now… so wish you all a very happy and ‘foss-y’ new year :partying_face:

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Thanks a lot @abhishek :heart:

The same to you and your family.

In fact a happy, successful and above all: healthy New Year to all ITSFOSS members and their families.

God bless you.

Many greetings from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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2024 has so far - been garbage for internet access… I’m just glad I’m not working this week - because I’m typing this right now tethered to my phone’s 3G/4G…

About 1:45 am on Monday morning (i.e. 01/01/2024) my internet dropped out for a couple of hours - that’s mostly “fine” as nobody’s using it.

But when it re-connected it was about 10 Mbps down (normally ~33, and I’m paying for 50!) - and it stayed that way ALL day.

I persevered with it - no point logging a ticket with my shonky ISP (#MATE #LETSBEMATES) - their stock response is almost a word for word paraphrasing of Roy from “The IT Crowd” : “Hello IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?”…

This in mind, knowing when this happens, it won’t connect to my Dodgy Brothers VDSL (mongrel crossbreed of copper to a shared “node” then fibre after that) after a power cycle, I did it anyway - about 5:30 am - and sure enough - it won’t connect via VDSL!

So I logged my ticket :

YES I HAVE TRIED TURNING IT OFF AND ON AGAIN!
YES I HAVE TRIED A DIFFERENT PHONE LINE CABLE!

(NO! I don’t have a security system on the same phone line circuit! NO! I’m not going to try another phone outlet in the house!)

Seriously considering going back to Telstra (haven’t used them as my broadband ISP since 2001/2002 - when they were the ONLY ISP I could get ADSL from). Mainly because my current ISP expects me to jump through hoops before they’ll even bother to escalate to the “owner” of my copper wire (Telstra) - they have NEVER EVER EVER engaged Telstra to find out why my line can only do 33 mbps).

Previously when I was just ADSL+/2 - with iiNet - at least iiNet would escalate to Telstra if there was an issue that seemed “copper related”. But I got fed up of iiNet (mostly because they tanked when TPG took them over) - so went from ADSL with iiNet to NBN VDSL with #MATE.

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Is it weather related? If it’s wet maybe that affects the copper lines. Just a guess.

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Hardly likely - it’s summer, we have a Mediterranean climate in Perth, I still remember geography lessons “wet, westerly, winds in winter” (and the opposite true of summar, i.e. dry (i.e. hot) easterly (blowing in from the desert and parched inland) winds in summer…

Similar happened in early December - speed dropped down to 1/5 of what it should be - so I logged a ticket. They replied “please turn off your router, wait for 30 seconds, then power it back on” - and naturally enough - it took HOURS to re-connect to my VDSL…

This happened about 2:45 am on 01/01/2024 - i.e. it was fine at 1:45 am, stayed down for 2-3 hours - then came backup at vastly reduced speed.

I have a Pi4 next to my router, that logs my speed every hour on 45 minutes past the hour (via cron) :

20231231-2345,beereberry,33.21,2.93,X.X.X.153
20240101-0045,beereberry,34.45,3.07,X.X.X.153
20240101-0145,beereberry,34.45,2.88,X.X.X.153
20240101-0245,beereberry,,,
20240101-0345,beereberry,,,
20240101-0445,beereberry,15.90,0.78,X.X.X.32
20240101-0545,beereberry,11.51,0.78,X.X.X.32
20240101-0645,beereberry,15.37,0.94,X.X.X.32

The Pi4 is called “beereberry”… When 02:45 rolled around, it couldn’t run a speedtest-cli and my external IP address was “null”…

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Telstra are the same.
They upgraded to an app instead of phone calls, but now the app asks you to unplug things
and
Their app only works on recent versions of Android… on my
wifes phone , but not on my phone.
Can you get fixed wireless… it is better than landlines.

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My reason for Telstra is they own the infrastructure - the copper, my link to the “fibre connected nodule” - that’s where the issue is - so if my ISP also owns my copper, they cannot “pass the buck” like my current ISP does…

Personally - I’m fed up of all this privatization bullshit of infrastructure… Telstra should NEVER have been privatised, and the constant mantra “competition is good” - my arse it is. Soon as you sell off a public assett, it’s profit driven, not SERVICE driven - and when they can’t increase prices, they’re reducing services to cut operating costs.

Fortunately here in Western Australia, successive governments only managed to sell off the gas network that was state owned (statewide, ALL household electricity is still state owned)…

And they privatized household gas? It’s still owned by “Alinta” (the pipes) - but - to be competitive, they’re also a wholesaler, i.e. you can have some other company read your meter and send you the bills - but WHAT’S THE POINT! Alinta are delivering the gas and they own the pipes - too many middlemen!

This is how you get the disastrous state of energy grids on the Eastern seaboard of this country : privatization.

ALL vital infrastructure, water, sewerage, electricity, gas, telecommunications, health, education, emergency services, should be publically owned. The Victorian state government (Jeff Kennett I think) - in the 1990’s decided to outsource emergency call receival - and it was built down to the lowest cost, and PEOPLE ACTUALLY DIED because of that!

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Agree 100%
We have been Telstra for as long as it existed.

There are clashes at the moment between Telstra and Optus.
If I ring my sister , who is Optus, there is an automatic cutoff after 15 mins. If my sister rings me, there is no cutoff.
Why?

Yeah, stay with the owner of the cables.

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Hopefully it’s not too late, as we have still 364 days left…
I whish a very happy and successful 2024 to all of you!

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Oh man!
IT Crowd comes to my mind again. I should look up the video part of that “ansering machine” :rofl:

Oh yes: https://youtu.be/5UT8RkSmN4k?t=19
:smiley:

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True story - mentioned elsewhere - I used to work in IT in a big hospital - I was also on an on-call roster… Got a call one weekend evening from a nurse in the ED (emergency dept) her printer wasn’t printing - I asked her to try power-cycling it or pulling the power cord out and plugging it back in, “Not my job!” was her response.

So - I drove out there (40-60 minutes each way) and powercycled the printer (HP with onboard JetDirect) then drove home.

Double time, 4 hour minimum…

And - it was dead quiet in that part of the ED - so it’s not like she was flat out attending to urgent medical cases… I think it must have been like 2 am on a Monday morning maybe (still classed as Sunday for overtime purposes). Can’t really say I blame her - but - surely flipping a power button isn’t too much to ask?

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