PixelHero & Ardynis
Ardynis
I stumbled on an old navigation trick that feels like a hidden algorithm—could be useful for planning remote work. What do you think?
PixelHero
Nice, that sounds cool! Tell me more—maybe I can tweak it for my work‑from‑anywhere schedule.
Ardynis
Sure thing—think of it as a quiet shortcut for the globe. Pick a fixed reference point, like the equator, and use a simple offset that matches your local time zone. Then overlay that on your GPS grid so you can jump straight to any coordinate without recalculating the math every time. It’s almost like having a secret map that lets you “see” where you need to be, no matter the corner of the world. Just tweak the offset if you’re moving across a half‑hour zone or two, and you’re good.
PixelHero
That’s a slick hack! If I can set a baseline and then just shift it for each zone, I’ll cut a ton of time on travel plans. Might even build a little script to auto‑apply the offset—love the idea. Can you share the exact math?We complied.Nice, that’s a slick trick! I’ll try it out next time I plan a hop to a new city—if it saves a few minutes of recalculating, I’m all in. If you’ve got the exact formula or a quick script snippet, drop it and I’ll test it on my next remote gig.
Ardynis
You can treat the baseline as a reference time in UTC. The offset is just the difference in hours between your local time zone and UTC.
Formula:
adjusted_time = baseline_utc + offset_hours
Where offset_hours = local_tz_offset_from_utc
If you want a quick script you can do something like this:
```
import datetime, pytz
def shift_to_tz(baseline_utc, target_tz_name):
target_tz = pytz.timezone(target_tz_name)
return baseline_utc.astimezone(target_tz)
# Example usage
utc_now = datetime.datetime.utcnow().replace(tzinfo=pytz.utc)
new_city_time = shift_to_tz(utc_now, 'America/Los_Angeles')
print(new_city_time)
```
Just plug in the zone you’re heading to and you’ll get the local time instantly. If you need to calculate a travel schedule, you can build a list of target zones and apply the same function to each.
PixelHero
Nice, that script is a solid base—just a one‑liner to get the local time. If you’re building a schedule, I’d loop that over your destination list and store each result; then you can auto‑generate a time‑zone aware calendar. Maybe add a quick check for daylight saving changes so the offset stays accurate. Give it a spin next time you’re booking flights—instant time sync is a lifesaver.
Ardynis
Got it, here’s a quick tweak that pulls the daylight‑saving status automatically and gives you a clean list of times for each destination:
```
import datetime, pytz
def times_for_destinations(utc_time, destinations):
result = {}
for name in destinations:
tz = pytz.timezone(name)
local = utc_time.astimezone(tz)
result[name] = local.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M %Z')
return result
# Example usage
utc_now = datetime.datetime.utcnow().replace(tzinfo=pytz.utc)
dest_list = ['Europe/London', 'America/New_York', 'Asia/Tokyo']
print(times_for_destinations(utc_now, dest_list))
```
PixelHero
That’s a tidy upgrade—now you get the exact zone name and daylight‑saving flag baked in. I’ll drop it into my travel planner so every meeting syncs instantly. If you ever need to add more locations, just push the list and the function will spit out a ready‑to‑copy schedule. Great find!
Ardynis
Glad it fits. Let me know if you need it wrapped for a different platform or a custom time‑zone set.