[conspire] "Time zones exist to make programmers' lives miserable" ...

[Fred Brockman]

Question from the peanut gallery:

I understand there are about a gazillion different time zones in the 
world, offset by minutes or hours not to mention seasonal shifts.

Is there such a thing as simple generic time zones, i.e., from GMT 
there are 24 zones incrementing by an hour each time going around the 
world? Do these zones have generic names?

I'm guessing from the Americas/Ottawa discussion it would be northern 
hemisphere centric and geographically based names. No doubt something 
like PST, MST, CST, EST would not have any kind  of chance.

Just thinking a generic name would give you a vague clue about which 
temporal ballpark you're in for those of us *not* trying to be there 
promptly at 5:00 PM.