title: Java date issues in linux
body: <p>OK, very bizarre issue here, can't seem to find much on it searching through here or in google.</p>
  
  <p>I have a bot running on an IRC channel. Initially, I run it from my home PC (Windows) and it worked with no issues.
  Now I have moved it to a VPS (Linux) and find that it's not reporting dates correctly.</p>
  
  <p>The VPS has the date set correctly:</p>
  
  <pre><code>bot@vps:~/bot$ date
  Fri Jun 24 13:05:23 WST 2011
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The bot has two time functions, one simply returns the time and one is a reminder system.
  Both use System.currentTimeMillis(). Both report the time wrong;</p>
  
  <pre><code>[13:10:00] ( mynick) !time
  [13:10:00] ( botnick) mynick: The time is now Thu Jun 23 21:10:00
                   GMT-08:00 2011
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>or:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[13:20:19] ( mynick) remind me in 1 minute test
  [13:20:19] ( botnick) bmynick: Okay, I'll remind you about that on Thu Jun
                   23 21:21:19 GMT-08:00 2011
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So it seems it's finding the system time as GMT-8, but I have no idea why? Any suggestions?</p>
  
  <p>Edit: Forced the Java time zone and it now reports correctly, so it seems to be something to do with the JVM</p>