memcmp() is unfortunately not guaranteed to read forward byte-by-byte,
which means that the clever use as a strncmp() without the pointless
strlen()s is not permitted, and can actually misbehave with
SSE-optimized string functions.
so implement proper equals() and starts_with() functions. as a bonus,
the calls are less cryptic.
the global timezone variable is glibc-specific.
so use timegm() instead of mktime() for the conversion.
as that is specific to the BSDs and glibc, provide a fallback.
amends 62a6099.