Australian Central Western Standard Time 2024 Oct 30
This time zone is an obnoxious UTC+8:45 (yes, really) and covers a tiny and nearly-uninhabited strip along Western Australia's southeastern-most coast. But not entirely uninhabited, clearly, or else why exist? So for these few hundred people, they live in a world where their clocks are 15 minutes off the hour.

Perhaps this is less a weird time zone, and more a community staunchly holding out against the idea of time zones in the first place, back when each community set their own local noon and inter-state commerce just happened when it happened.

Why are clocks in India thirty minutes off? 2024 Oct 25
Non-integer timezones aren't unheard of, but all of India being on India Standard Time five-and-a-half hours ahead of UTC is certainly the largest example. How this happened is steeped, apparently, in the history of Britain's colonial past, the East India Company which dominated affairs on the subcontinent during the dawn of timezones, and the railroads which dominated affairs in the East India Company's administration. Why India has stayed on this unusual timezone, well, that's because it's become something of a national pride. There was a proposal recently to add a second timezone to India, however. It stemmed from those in India's far east having clocks that don't closely match the rise and fall of the sun. The proposed solution was to introduce a second timezone which was UTC+6.5.

It was shot down for "strategic reasons."

Exploring 120 years of timezones 2024 Oct 15
This article puts to graphs what 120 years of changing timezones look like. From the origination of them, to the alignment of them onto the integer adjustments off Greenwich Mean Time, to the adoption and then gradual rejection of Daylight Savings Time. Kinda fascinating.

The Oddness of February 2024 Mar 5
While we went through our annual wondering why February was so short and I was content to settle for half an answer, Conversable Economist Timothy Taylor was not. Read his blog for the full discussion, but the meat I've neatly copy/pasted here, a quote from a quote, originating (I believe) from Dartmouth professor Paul Calter in 1998, from a Geometry course syllabus:

Odd numbers were considered masculine; even numbers feminine because they are weaker than the odd. When divided they have, unlike the odd, nothing in the center. Further, the odds are the master, because odd + even always give odd. And two evens can never produce an odd, while two odds produce an even. Since the birth of a son was considered more fortunate than birth of a daughter, odd numbers became associated with good luck.

Why does February have only 28 days? 2024 Feb 28
This recent BBC article about the history of our calendar slips into its middle an answer to a question that's long plagued my brain: why is February so short? Why not pluck some of those 31st days off two other months and donate them to February? The article explains: the answer lies in Roman superstition around generally avoiding even numbers and wanting to end their year (in February) on an even number to concentrate all the bad luck onto one spot or something. Roman mysticism always confounds me – every answer just leads to more questions – so simply knowing that this stems from their religious belief is enough of an answer to satisfy me.