How do you figure out SL time?

OK, I'm feeling really stupid - but I keep missing these cool events because I can't figure out what time it is in SL. Is there a clock or something I can buy? Or some way to calculate it based on RL time?

Thanks!

SL time is pacific standard time. So if it's 3 o'clock in California,it's 3 o'clock in SL.

On the upper right hand corner of your screen in SecondLife, to the left of your L$ total, should be the SL time. Figure out how many time zones it is away from where you live. You can also figure it out by viewing it as PACIFIC time.

OK, I'm wondering how much you all are laughing if you thought I couldn't figure out my timezone - I did sort of lead you to believe that though. LOL!

I was confused about SL time because frequently the invites come out as "event at 1:00pm SL time." From what you are saying they are just referring to the PST time posted by the Lindens and calling that SL time - there is no separate SL time that I've been missing for the last 9 months, other than the sunrise and sunset that is...

Yep, that's right!

Day and night run differently, though: 4 hours day, 2 hours night.

The time in SL is shown in the right-hand top corner of your screen in-world, and yes that equates to SF time.
What really does my head in is getting saved group notices about live music events. I can never quite work out whether the timestamp in the message is SL time or my time. Totally confusing.

Thankfully one of my favourite groups stipulate British Summer Time here

You can buy a clock which displays various times ... I keep meaning to put mine up tbh. Not for my benefit (the company I work for runs on PST) but for other's benefit who are not in the UK and are never sure what time of day or night it is here. And, subsequently, when I am about to leave home for work they wish me a nice sleep and make me CRY cos I wish they were right!

Heh! Imagine if they were to use GMT - Greenwich Mean Time! Most folks in the USA would go nuts trying to figure that out.

OK .. gonna start me a flame war!!

Look at any world timezone map .. even Windows Clock setting dropdown .. and everywhere is related as plus or minus GMT.

/me puts on tin hat and runs away.

No problem here...I am used to using GMT +7 or +8...Career Military guy!

Many of us still refer to it as SL time, because that's what LL called it, up until around a year or so ago? Then they changed the label on the clock to PST/PDT as appropriate.

I wouldn't mind using GMT/UST, I'm used to dealing with it at work.

Note for people whose states or countries don't screw with the clock twice annualy, yes I'm looking at you Thailand and most of Arizona: SL time is PST (UTC- except for some summer months when it is PDT (UTC-7) with the dates of change to be changed by the US congress at whim.

Regardless, the clock on the top bar is always definitive. You just can't always know when it will shift an hour on on you.

Gory details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_around_the_world

In the Nineteenth century, England established GMT because they thought the world revolved around them.

In 2002, Linden Lab established LST for the same reason.

You might be able to handle UTC; I'm not sure they could.

when Daylight Savings time ends? SL time is currently PDT, will it change by an hour?

I wish they would just use GMT, which never changes.

From Wikipedia: "Beginning in 2007, DST begins on the second Sunday in March at 2 AM (March 11, 2007), three weeks earlier than before. The time is changed back to standard on the first Sunday of November (November 4, 2007)."

Yes, it will change by an hour. You can remember the direction with "spring forward, fall back", so at 2 am on November 4th, clocks will roll back to 1 am. SL Time will then go from UTC-7 to UTC-8.

Isn't this an oxymoron?

How do I figure out SLT? Easy, I look at my clock. I'm fortunate enough to live in California.

Changing it to GMT makes much more sense to me, but for my sake I hope they never do. Guess I'm selfish that way.

Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the .... /me waving flag

Umm, nooo .. more a distant memory.

I know the number of hours difference but sometimes I add rather than subtract. Or is it subtract rather than add?

I'm going to start wearing two watches.

That would actually make sense for a platform that's aiming to be the 3D web. Any service aimed at a global audience should be using coordinated universal time (UTC) which is the same as GMT.

NTP servers on the WWW use UTC.
UTC is used in aviation to avoid confusion over time zones.

Perfect then for an environment like SL where people are always getting confused about the time!

The time next to the clock used to read SLT (Standard Linden Time) but they changed that to avoid confusion about the abbreviation that didn't really exist. So now people wonder what SL time means. Nice one LL!

My RL time - 3 hours

They're in California.....don't confuse them any more than they already are.

Wouldn't it be more correct to reverse it and say "SL time is PDT (UTC-7) except for some winter months when it is PST (UTC-" ?

PDT is used for almost 8 months (second Sunday in March to first Sunday in November) of the year and PST for the remaining 4 months

We used to pretend that Second Life was a world, so we had our own time, Second Life time.

Now we don't. I suppose we've grown out of such pleasant foolishness.