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Daylight Savings Change Proposed
AveryRegier writes "CNN is reporting that Congress has added an amendment to the Energy Bill to extend daylight-savings time by two months. They expect to "save the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day." How long it would take for the associated energy savings to overcome the cost to make, test, and deploy the necessary code changes? How would the cost of this change compare with Y2K? Does most date routines' reliance on GMT make this just an issue of presenting the right time to the user?"
The problem with standard time in the summer is that the sun rises before anybody is up (like 4 AM) and some daylight in the morning is just wasted. Daylight savings time moves dawn back to 5 AM and gives you an extra hour of daylight in the evening.
You probably see where I'm going with this: who in their right mind is actually awake at 5 AM to enjoy the daylight?????
Daylight savings time should move the day another five hours or so. Imagine if the sun were just coming up as I started thinking about getting out of bed by 10. At 11 or so it would have fully roused me and I could get up and enjoy the full day. At 2 or 3 in the morning the sun would be setting just as I was starting to grow weary of my hacking and start thinking about going to bed. I -- along with most other similarly minded geeks -- would be ever so much more productive.
Of course some of you might complain about the extra screen glare, claim that you don't get any natural light in your basement anyway, or state that you just plain dislike that burning yellow eye in the sky.
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Rate Exchange Calculator and Currency Convertor
This will be programmer's bread and butter. Go ahead congress!
Does anybody know any FORTRAN or COBOL hackers for some contract work?
I'm sure some environmentalist will quickly decry this because of the negative impact it will have on wildlife...
With them being exposed to more light each day and all.
Because we are the US and we can change time if we want to. We could make time run backwards if we so desired.
First they intrude into one individual's health care, now they want to bend time itself!
Is there nothing Congress doesn't assume it has control over?
.\.\att Clare
The extra 's' is for extra "savings".
"The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use," said Markey, who cited Transportation Department estimates that showed the two-month extension would save the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day.
Apparently they're also going to change how the Earth tilts on its axis. The weather doesn't care what time of day it is.
Leave it to American politicians to think this one up.
Absolutely -- rest assured. Kids are now safe.
For 3 months.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
This is how Governments add to anything! :-)
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Here's what one of your members of Congress says:
Hey, why not just stop all the clocks at noon permanently?
That's a great point, I'm going to go tell my boss off right now.
:)
Me: Hey, I quit. I don't need this stinking job anymore, congress just changed the length of DST!
Boss: Whaa?
Me: Yep, I'm gonna get rich!
Boss: Sure you are. How do you expect to make money on this?
Me: Laugh all you want, you'll just pay me extra when you need your clocks reset. I'm now a professional time changer! It's the new Y2K.
Nah, think I'll keep what I've got, you all take this opportunity if you want it
Yeah, but I typically get up at 9:00 a.m. This might be the one chance I get to wake up at the crack of dawn.
Grew up in AZ. No day light savings time. Never hit by car.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
I once woke at the crack of dawn, then I realized I was looking west.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
If. I. ever meet Ben Fucking Franklin, I WILL KICK HIS ASS!!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
some children would be walking to school in the dark
As apposed to now when they go to school and are left in the dark.....
Why doesn't the US schedule a day where every rocket, jet, truck, car, motorcycle, go-cart, tricycle, etc all face east and at exactly the same time, they are all hammered full throttle/pedal? Maybe we can add an hour or two if we try real hard?
That would surely be cheaper than buying 10,000 extra barrels of oil a day. I mean shit, I couldn't fit more than 10 or twelve in my garage, even if I shut the door real fast on the last one!
Nuke Gay Whales for Jesus.
We can't do that! Changing DST to be year-around would be an economic disaster!! The drug companies Anti-depressant Sales (A-D's are the #1 prescription drug in the USA) are required to meet Wall Street's expectations or the stock crashes. If Wal-Mart and CVS (the store not the software package) don't sell as many prescriptions they don't make as many mega-millions and their stock goes down. And so on and so on until we have a dammed economic crash all because the goofballs in Congress wanted to get in 18 holes after work instead of 9! :)
Because then you'd have kids going to school in the dark. As soon as one is hit by a car that's the end of that.
So, we implement a technical solution to prevent it. You see, there's this new cutting edge technology called "headlights"...
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AC
Or maybe you WERE hit by a car but you have amnesia?
Must've been a pretty bad hit. I hope you're OK.
Come on, you know what's really happening.
In the spring the government takes away an hour of our time and holds on to it until fall when they give it back to us without giving us any interest.
This new proposal simply lengthens the amount of time that they get to hold on to our hour. It's simple economics. I'm not sure what they do with that hour while they have it all summer long. It's probably classified.
Report to Conference Room C.
You will be seated in the comfy chair and be forced to endure what initially appears to be a finite PowerPoint presentation, but you will eventually realize is a Kafka-esque random crapflooder.
It is loaded with current buzzwords about some n-tier solution, somehow integrating all 621 languages on 99 bottles, which project will become your life, assuming you scream in the proper musical sequence from a certain Partridge Family episode, which will turn off the presentation and unlock the door.
Good luck.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Isn't anyone worried about the environmental effects of this? With more daylight, global warming will increase, nocturnal animals will lose sleep, and plants won't grow as long. Doesn't anyone think these things through anymore? GreasyBloater
Well, for one I am. It's the only decent time of day to be outside around here. Why, at 0400-0600 (the two hours on either side of sunrise) the temperature sometimes gets down into the 80F range.
Back in the early 60s the flood of Arizona newcomers convinced the Legislature to adopt DST. It lasted one year. As soon as the Legislature reconvened the first thing they did was repeal it.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
his is a savings of 1/20th of a percent. And I'm not able to make out if that savings ONLY exists for those 2 months or the year round. Not particuarly impressive either way.
Here's an idea. Let's start passing legislation and using incentives to promote recycling, efficiency, and alternate sources of energy.
Just sending congress home for an extra month in the summer would save more than that in AC costs alone.
Employers?
Hey, why not. Maybe if the little bastards develop some dexterity, they can reverse the obesity "crisis"
But how will we clean up the toxic fumes?
No sig today.
We should just classify the time as secret so that nobody except the military knows when it is. Time bombs will be a thing of the past. That is if we can figure out when the past was . . .
Shut up you bloody Euro! WWII started December 7, 1941!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Good idea. And, with the current administration, very appropriate.
(He sez while ducking to avoid Bush Backers taking aim...)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Grew up in a car. Have never seen day light. Need saving.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
Wasn't April Fools last week?
Typical government, always running behind schedule...
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
With the invention of Daylight Savings, we realise that politicians will lie to us even if we merely ask them what time it is.
Because it is easier to change time itself than change the minds of corporate bureaucrats.
Y'know... I could really use someone who follows me around doing BS checks... Somehow I'd need said check BEFORE I say something stupid, though.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
So you're saying we need to keep an eye on Arnold?