They did that last week.
(Didn’t the US changed it a few years ago from late October to early November because of Halloween?)
cartomancersays
Over here we don’t call it Daylight Savings Time. We call it British Summer Time. Which is a typically British joke, given that summer here tends to happen in two half-weekly installments at random points in the May to September Rainy Season.
But we’re not all stuck in the Bronze Age. We have digital henges for telling the time now and everything.
I’m enjoying the long late spring evenings down under, thank you very much. Early mornings are for squirrel people.
robrosays
I can never remember…is it “Spring forward, Fall back” or “Spring back, Fall forward”? They both make sense to me.
This Washington Post article gives a glimpse into a new book about the practice, Spring Forward, by historian Michael Downing. Apparently, everything was a mess before the passage of the Uniform Time Act of 1966 following the work of “The Committee for Time Uniformity.” I wonder how the Time Lords feel about this.
By the way, the article notes it’s technically “daylight saving time,” not “daylight savings time,” although actual usage would tell us different and my dictionary shows the later as an alternative.
cnocspeireagsays
I rather enjoy the adjustment, it’s a splendid way to mark the change of season. My only moan concerns the appliances. Some cope automatically, like my central heating timer and the computer. The car, oven, microwave, cordless phones et al need to be changed manually, and they all work differently. The car is logical (German) and the oven is intuitive. I have to search out the instructions for everything else.
EigenSprocketUKsays
Obvious fake. Here’s why:
1 – we changed the clocks last week.
2 – English Heritage is responsible for Stonehenge, not the National Trust.
3 – Don’t be silly: they don’t move the stones these days. English Heritage installed a digitally controlled turntable (at great expense to the taxpayer) under the whole henge a few years back.
4 – The Henge was designed from the outset to be calibrated to sidereal time. Because of the way that the Henge stones interact with the ley lines and universal quantums, the turntable actually rotates the rest of the universe around the Henge while the Henge stays where it is. This way, sidereal and solar time can be kept a known distance apart.
5 – This solemn British responsibility each and every Equinox is the real (and ultra-secret) reason we have to leave the EU. All the other reasons you may have heard are just made-up nonsense. In old English, they are known as “bollocx”.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
I get your metaphor of the time change being labor intensive. I have an old dual alarm clock, purchased in ancient history with “green stamps”, that has the problem with corrosion of contacts on the keypad, rendering the keypad non-functional. I need to expose the back of the keypad circuit board, and short out the leads on the back of the keyboard circuit board to pretend I’m pushing the futile buttons on the front in order to change the settings. The rest of the manual changes are relatively quick and easy.
For years I never did it because Indiana didn’t do it. Then Indiana started doing it because of, I dunno, peer pressure and probably business pressure and other stupid reasons, and I still didn’t change my clocks. I just refuse to. So everyone’s about to return to the same time I’m on.
Time in Indiana is all kinds of messed up. I think the state might just be in the center of a time anomaly. Or just stupid. But Indiana as BY FAR the longest article about time on Wikipedia of all US states–most of the other states’ articles just seem like they wanted an article too but hardly had enough information for a full screen…
The US changes it willy-nilly. We find ways to increase the stupid-value of things which are no longer stupid enough for our tastes, it seems.
HidariMaksays
#5 Cnocspeireag
Don’t worry about the cordless phones. Just wait for someone to call one of them, or call them yourself, and the time should be set on its own. At least, that’s the way its been for all the cordless phones I’ve had over the years.
magistramarlasays
I must be one of the few in the world who actually prefers Daylight Saving Time. I rather like it when it is still light when my husband gets home from work. Then, I’m also missing California and Pacific time.
Well, time to settle in for the long, dark winter.
davidc1says
During the war,my mum said they had double summer time ,still light at Eleven o’clock in the evening .
Family lore has it that one change over time my dad and three older brothers each changed the time on the living room clock
when they came in at various times during the wee hours.
When are we going to straighten out the earth’s axis and fix the problem once and for all?
I wish the sun rose at the same time all year long. Sunrise should trigger my waking cycle.
Rich Woodssays
@robro #4:
I wonder how the Time Lords feel about this.
People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint – it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly… time-y wimey… stuff.
chigau (違う)says
If that thing we in NAm are switching off tonight is SavingTime,
are we now switching on WastingTime?
chigau (違う)says
Nerd #7
Have you considered just tossing the “green stamp” clock?
methuseussays
@magistramarla #12:
I must be one of the few in the world who actually prefers Daylight Saving Time. I rather like it when it is still light when my husband gets home from work. Then, I’m also missing California and Pacific time.
I’ve never had a job where daylight saving time changed whether I left or got home during a different period of light or darkness, so that has never affected me. The big problem is the changing of time; the issues in changing it cost the world billions every single time change, IIRC. There are increased numbers of accidents, work productivity suffers for at least a week every change, and it just screws with your circadian rhythms to have the time change so rapidly over a single night. It’s like jet lag twice a year for everyone and makes no sense.
methuseussays
Oh, and another thing, since a good number of jobs in today’s world don’t rely on time that much any more, why can’t we just make it work in such a way that people can get off and have daylight after they finish work?
Add me to the list of people who like Daylight Saving. Up here in Canada it makes a real difference in the amount of daylight you see.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Chigau #17 I bought a replacement a couple of years ago when the old clock was acting a bit strange. Then it behaved again. I have both on the telephone stand, and the new one is on the lower shelf. Handy, as the shelf is at bed level, and I can see the clock without needing to raise my head. I can see the old unit easily from the room, but not the one on the lower shelf.
Thomas Scottsays
Wouldn’t it be easier to just shif the Greenwich Mean?
erik333says
As a shift worker of many years, i can but respond till the whining about changing the clock one hour every six months with a derisive sneer.
Massachusetts is considering switching to Daylight Saving Time year-round, or (more accurately) adopting Atlantic Standard Time year-round.
I’d like that. We’re too far east to be in Eastern time. But it probably won’t happen unless several other states do the same thing — probably all of New England.
ColonelZensays
Think about the poor physicists. They’ve got to change the time twice a year for the whole universe, not to mention calculating relativistic exceptions for a-hole places like Indana, Those zig-zagging TZ lines wreak havoc in the Tensor equations!
DST doesn’t even save on electricity costs, which was the ostensible reason for implementing it.
“Daylight Saving Time could be causing increased electricity sales in the U.S. in the residential sector. Using the natural variation in sunrise times across a time zone, this analysis estimates that without DST during April through October, the U.S. could save 95.8 million MWh of electricity a year…. If the U.S.’s primary aim is to reduce electricity use, and therefore minimize greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, and reliance on foreign natural resources, the implementation of DST needs to be reexamined.” (my daughter’s econ thesis)
kevskossays
Living in AZ we don’t bother with the silly change time twice a year thing.
magistramarlasays
Well, I find it terribly depressing that it is so dark by dinner time. I definitely hate this time change.
Colin Jsays
robro #4:
I can never remember…is it “Spring forward, Fall back” or “Spring back, Fall forward”? They both make sense to me.
Over here we “Autumn back” and that makes no sense at all.
cnocspeireag #5:
I also enjoy making the adjustment, but this year was the first time that everything in my house adjusted itself automatically. It felt very strange – I wasn’t sure if the change had actually happened.
I’m another daylight saving fan. I love summer time and being able to get home before dark – particularly if I’m riding my bicycle. I think we should have summer time all year round.
Lonely Panda, e.s.l.says
robro #4:
I can never remember…is it “Spring forward, Fall back” or “Spring back, Fall forward”? They both make sense to me.
I solve that problem by switching to Central Standard Time in the fall and Mountain Daylight Time in the spring. Even my old fashioned analog clocks can do this automatically so I never have to remember which way to change them.
Chakat Firepawsays
@methuseus #18
IIRC. There are increased numbers of accidents,
While there is a spike in the number of accidents immediately after the change, there is a reduction in the number of accidents over the summer. This is primarily due to there being much more traffic 6-9 hours after noon, (latter part of afternoon rush hour plus people going somewhere in the evening), than 6-9 hours before noon, (generally before rush hour and minimal other activities going on).
In general, the arguments against using DST are based on the problems it causes in the week or two after it changes. The benefits are of a much smaller magnitude but continue for months.
They did that last week.
(Didn’t the US changed it a few years ago from late October to early November because of Halloween?)
Over here we don’t call it Daylight Savings Time. We call it British Summer Time. Which is a typically British joke, given that summer here tends to happen in two half-weekly installments at random points in the May to September Rainy Season.
But we’re not all stuck in the Bronze Age. We have digital henges for telling the time now and everything.
I’m enjoying the long late spring evenings down under, thank you very much. Early mornings are for squirrel people.
I can never remember…is it “Spring forward, Fall back” or “Spring back, Fall forward”? They both make sense to me.
This Washington Post article gives a glimpse into a new book about the practice, Spring Forward, by historian Michael Downing. Apparently, everything was a mess before the passage of the Uniform Time Act of 1966 following the work of “The Committee for Time Uniformity.” I wonder how the Time Lords feel about this.
By the way, the article notes it’s technically “daylight saving time,” not “daylight savings time,” although actual usage would tell us different and my dictionary shows the later as an alternative.
I rather enjoy the adjustment, it’s a splendid way to mark the change of season. My only moan concerns the appliances. Some cope automatically, like my central heating timer and the computer. The car, oven, microwave, cordless phones et al need to be changed manually, and they all work differently. The car is logical (German) and the oven is intuitive. I have to search out the instructions for everything else.
Obvious fake. Here’s why:
1 – we changed the clocks last week.
2 – English Heritage is responsible for Stonehenge, not the National Trust.
3 – Don’t be silly: they don’t move the stones these days. English Heritage installed a digitally controlled turntable (at great expense to the taxpayer) under the whole henge a few years back.
4 – The Henge was designed from the outset to be calibrated to sidereal time. Because of the way that the Henge stones interact with the ley lines and universal quantums, the turntable actually rotates the rest of the universe around the Henge while the Henge stays where it is. This way, sidereal and solar time can be kept a known distance apart.
5 – This solemn British responsibility each and every Equinox is the real (and ultra-secret) reason we have to leave the EU. All the other reasons you may have heard are just made-up nonsense. In old English, they are known as “bollocx”.
I get your metaphor of the time change being labor intensive. I have an old dual alarm clock, purchased in ancient history with “green stamps”, that has the problem with corrosion of contacts on the keypad, rendering the keypad non-functional. I need to expose the back of the keypad circuit board, and short out the leads on the back of the keyboard circuit board to pretend I’m pushing the futile buttons on the front in order to change the settings. The rest of the manual changes are relatively quick and easy.
#7 Nerd:
S&H Green Stamps! Wow, I had forgotten about that, I remember them now from childhood.
For years I never did it because Indiana didn’t do it. Then Indiana started doing it because of, I dunno, peer pressure and probably business pressure and other stupid reasons, and I still didn’t change my clocks. I just refuse to. So everyone’s about to return to the same time I’m on.
Time in Indiana is all kinds of messed up. I think the state might just be in the center of a time anomaly. Or just stupid. But Indiana as BY FAR the longest article about time on Wikipedia of all US states–most of the other states’ articles just seem like they wanted an article too but hardly had enough information for a full screen…
ospalh
The US changes it willy-nilly. We find ways to increase the stupid-value of things which are no longer stupid enough for our tastes, it seems.
#5 Cnocspeireag
Don’t worry about the cordless phones. Just wait for someone to call one of them, or call them yourself, and the time should be set on its own. At least, that’s the way its been for all the cordless phones I’ve had over the years.
I must be one of the few in the world who actually prefers Daylight Saving Time. I rather like it when it is still light when my husband gets home from work. Then, I’m also missing California and Pacific time.
Well, time to settle in for the long, dark winter.
During the war,my mum said they had double summer time ,still light at Eleven o’clock in the evening .
Family lore has it that one change over time my dad and three older brothers each changed the time on the living room clock
when they came in at various times during the wee hours.
When are we going to straighten out the earth’s axis and fix the problem once and for all?
I wish the sun rose at the same time all year long. Sunrise should trigger my waking cycle.
@robro #4:
People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint – it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly… time-y wimey… stuff.
If that thing we in NAm are switching off tonight is ,
are we now switching on ?
Nerd #7
Have you considered just tossing the “green stamp” clock?
@magistramarla #12:
I’ve never had a job where daylight saving time changed whether I left or got home during a different period of light or darkness, so that has never affected me. The big problem is the changing of time; the issues in changing it cost the world billions every single time change, IIRC. There are increased numbers of accidents, work productivity suffers for at least a week every change, and it just screws with your circadian rhythms to have the time change so rapidly over a single night. It’s like jet lag twice a year for everyone and makes no sense.
Oh, and another thing, since a good number of jobs in today’s world don’t rely on time that much any more, why can’t we just make it work in such a way that people can get off and have daylight after they finish work?
Add me to the list of people who like Daylight Saving. Up here in Canada it makes a real difference in the amount of daylight you see.
Chigau #17 I bought a replacement a couple of years ago when the old clock was acting a bit strange. Then it behaved again. I have both on the telephone stand, and the new one is on the lower shelf. Handy, as the shelf is at bed level, and I can see the clock without needing to raise my head. I can see the old unit easily from the room, but not the one on the lower shelf.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just shif the Greenwich Mean?
As a shift worker of many years, i can but respond till the whining about changing the clock one hour every six months with a derisive sneer.
Lofty @3:
O.o
Massachusetts is considering switching to Daylight Saving Time year-round, or (more accurately) adopting Atlantic Standard Time year-round.
I’d like that. We’re too far east to be in Eastern time. But it probably won’t happen unless several other states do the same thing — probably all of New England.
Think about the poor physicists. They’ve got to change the time twice a year for the whole universe, not to mention calculating relativistic exceptions for a-hole places like Indana, Those zig-zagging TZ lines wreak havoc in the Tensor equations!
DST doesn’t even save on electricity costs, which was the ostensible reason for implementing it.
“Daylight Saving Time could be causing increased electricity sales in the U.S. in the residential sector. Using the natural variation in sunrise times across a time zone, this analysis estimates that without DST during April through October, the U.S. could save 95.8 million MWh of electricity a year…. If the U.S.’s primary aim is to reduce electricity use, and therefore minimize greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, and reliance on foreign natural resources, the implementation of DST needs to be reexamined.” (my daughter’s econ thesis)
Living in AZ we don’t bother with the silly change time twice a year thing.
Well, I find it terribly depressing that it is so dark by dinner time. I definitely hate this time change.
robro #4:
Over here we “Autumn back” and that makes no sense at all.
cnocspeireag #5:
I also enjoy making the adjustment, but this year was the first time that everything in my house adjusted itself automatically. It felt very strange – I wasn’t sure if the change had actually happened.
I’m another daylight saving fan. I love summer time and being able to get home before dark – particularly if I’m riding my bicycle. I think we should have summer time all year round.
robro #4:
I solve that problem by switching to Central Standard Time in the fall and Mountain Daylight Time in the spring. Even my old fashioned analog clocks can do this automatically so I never have to remember which way to change them.
@methuseus #18
While there is a spike in the number of accidents immediately after the change, there is a reduction in the number of accidents over the summer. This is primarily due to there being much more traffic 6-9 hours after noon, (latter part of afternoon rush hour plus people going somewhere in the evening), than 6-9 hours before noon, (generally before rush hour and minimal other activities going on).
In general, the arguments against using DST are based on the problems it causes in the week or two after it changes. The benefits are of a much smaller magnitude but continue for months.