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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?"
It has been speculated, and fairly so IMHO, that Y2K was what initially drove the .com
bubble. While I certainly wouldn't discount releases of many previously classified technologies
and growth of the internet, there was a consider amount of capital put into hardware and software upgrades in the mid-to-late nineties.
Imagine what kind of capital would be required to change DST behavior on govt computers alone. We could probably convert CO2 and H2O back into hydrocarbons cheaper.
CSC, Accenture, EDS, et al are probably salivating at the thought of such a passage of law.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Here's a PDF of the amendment, as agreed, from the house.gov page on the session yesterday. Realistically, if it'll make that big of an impact, why not make Daylight Savings Time a year-round proposal? If this amendment is passed by the House, we will have a period of a little over 3 months annually (Dec, Jan, Feb) in which DST is not in effect. That seems ridiculous. Not to mention that if DST becomes year-round, the change in software becomes a static offset to GMT as opposed to figuring out when the annual switch days are. Even Windows allows you to set a time zone that ignores DST, so a company in permanent CDT would only need set their time zone to EST and not worry about changing the clocks again.
There is (should be) a study dated 1998 (which I was not able to locate yet) sponsored by the EU Commission which states that daylight saving time does not have the desired effect on energy consumption (which is taken as a common fact anyway here (de)). I wonder why the US should differ - anyone any idea?
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
This would not be anything like Y2K. The code to change the time for Daylight Savings Time is already there. This is just a change in the data. Plus, it is generally only the OS that needs to be changed. The only real problem would be embedded electronics.
Living on the eastern edge of a time zone, I would love for DST to be extended.
But isn't it "Daylight Saving Time" and not "Daylight Savings Time"? (ie no s)
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
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.
--
Rate Exchange Calculator and Currency Convertor
why doesn't congress stop tapdancing around the real issue, and instead pass some well-thought out legislation to reduce wasteful energy use, implement a rational gasoline use tax, and other things that would actually address the real problem? Hm?
I don't have the information necessary to make an observation regarding the net energy savings if any exists, but as a resident of Pennsylvania which runs from Lattitude 39 43' N to 42 N I would sure welcome the extra daylight.
I gotta say that driving to work in the dark and driving home from work in the dark is not a prticularly gratifying experience. In fact it's downright depressing.
Interestingly enough the times have been changed in the fairly recent past (according to the US Army:
During the "energy crisis" years, Congress enacted earlier starting dates for daylight time. In 1974, daylight time began on 6 January and in 1975 it began on 23 February. After those two years the starting date reverted back to the last Sunday in April. In 1986, a law was passed permanently shifting the starting date of daylight time to the first Sunday in April, beginning in 1987. The ending date of daylight time has not been subject to such changes, and has remained the last Sunday in October.
Let me try and get this straight. We'd save 10,000 barrels a day. We use 20 million.
This 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. You know, going to the heart of the problem as opposed to screwing around with something that presents piddly savings and smells more like a publicity stunt.
As for the coding repercussions . . . I can't say for sure.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
10,000 barrels of oil a day certainly sounds like a lot if you're planning to put it in my back yard, but exactly what percentage is it. Is it just a drop in the proverbial oil bucket. I imagine so. How would it compare to having cars get one extra mile per gallon?
"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.
As a panel programmer (among other things) for a security company, this would be a major pain in the butt. All of our security panels (and I would assume most others) have built-in DST changing abilities.
Having to reprogram each of our panels to change at a different time would be extremely time-consuming for a small company like mine. I don't even want to imagine what bigger companies would have to go through.
The security field is very time-dependant. One hour could mean having the police called thinking someone is trying to break in or having your premise completely unsecured.
I, for one, hope this change does not get approved. At least Y2K had the possibility of not causing problems. This will definitely cause problems.
Can we lose the hour in the middle of a work-day, and gain the hour in the middle of the night? That'd get my vote.
Here's what one of your members of Congress says:
Hey, why not just stop all the clocks at noon permanently?
Studies have shown that most hackers work better at night, and actually use dawn as a kind of alarm clock "oh shit, suns coming up, better get my head down or I'll never get to work by 9" (I KNOW i'm not the only one who has thought that)
liqbase
Why not just do away with DST completely, and by congressional mandate, require all businesses (banks, stores, employers, etc.) shift their hours back one hour? Requiring such a shift by legislative means is no worse than DST, and it need only happen once.
As far as staying on DST and dropping the shift back to Standard Time, that is one thing that I cannot allow. Noon was traditionally the moment when the sun was directly over the longitude of the observer. With Standard Time, this was quantized in order to create a manageable time system -- this is a perfectly acceptable optimization which was necessary for an interconnected civilization.
Admittedly, we do not directly depend on sunlight as much as in times past, however arbitrarily redefining "noon" to mean "1:00 'PM'" is completely preposterous. Why not just go all the way to metric time while we're at it? (Has the Swatch patent expired yet?)
With the whole 2000 versus 2001 thing, I can let mathematics slide a little due to the sociological significance of changing four digits at once. Declaring that we use the wrong time in perpetuity? That would be the real life analogue of the urban legend about redefining "pi" as equal to the integer value "3".
SUV's, trucks, and 6+ cylinder engine cars for city commuting result in a ridiculous amount more of oil being consumed than anything related to Daylight Saving Time.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Err... Highest percentage of the problem is the military, not Social Security.... The military has a retirement program on top of just social security
Er, hate to say it but it's not Military either. Highest percentage is the "Department of Health and Human Services" (643.9 billion), followed by "Social Security Administration" (583.5 billion), "Department of Defense"+"Department of Veterans Services" (475.4+68.3=543.7 billion), "Department of the Treasury" (441.2 billion). Also, that military retirement program is just like any other pension plan people recieve. It also comes out of the "Department of Defense" budget.
Stop listening to the republican on your television please.
Stop listening to the democrat on yours.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
For example, changing Daylight Saving Time could prevent terrorist attacks:
In September 1999, the Palestinian West Bank was on daylight saving time while Israel had just switched back to standard time. West Bank Palestinians prepared time bombs and smuggled them to Arab Israelis, who misunderstood the time on the bombs. As the bombs were being planted, they exploded--one hour too early--killing three terrorists instead of two busloads of people, the intended victims. (from webexhibits.org)
The sun doesnt give us more daylight hours just because we reference time differently.
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
Yes, let's just tax everything.
If you "tax the hell out of fuel guzzling monster cars," then you are skipping taxation of older fuel guzzling cars that are not as efficient as the newest SUVs.
If you tax gasoline more, you increase the burden on everyone, including poor people that cannot afford to buy a new gas-efficient car. You increase the cost of all goods that are shipped anywhere, or the cost of services that rely on those goods or shipping services.
And where does the tax money go? Does it fund research on alternative fuel sources? No, it is spent on pork barrel projects by Congress.
As/if oil gets scarce, the price will go up naturally, and the market forces will dictate people drive more efficient cars or alternatively-fueled cars.
Artificial taxes on things only screw everything else up, with no actual benefits. Its just a political game.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
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
Answering the original question, I work in the power industry as a developer. I can watch the local load curve and do a bit of my own research about supposed "energy savings" by artificially making the sun set later in the day. BoooOogus. The savings would be low.
You all know this: The devil is in the details. The programming impact would be larger than anticipated. Power is usually tracking in "hour ending" and various participants use a 23 and 25-hour day when necessary, defined as "relative hour of the day". Because of this, date conversions abound and the the "first sunday in april/last sunday in october" algorithm is in quite a few places. The impact would be high.
I think it's political hot air. Why not just ask people to pay more for oil? The markets know how to react.
This is largely a symbolic gesture. It let's congress do something which has little effect on the situation, but allows them to say that they "took measures" to save energy.
Proverbs 21:19
Technically, we *all* pay for gas, in at least two ways. One is the environmental cost, since lower fuel efficiency means higher emissions. And two is the increase in demand which causes all gas prices to increase, not just the gas prices for people who drive SUVs.
Maybe that's an idea in itself - only increase gas taxes on people who drive fuel-inefficient vehicles.
That would be a completely reasonable argument, if gas prices weren't so damn low. The US severely under-taxes gasoline, effectively subsidizing the use of petrol-burning vehicles.
(By "under-taxes", I mean that the current amount of tax collected in the US on gasoline, though it does vary from state to state, barely covers the cost of maintaining roadways, in the best cases. It does not cover the costs of associated damage to the commons resulting from dumping burnt hydrocarbons and various chemicals into the air, nor the damage resulting from spills associated with maintaining the infrastructure to produce and deliver the volume of petrol we use, nor the cost of maintaining sufficient access to world-wide sources of oil reserves so that we can continue burning oil for such uses. I would grudgingly, if not happily, pay more taxes on gasoline so long as (a) everyone did it and (b) the additional funds went *only* to mitigate the costs associated with gasoline usage.)
Gee, how much oil could we save if they just made the fucking CAFE standands apply to SUVs???
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Stop listening to the republican on your television please.
Stop listening to the democrat on yours.
How about we stop listening to both of them and learn to think for ourselves?
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
As an Arizonan first and a programmer second, I think history is going to look back on DST as essentially equivalent to the (anecdotal) story of lawmakers legislating pi to 3.
Arizona doesn't do DST. I've only visited areas that observed daylight savings time, and it never ceases to amuse me. The conversations usually go like this:
Q. Why do you keep changing your clocks around?
A. To get more daylight!
Q. So changing your clock alters the rotation or axial tilt of the Earth?
A. No, see, normally it would get dark at 7. Now it gets dark at 8!
Q. But the sun doesn't rise until 8 or 9 AM. When you need to make your blanket longer, do you cut a foot off one end and sew it onto the other?
A. But...*gzert*...more daylight! More daylight!
Q. Why don't you just wake up an hour earlier, if you want more daylight?
A. *gzert* *pop*
(Okay, they don't actually short circuit, but they tend to run out of coherent arguments. It seems most people haven't really thought about this.)
Add to this my programmer's view of time (as a monotonically increasing quantity [relativity aside] unrelated to human foibles) and this seems a lot like Congress trying to legislate the tides, or apply our IP laws in Norway.
(Oh, wait. Heh.)
The real issue is for the Federal Gov't to realize that our Foreign Oil dependance is a National Security threat as well as an Economic one. We need a Federal program similar to putting a man on the moon to harness alternative fuel technologies. Only the public sector can drive the research against the vested interests. It would create jobs, increase security, and be a new technology that the USA can export to the rest of the world.
Extending Daylight Savings Time by 2 months will break computers (like Y2K) because new 'Timezone' rules will need to be programmed into every computer that manipulates dates. The estimated savings is 10,000 barrels a day when we use 20 million! What a short-sighted idea that totally misses the big picture.
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
Anyway, we need to come up with a plan for energy independence. Relying on a bunch of nations who think we're Satan for our energy needs should be giving our politicians the screaming heebie-jeebies. We need an apollo-type program to come up with and implement a cohesive plan to eliminate our need for foreign oil.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Take a look at this http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html
Simply mandating that cities turn off every other street light after 2300 hours would save tens of thousands of barrels per day.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.