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One Step Away from Changing Daylight Savings Time
An anonymous reader writes "Congressional leaders from both parties have signed off on a proposal that will change daylight savings time in the United States as early as this year. All that is left is a signoff by President Bush. If the proposed solution becomes law, DST will be extended two months, from March to November. With many IT applications relying on accurate time information and many having automatic adjustments for DST, how will the IT world handle this change? And with the proposal reportedly taking effect this year, is there enough time to implement change?"
The purpose of DST is not to remind you when to check your batteries. If it works for that too, fine; but that is something extra, not the reason for DST. Support or oppose the DST change for REAL reasons.
From the article:
For years, the International Association of Fire Chiefs has framed a widespread public information campaign around Daylight Saving Time, reminding people to change the batteries in their smoke and carbon monoxide detectors when they change their clocks. The last weekend in November is too late for the reminder, fire officials say.
It's Y2K all over again. :)
Hopefully the consulting companies will be able to sell the scare and raise the billing rates!
Jobs!!!! Jobs!!!!
How about we have our 'puters set for GMT?
Seriously-Many applications have DST deep in the code. I can see the folks that develop things like the Netbackup scheduler (and others) to be freaking. Didn't they just fix bpsched? (again?)
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Will this fix the /. post delay?
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
And this is needed why?
"How will the IT world handle this change?"
I'll tell you how they'll handle it. They'll handle it the same way they handled Y2K, and that's by offering more jobs for people like me. The increase in demand for employees posessing the special skills needed to fix this problem will subsequently raise the expected salary for software engineers and IT professionals. Under these premises, I'd say this gives us something to toast and look forward to.
I hope that Bush doesn't screw this up by not signing off.
--
I'm not a troll; I'm just a skeptic.
Falun Dafa is good!
WHY?!
I, for one, like when DST rolls back. I like it to get dark early in the fall. If we're going to have NINE months of daylight savings time, why even have it at all? Just move the clocks ahead forever.
I'm not one of these people who get all excited because the sun stays up longer when I get out of work. I like it to be dark by 5:00pm or 6:00pm. It has a unique feel to it rather than getting off work and still having four or five hours of daylight. And I like having it get light earlier in the morning, rather than later.
The entire point of DST is just retarded. Don't change it. GET RID OF IT. It's 2005. We have these nifty fucking things called ELECTRIC LIGHTS now. You can use them to, like, see when it's dark. It's really fucking amazing.
OH! And I know what else...! Why don't we just stop with the whole seasons thing and make it summer year round! We surely don't need seasons! And let's alter the clocks so that it's actually always some time between 9am and 5pm every hour of the day! Ooh ooh-- and we should get rid of weekends, too. Weekends cut into productivity!
Bah, just kill daylight savings instead. I'll just remember that sometimes 7:00 is darker than I might expect at a different time of the year. As it happens, I constantly forget to change my watch.
What I'd prefer is that they passed a law making the hours between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm shorter.
I know some systems have a ton on clocks, so if it happens, I'm sure someone will figure our how to do it en mass. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the user.
"This is you left and that's your left. This is your right and that's your right. You're gonna die!
DDB
Life is like surrealism: if you have to have it explained to you, you can't afford it.
Can't believe I'm posting this.
"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus
US should reaffirm its innovation and move out of the old systems, like the metric one. They should break up the day into 100 hours instead of stupid 24. Potential benefits:
- Easier to calculate amount of hours worked.
- Working 9 to 5 becomes a breeze.
- With minimum wage tied up to the hour everyone could be rich and retire early.
now all we have to do is hire lots and lots of programmers to go thru all our code and find the bugs - otherwise civilization will end. ... yawn ...
seriously, anyone ever thought this is all just an elaborate ploy by Sun and Microsoft to force users to upgrade their OS so it will "deal with the DST problem"?
Because right now, nobody seems to be interested in Longhorn or other "new" OS as they have no "killer app".
What better application than one provided by the DC elites at their beck and call?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I don't think it will be a huge deal to patch all of the software out there that relies on this. The main problem will be things like VCRs, TVs, watches and such that change the time for you automatically.
It's nice to see the American government coming up with a solution like this instead of concentrating on and suggesting alternate energies.
Really warms the ol' cockles of the heart.
Most large mission critical systems already support this sort of thing. And if your mission critical system doesn't, I suppose you could always temporarily fake being in a different time-zone till a permanent solution is developed.
JESUS CHRIST, just get rid of the damn time change completely. While we're at it, let's switch the whole world to be in the same time-zone. Computers do it, why can't people?
For indians and russians that is!
Most true "time critical" applications should not be using adjusted time as a rule, and run off GMT, and a 24 hour clock.
I used to live in a non-DST state. And you know what? It was great, not having to wake up an hour earlier or go to bed an hour earlier, and not have one or two time-keeping devices with the wrong time a month later. It was a real headache this year because I had to travel, and keeping track of time zones is hard enough without worrying about DST.
Heck, I'm not a believer in time zones, either. Let's adopt one time standard and adjust schedules accordingly. I don't need to be tricked into waking up in the morning.
Let's hype it like Y2K, and we're into another IT boom!
Now going to have more Daylight Savings Time than non-DST. I find that ironic.
Badly. No.
Score yourself at home. How did you do?
I think they have an inherent conflict of interest on this issue and I don't think they're in a position to comment on this either way.
... run in circles, scream, and shout
...the same way I've always handled it: by forgetting about it and doing nothing until I show up for work an hour late (well, an hour and fifteen minutes late, more precisely...)
Acutally, that only used to be true. Now that I've got a cell phone that automagically updates it's time from the network, I just set my clocks to it whenever they get a bit or an hour off and forget about the whole damn thing.
No trespassing. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
since this is a US thing, will the change affect canada as well? (ok, before BC and Ontario become part of the US while Quebec splits off from the rest of Canada? ;)
my blog
Of just getting rid of it? I'd like to do that. If you aren't going to have it on an equinox, what is the point? Though I understand the latitude bias of the location of our country means that the equinox doesn't really mean we're getting equal sun and darkness at any point in the year.
And isnt needed.
And before you say 'well we save money by turning out the lights earlier in our office'.. you still have 8 hours with the lights on.. Wont matter the time window...
Its all a farce. So what it gets dark earler? It also gets light earlier the next morning.. Sheesh.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What happens to Canada and Mexico? Surely they will have to follow if this is to be effective.
Why do we need DST any more? and This is yet another reason to build applications to run off of GMT/UTC.
Pretty Pictures!
After missing out on the money fest the last time around, I'd be a fool not to market myself as a y2.005k consultant this time around.
You might say there is nothing to really worry about here, but all the more reason to sell yourself to clients. If there is no real threat, there is no danger that you will fail.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Yea - Computers getting the change is going to suck - but thats a very easy fix. By that I mean its going to require a patch - but patching is common place so thats nothing new.
What about embeded devices? I have a clock on my wall that automatically adjusts for DST - but if they change when thats going to happen I have to turn off this "feature" and manually adjust my clock. Granted one little clock isnt a big deal - but this is just a small example. Think about all the small devices you have around that tracks time & date (home entertainment?). Most of these items _cant_ be patched.
Dont get me wrong - I think this is a fine idea (screw the children - its population control) - but they need to decide about it now for maybe next year. That way the consumer electonics area has time to sell us new devices with updated clocks (and I'm sure the retail industry will love that).
snowulf.com
Yeah, here goes my karma. Oh well.
WAAAAHHOOOOO!!!! I'm not a morning person, so I don't give a crap if it gets light earlier. I'd rather have more light after work, when I'm actually awake and productive...
Non-morning people unite and rejoice!
I'd be interested to see how quickly and how well this change gets incorporated in open source vs. closed source software.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I wish they would just make DST year round since it doesn't seem to be possible to get rid of DST. Indiana just passed DST. Now I need to move to AZ or HI...
...other than mine, without permission?!
This is yet one other sign that we need to shoot lobbyists that approach D.C. as if they were a direct Al Queda attack. This is a crackpot idea that not only screws with all the time-sensitive software (right down to our operating systems and their time zone support) but also fucks with the world agreement on such use of DST.
I'm in Indiana, where we have just approved the use of DST for the majority of the state that never observed it (Arizona and Hawaii are similar holdouts). And NOW some politico-corporate lackey wants to change things just for business...never mind that you aren't saving a damn bit of daylight in November, unless their laws affect the Earth's tilt and orbital position to give us more sun than we're to have at that time.
There's no reason for this...and the cost for changing everything will make the costs of Y2K seem like a pittance. Problem is, I don't know who would profit from it. Once I do find out, I hope they're shot. A lot.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
For those (like me) who couldn't figure how DST results in significant energy savings, this Wikipedia explanation should answer your questions.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
"Surprisingly enough, daylight-saving time was thought up by Benjamin Franklin, not drunken voters. According to http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/, it seems that one day Benjy got bored and wrote a little something called An Economical Project. It was an essay mostly about "himself, his love of thrift, his scientific papers and his passion for playing chess until the wee hours of the morning then sleeping until midday," and it was meant to be a joke.
However, an Englishman named William Willett (how can you take someone with that name seriously? Come on!) was apparently too dense to realize that Franklin was joking. Therefore, he thought it would be a novel idea to set clocks back for 20 minutes on each Sunday in April, and then turn them back on the Sundays in September. Eventually, daylight-saving time came to be as we now know it."
Taken from here
"What is the answer?" (Silence) "In that case, what is the question?" --Gertrude Stein
This isn't a problem; simply get Hallmark to create yet another holiday. Something catchy like, "Don't burn your house down" day to help people remember to change their batteries (maybe even with a pocket to hold replacement batteries).
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I've been screaming for years and I'll say it again: Daylight Saving Time is a stupid concept that should be done away with as soon as possible.
I hope whoever came up with the idea of pretending that it's an hour earlier than it really is is burning in hell right now, along with those who codified this weird lunacy into law.
I could give you a thousand reasons why it should be eliminated, but here's the most important one to me. Noon has historically been the time, more or less, when the sun is high in the sky. Daylight Savings Time completely does away with that rationale. Now, noon is only defined by what we personally find convenient.
(sigh.)
Is no one in Washington willing to stick up for the little guy?
Pork is not a verb
For most *nix systems, look in /usr/share/lib/zoneinfo for zone definition files. If you're lucky (or have Solaris), there's a src directory in there.
You'll find a README file with a reference to a place with updated zone files.
On the other hand you could try to roll your own like I did for Belo Horizonte and edit the rules in one of the source files (I would think "northamerica" for the US ;)
Do a man zic for more info on compiling and then distributing to other systems.
This comment does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the author.
So now with the US pushing for dominance in space exploration Bush will be in control of space AND TIME ???
Probably within a week there will be updates to the timezone definition files (/usr/share/zoneinfo/...). Not a big deal for Linux users. But Windows users will probably have to wait for the next semi-millennial patch cycle.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
Lobbying from big companies. Procter and Gamble, the owner of brands like Downey fabric softner lobbied hard to get DST extended.
Why? Because P&G also owns charcoal and outdoor grilling brands, and extended DST is good for grilling.
I think this kind of lobbying is retarded, and this shows that nothing is outside the reach of corporations in our government.
...for next April fool's day.
For as long as I can remember, people have been forgetting to set their clocks forward and back. It would be pretty funny if DST could be abolished that those people who had their act together would start messing up. Microsoft might be forced to patch Win95.. hehe hmmm.. maybe it's part of their grand plan to get people to upgrade.
The libraries that are used to convert times will need vendor patches. If people were doing it themselves, they deserve to have it broken since the rules around where it happens, and when during the year varies around the world.
Most standard libraries doing timezone conversions already need to know the date since daylight savings time needs to be calculated. Those will just need another rule for the US (pre 2006 and post 2006).
This isn't Y2K. Its a total non-issue to the end users and developers of most software.
... be using some kind of synchronization protocol like NTP http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1305.html ? All you have to do is update the server, and the clients will follow pick up the changes.
This is no where as complex as the y2k problem.
All the computers will have to move to arizona where there is no DST. And I thought there we lots of people heading here now.
It's Daylight Saving Time. Not "Savings." See Wikipedia for an explanation.
Then again, maybe it isn't that simple. I'll be the first to admit that I've never worked an enterprise project that required updating for DST, so maybe I'm missing something.
I'd figure it would be based on a calendar function, so it shouldn't be that hard to tell your program to adjust at a different time. What I'd be more worried about is projects that aren't US based not updating for new support of the US DST.
This is why I keep a lot of my applications set to Zulu time and just do conversions. I like doing away with cultural timing practices with regards to technology. My calendar on my blog expresses dates in yyyy.ddd format and only shows time in 24hr cdt because most of my readership is in Alabama. Although the case is definitely there for my still using cultural conventions in my timekeeping practices. Oh well, it's more understandable to most people than seconds since the Unix epoch :-)
#define CLUE 0
Makes us Legacy users get screwed. Not like DOS ever really had a time function, but it's nice being able to keep track of things. Win95 and 98 can probably just be patched, assuming MS kept the source around. And so help me if they don't.
When asked how to conserve energy, they passed by increasing the gas taxes, passed by making the CAFE standards apply to all vehicles including SUVs, passed by investing in alternative energy sources, and instead said "I know, let's make Daylight Saving Time apply a few more months out of the year!". I've got a better idea -- instead of fucking with the damn clock, why not encourage employers to let employees work flexible hours, or even change their work schedules in the summer months? That does it, I'm going to use GMT exclusively from now on! It's 20:43 GMT, dammit!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Now, instead of running my lights in the afternoon, I can run my central air conditioner, which uses much less energy than a fricking light bulb.
</sarcasm>
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
So we're going to save 100,000 barrels of oil a day, or ~0.5% of the US daily oil consumption. Considering that 75-90% (depending on source) of our oil use is from transportation, wouldn't it make more sense to mandate a national speed limit or minimum MPG ratings for *all* cars and SUVs? Or at least some other change that would have more of an effect? Quite frankly I'm not pleased with Congress' handling of the issue.
Keeping on topic though, it shouldn't be too hard to keep track. Modern versions of Windows have NTP built in, so the time should remain correct regardless of what the current status of DST is. On Unix/Linux we can edit the timezone files. *shrug*
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Perhaps some sort of sortware update would be in order.
Maybe if we had some kind of global network that manufacturers could send updates directly to end users, it would even speed things up. Arizona might be a problem though. They currently maintain their own timezone.
I could certainly see where changing a 10 to an 11 in Windows code could bring about the downfall of western civilization.
I personally think the whole DST is crap. Who cares if it is light or dark out? I go home in the dark every day. Sun doesn't get it my eyes while I drive. It's nice. This is just another example of tunnel vision in government. "Let's save 100,000 barrels of oil a day by changing what time it is." The side effect being chaos in the streets as Windows blue screens. The alternative being not using oil any more and waving goodbye to the Alaska pipeline. Of course why would Chevron and Exxon want to start producing hydrogen when they have drilling for oil down to a science.
Daylight Saving
I always post this when the topic comes up. I'm a fan of Franklin and really enjoy reading this.
More
Is there any actual proof of the power savings that they claim this would bring? I'm sure someone can come up with a few examples of the opposite.
What an idiotic idea!
I understand the theory that by changing people's work habits relative to the solar day, we may be saving some energy. I think the reality of it is rather less impressive than the theory, and certainly doesn't justify the expense and hassle, but it's undoubtedly there.
Too bad changing DST is the stupidest way to do it. As has been mentioned before, DST impacts way more than just work schedules. It's buried deep in various applications where it doesn't belong. It's hard-coded into embedded systems where it can't be changed. It's stuck on old software installations that will never see an upgrade. Changing DST is bad enough, but a half-assed mix of new-DST machines and old-DST machines is just a recipe for disaster.
If the government really wants to save energy by changing work habits, there are enormously better ways to do it. Tax credits for corporations that stagger their workers' start times by a significant margin would save way more energy than this DST nonsense, and it wouldn't have the unpleasant ancillary effects that changing the definition of time of day would have. Unimaginably large (you can look for the true numbers as well as I) amounts of gasoline are wasted in rush-hour traffic across the nation. Tax credits for starting 1/3 of employees 2hr earlier than normal and 1/3 2hr later would motivate employers to do it, and reducing the time people spend idling their cars on the freeways, or worse, driving in stop-and-go traffic, would save tons of fuel.
Tax credits (or some other incentive) makes people happy because the government's not forcing anyone to do anything they don't want to. It would have very few unintended consequences. And it would save many times more energy.
The reasoning that leads to a change in DST is just tortured. The government wants people going to work at a different time. So rather than ask (bribe, punish/bribe, whatever) businesses to employ people at different hours, they change the meaning of 8am, and screw up the entire country. Where's the logic in that?!
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Silly Canada. Thinks it's a country.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
You can hear the interesting segment here. The expert is a jerk... it's pretty funny. And then go here if you're bored
Remember that the law for daylight savings time is not necessarily a mandatory one. Arizone, for one, does not participate.
That said, I suspect there is nothing stating that (say) California is required to participate in this extension of DST, keeping it to their standard of 6-on-6-off.
This sig no verb.
I live in Arizona you insensitive clod!
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
But just watch. He's going to call this "Freedom Time" so that it passes through Congress like Taco Bell food.
That has to be the best line I've seen in a while.
~S
Adjust the times *once* to be 30 minutes between the two times and be done with it forever... :)
creation science book
The purpose of DST is not to control when it gets dark. The purpose is to control when it gets LIGHT. People don't mind doing stuff after dark in the evening (much), but few enjoy getting up in the dark or wasting daylight by sleeping through it.
To say nothing of the energy necessary to light the dark hours. Why do you think they implemented Daylight Savings in the first place? Have you seen the price of oil lately?
Personally I think we all should all just use zulu time and let businesses and schools etc. set their own hours. Of course we'd have to stop thinking of 12 as noon and midnight... but then we could learn true times based on longitude instead.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
it's simply unbelievable that politicians can change time itself. it's less offensive to me if they can have the first night with all virgins.
don't mess around with time please. change 9-5 to 8-4 if you would. geez.
I believe libc/zoneinfo for Linux systems would be able to handle this well enough as there are provisions for changing dst settings without affecting time in the past. pwt (pacific war time) during WWII is a good example of this and zoneinfo handles it correctly.
Will this fix the /. post delay?
No, but it will allow more dupe posts of the same story, as confusion reigns about when the story came out.
I haven't noticed lately, but (for US west coasters, in this case) does society still refer to Pacific Standard Time (PST) and Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)? And if so, since most of the months are now going to be on the adjusted schedule shouldn't they now be refered to as Standard Time, then?
Also, something interesting from Wikipedia's entry on DST:References are noted in the entry.
newsman:We would like all of you to remember to turn your clocks backward one hour tonight before you go to bed.
newsman:Oh yes, and remember to download the very latest Microsoft Critical DST patch for your computer, so tomarrow your Outlook email stamp will be the same time as the rest of the country.
"is there enough time to implement change?" uh... yes. any correct implementation would take 1 line of code changed to adjust.
The idea is that breaking windows (or in this case, artificially breaking software) is good for the economy because it creates work for the glazzier/software developer, who then has money to buy stuff from the baker, and the store owner, etc.
It's a fallacy because no new money has actually been created, as the window owner, instead of having the window AND money to put into the economy, now just has a window and less money.
If we're going to be in Daylight Savings Time 9 months out of the year, they should call Daylight Savings Time "Standard" time, instead, and change Standard Time to "Daylight Wasting Time" (DWT).
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
This change is not being made to save daylight. It is being made to save energy. The point to get have people using less lights because it will be brighter outside at a given hour. I'm not sure how effective it will be but that is the reason it is happening.
Of course, the irony of this idea is that it wouldn't work. People would get all offended that the government is "forcing" them to open and close their shops an hour earlier, when in reality the government is doing just that with DST, but for some reason people accept it when the method is changing the clocks. Governing people is a tricky business.
Time changes are ridiculous in the first place.
Stupid God damned fat slob Americans. While the rest of the world works towards finding alternative sources of energy, you stupid fat slobs and your fucking SUVs putting around your shit ridden cities thinking up "solutions" like extending DST.
America is spiraling down the drain. Good riddence.
...because you didn't!
Sunlight seems to have an effect on our overall happiness and moods. I notice that when I wake up on bright sunny days that I tend to be happier overall. On dark and rainy days I'm more likely to be depressed. The amount this effects moods may vary from person to person, and I'm not saying that I've never had a great day even though it was raining, but I think there is something to it. Also, darkness outside tends to make us sleepy. It is often harder to wake up in the morning if it is still dark outside. So if this increase in daylight savings time means there's more sunlight when I'm awake and active, then I think that is a good thing, in addition to decreasing the amount of energy we need to use. Of course it is also possible that we would just get used to more sun and its effect would then be unnoticed.
I love these congresspeople who say "We'll have more daylight, so we'll save energy".
Uh, no we won't. Rays from the sun will strike the earth each day for the same exact amount of time, whether we observe DST or not.
Here's an idea, why don't they pass a law to make daylight-savings time year round. Then pass another law that requires every single scheduled thing in the United States to be moved back an hour. Then everyone will have all the "extra daylight" they need.
DST != Deep Space Ten, a new, exciting, reality based Star Trek series that is exactly one order of magnitude in quality above any previous space station-centered plotlines.
and now back to the fallout shelter...
In fact, Canada is currently undecided on the matter.
Personally, as a Canadian, I hope that whatever decision is reached will be based on the actual merits of the proposal (as opposed to blindly following the lead of our neighbour to the south).
Without the 's'
"The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,'' said U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who co-sponsored the measure with U.S. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
That sounds logical, until you realize that the amount of daylight is going to be the same regardless of what time it is and what time you wake up or go to sleep.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Blessed AZ. Giving the finger to you time switchers the world over.
I agree no DST is awesome.
You can hear the interesting segment here. The expert is a jerk... it's pretty funny.
Even if it does save 1-2 percent, we could save 20 percent just by getting rid of the tax deduction for low MPG cars bought for businesses, or even more if we got rid of subsidies for imported oil and natural gas.
Efficiency is all relative. Even Saudi Arabia is switching to wind power.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
A coupla things. At my company we use a server that's company has gone out of business for about 3 years now. If it changed we would have to either hack it to death which would be violating the EULA or by some new software. This might help the economy though. Maybe someone is smart enough to prod bush to create some huge problem so we have to hire more people to fix it. *fingers crossed* I don't want to have to reverse engineer that app. Its code is ugly and the time libraries are not disassembling nicely. (problems like wierd pointers?!?!) /me is gunna need alotta cofee.
How about just taking politics out of it. Let's have none of these stupid time changes at all. If people want to go to work earlier or later at one time of year, fine. But what does it matter what you call that time, as long as you keep it consistant, and keep the Feds out of it? Do they really think that farmer Brown is going to get out of bed at a different hour just because they call it 5 instead of 4? No. The cows need milking when the cows need milking.
These assholes in Congress ought to be busy repealing laws rather than writing new ones.
Obviously, since the savings from increasing DST will be so great, why not just extend it to the whole year? Maximize the savings!
Makes sense to me.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
All the necessary info is in zoneinfo or tz files. Look in /usr/share/zoneinfo on Linux for the compiled timezone files. Your local zone is just the appropriate file copied or linked to /etc/localtime.
Substituting new zoneinfo files should be all that is needed for apps that rely on the system timezone stuff.
I'm sure that the change will be in a monthly update from M$ so Windoze should also be OK as long as people update ('course the update requirement goes for *nix as well...)
Just Google "zoneinfo" and hit "I'm feeling lucky" for plenty more info.
For programs with hardwired code all bets are off.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
This also threatens trade and travel because the time will be out of sync with Europe and Canada.
The Toronto Star has a more in depth look at the issues.
Well, we all know that after the whole year 2000 thingy, developers paid more attention to avoiding hard-coded numbers in their apps, drivers and network protocol implementations. So really this should be something read in from a text file (.ini) or maybe synchronised to the operating system.
Isn't that what happened?
I hate DST and timezones. We should all use GMT. People, the numbers are arbitrary! Converting between timezones is pain and really unnescesary. As it is times aren't standard due to culture (even with time zones), compare the eating times of someone in spain to someone in America for example. The whole system in antiquated and unnescesary. Yes I realise it won't ever change but heck, this is slashdot.
First time I've ever been early for work! ...except for all those daylight savings days...lousy farmers!
You're using her as bait, Master!
As a programmer in the public health arena I've always called the Federal Government the Programmer Full Employment Agency.
If they stopped changing rules and regulations, we'd have finished programming a long time ago.
Daylight Saving Time is a carefully-balanced compromise between the needs of southern and northern latitudes. If this silly law passes, it upsets the balance for us northerners. My kids in Portland Oregon will have to bike to school before sunrise in March and November -- that's a safety nightmare. We'll be using more electricity in the morning, not less in the evening.
Ok, I live i Iceland were we stopped this nonsense years ago but the question remains. Why on earth should we meddle with the clock? There is no value in this, if you want to earn an extra hour in the sunshine deal with your boss, wake up an hour earlier and please leave yours and mine timing device alone.
Could anyone please explain to me with simple arguments why anyone wants to change the time. And please not this earn an extra hour +!*##, we can do that without changing the time if we feel like it.
Being a frequent participant in transatlantic phone conferences, I've always dreaded the Week Of Confusion in March where the US has changed its clock and Europe hasn't (or was it the other way around?). Half the participants late (or early) by one hour, almost every time.
Now I understand that's going to be 2 months of confusion a year.
THANK YOU, Mr. Bush!
We want to save oil. Let's take this further. why are we paying mere lip service to investing in alternative energy sources? Imagine the work that could have been created in 2001 if after Sept 11th, our government would have invested the billions we have spent bombing and rebuilding other nations when we could have made ourselves stronger and more self-reliant at home? We could have also made the stipulation that US tax payer dollars be used to hire only americans and legal residents for the research and development--that way, US firms could not off-shore it.
I mean great, there will be more jobs for IT workers as they rush to change code, but this too can be off-shored.
Wenn Fliegen hinter Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach.
It's shit like this that keeps me thinking that the Libertarians are on to something. I mean really, why the hell do we do DST in the first place? More to the point, why do we pay our congresscritters to *legislate* it??? This is not an area where the government needs to be involved, period.
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But unless you are a consultant that has the ability to change an OS, or the system clock in the hardware your out of luck. Most applications get the Time from the OS. The rare few that don't will (Which I haven't seen any, because it takes more programming and processing power, handling a separate thread just to get the time, seems overboard to me) will still run with correct data unlike they y2k bug which made the year next year smaller then the previous. The only thing would be the computer will be off by an hour. If you go crazy and raise your rates you will probably loose business because you are too expensive.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If the time was now 5 hours back or forward would you be doing something different right now? You would still be at the same point in the day, but the clock shows a different number. Changing an entire nation's time just to get people up an hour earlier is a waste. Just go to bed an hour before you usually do if you want the extra sunlight.
Seriously-Many applications have DST deep in the code.
Daylight savings is built into hardware not just software, some clock/calendar chips expect the days to be particular Sundays in particular months.
We should just redefine local time "0000" the moment when dawn breaks at any given location.
DST has always been much more about the needs of urban people who work 9 to 5.
This is guaranteed not to conserve energy.
There is mountains of data that shows that if it's light out, more people are driving.
Extending DST so that there are more daylight hours in the evening is guaranteed to increase the number of cars on the road during those hours.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
that could be affected. One sec. Ok done.
In Arizona we don't do DST. I always liked not having it since it made little sense to change the clocks around to me, and it means a consistent UTC offset (UTC -7). Now there's another reason to like it.
I'm sure there are problably some good arguments for DST, but it just seems silly to me. If you want to alter your summer schedule and change when you get up, go ahead and do it. You don't need to change your clock for that.
Perhaps this BS will encourage more states to choose to not observe DST.
Arizona does just fine without DST. Just get rid of it.
Well, our government has been talking about that we would likely follow the change up here, for business reasons.
I for one will be really unhappy if this is the case. The further north you go, the less sense DST makes (plus for those Saskatchewanners out there that don't change at all -- farmers work by the sun, not the clock, and they make up the largest part of their population.)
By november here, (in Edmonton, AB) there are less than 6 hours of daylight and even without DST they all occur during regular business hours. I leave home in the dark, don't see the sun all day in my internal office, and go home in the dark... So all that the change does is cause annoyance by changing something that is already annoying.
Now during the summer here, with DST, the sun rises around 5:30 and sets close to 10 or 11. There is so little dark during the day, that again, it doesn't matter if you use DST or not, it won't affect energy use or productivity. Since most of the states is closer to the equator than most of canada, I can see that in some areas (Like Texas) DST may have a much more signifigant effect, but I hope that Canada doensn't follow in that change because I don't want to change my ways!
More Caffeine. NOW
Every year, in every country, laws change. New laws are added, old ones revoked. A lot of changes affect businesses in various ways. And those changes more often than not need to be reflected in the IT systems of said businesses. That's not only about tax rates or VAT application, but also things like what data you need to save, what kind of reporting you need to support, what info to make available (or not) to what employees.
:)
IT systems need to change to reflect this changing environment every year (90% of all software development is 'in house' or client specific; this kind of thing accounts for a lot of it). Changing the start and end date of daylight savings is one pretty minor one among all the others.
Of course, it's more fun to hyperventilate about an issue than think it through
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Deal with it, suckers!
If you're not interested in this expert's opion, the radio personalities of NPR's Cartalk have ideas of their own.
If we all ran on GMT or some other common time zone, our watches and everything, then traveling would be VERY confusing. Imagine getting up at 07:00 hours, eating at 12:00 hours, going to sleep at 23:00 hours, etc. Now travel to europe, suddenly the sun won't come up at 07:00 hours, but instead 12:00 hours, those 12:00 lunch appointments? over here they are at 17:00. Just after you set your watch to wake you up in the morning, you have to travel to the west coast, wake up at 04:00. . . .
Savings time is only in existance to make sunrise and sunset coincide with our daily lives. In Michigan's upper peninsula, sunset can be anywhere from about 5:00pm to 10:00 pm. Personally, I think we can survive without DST, but ditching timezones would be pandemonium.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
Unfortunately, we'd probably see our paychecks shrivel by the same ratio as the newly truncated workday.
In the early 1970's, the USA tried to make daylight saving times go year round to save energy. I was a kid then, and remember waiting for the school bus in the dark. An outcry from parents about safety (deservedly so, in my opinion) caused them to quickly rescind it. History repeats itself, and this attempt may be the "farce" part if parents speak up again. Hopefully some kids won't die in the dark and make it the "tragedy" part.
we should be getting rid of the time change all to gether.
there is no reason to keep it.
aww the constitution
Sweden changed the DST period few years ago. As far as I remember there were no big problems.
:-)
Microsoft changed it through some Windows patch, and *nix people tend to fix things themself
I actually thought that the reason daylight savings time existed was to conserve power during World War I.
With the extension of daylight by one hour, it means that it saves one hour worth of time where people will not be turning on all the lights in their house. When added up over hundreds of thousands of homes, this is a huge power savings. You want people to be going to bed as close to sunset as possible to save the most amount of "after work - at home" energy.
How about those "Atomic Clocks" sold at Radio Shack and Wal-mart?
I personally am too lazy to change my wrist watches and alarm clocks around, so during the winter I just mentally subtract an hour. What are you actually saving here? Daylight hours, so rush hour traffic doesn't drive in the dark at 7am? It doesn't bother me that the clock says 5pm when it's still 4pm.
I usually just procrastinate until January or February, then I don't have to procrastinate anymore, because the reasoning, that, - if I waited this long, I might as well wait that other month rather than bother - starts sounding good. It just doesn't bother me enough that the clock says 8am, when it's really only 7am still, it's so easy to mentally deduct 1 hour each time I look, rather that work up the effort to walk to the clock and dick with the buttons. Maybe when the clock gets a remote control.
One good reason for this move by Bush, could be the adoption of Windows Longhorn, because now your past OS's won't automatically know and adjust to the correct dailight savings time, and instead bug you in middle of september! You gotta give the guy credit for trying to boost the economy by any means necessary, but how about adopting the metric system once and for all, for Pete's sake.
so thats what our country has been doing
So, lets look at reality. They say it will save 100,000 barrels of oil, and we use like 20 million. Now is that 100,000 for only those sixty days, i.e. 6 millon? This would mean that the savings for the year would be around 0.08%. Or are those sixty days going to save 600,000 barrels, or 3% each for each new day. If there is a fairy that would magically decrease oil usage by 3%, why haven't we brought it out before.
The other issue is that the longest day is in the summer, and the shortest day in the winter, while the equinoxes are in late march and september. This means the day and night are the same leangth in late March, but the day shorter in early March. DST should take advantage of the longer days. That is we can set out clock forward because it will still be light later. However, until near the end of march the day is still recovering from the winter short days. So for instance in chicago, the day is only 11 hours long. In november the issue is even worse, some places getting less than 10 hours of sun. Whatever you gain in the evening, you lose in the morning. Everyone, especially in the fall, will get to work in the dark, and work for an hour, and then can use sunlit. I will put a snide remark here about the peopell in washington not knowing this because they work 10 to 3.
This is like the oil reserves in Alaska. If they get built, in many years, they may provide a tenth of a percent more output to the world oil supply, providing almost no releif for prices, but it is still a more reasonable thing to do than tell people to turn off the damn TV when they go to sleep.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/720363 3
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Does anyone know if Longhorn will finally store
the system time as UTC, like any sane OS obviously
must do, or will continue the questionable
tradition of all the other Windows to store the
system time as local time, with all the
unfortunate consequences that has?
In fact, they use the hardware clock -- most of which do DST at hardware-preset dates last time I looked. If not, it's still hardcoded in the OS.
The difference is that one will take years to get straightened out and the other will take even longer.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Right now, Canada's DST matches the U.S. (except for Saskatchewan). But if the U.S. extends DST and Canada follows suit, Canadians are going to spending a lot more time communting in the dark because of their higher latitude.
However, NOT changing may cause even more problems. An example from the CBC:
The last time the United States and Canada observed different winter time systems was during the 1974-75 oil crisis. The U.S. did not turn its clocks back at all that fall in an attempt to conserve energy.
As a result, airline schedules involving flights from south of the border were occasionally one hour off, television schedules were mixed up and business associates regularly missed each other's phone calls.
Set it one way, or the other and then ... LEAVE IT ALONE!?" My astronomy professor had it right: daylight Savings time is like cutting a foot off of the bottom of your blanket and sewing it back on the top to make it longer. If anything lots of time is "lost" or wasted at each transition. Only a Congressmoron could fail to see that.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
About a second after 2038-01-19T03:14:07Z!
I HATE non-DST time. The winter days are already too short, working standard time in an office means you go to work when it's dark AND you leave work when it's almost dark. No time to go to the park, race RC cars, nothing. It's like living in perpeptual night and I hate it.
Because there's no real prospect for profit in the short to medium term by developing alternate fuels. When something needs to be done for the public good that doesn't have immediate profit potential, the only way it will get done is by putting government money into it.
Keep in mind that today's short-term outlook may be very different from next year's short-term outlook or the short-term outlook five years from now. By then the cost of traditional fuels may be high enough that alternative fuels will become cost effective and industry will jump on it. We may be very near such a tipping point. Government intervention may not be required. Also, government investment may not be very quick or cost effective. If you throw a lot of money at it today the money will most likely disappear into various pork barrel projects that produce nothing worthwhile. Why, for the same reason that industry is doing nothing. There is no perceived crisis or need. We are not going to get large scale alternative fuels from industry or government until there is a perceived need.
Jul. 20, 2005. 04:39 PM
U.S. puts Canada in time crunch
American move will extend daylight time
Businesses fear being out of sync will cause chaos
TONY WONG AND SUSAN DELACOURT
STAFF REPORTERS
Canadian business leaders fear major economic disruption if this country does not get in step with an American move to extend daylight saving time.
Yesterday, the U.S. Congress quietly adopted a provision to extend daylight hours by two months after proponents argued the scheme would help curb energy use by cutting back on the need for artificial light in the evening. Under the legislation, part of a sweeping energy package, daylight saving time across most of the United States will now start on the first weekend in March and run through the last weekend in November. Daylight time now runs from April through October in Canada and the U.S.
"There is potential for huge confusion here, and we need to be vigilant, to look at the range of implications," said Len Crispino, president and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.
The change, expected to take effect this fall, would mean clocks in Canada and the United States would be out of sync in March and November, causing scheduling headaches for travellers and TV viewers.
And should Canada decide to follow the American lead, farmers and rural schoolchildren, who already get up in the dark, would face even gloomier mornings.
But as things now stand, the implications for business are serious because the economies of the two countries are so integrated, said Crispino.
Businesses such as airlines, transportation and even Ontario's auto sector could be affected, since many automotive manufacturers use "just in time" delivery systems to get car parts to plants, Crispino said. And the Toronto Stock Exchange, for instance, would open and close one hour after New York's markets.
While business is waking up to the risk, the issue seems to have sneaked under the political radar in Canada. "This has not been an issue that Canadians have debated at any length," Prime Minister Paul Martin's spokesperson Scott Reid said yesterday.
"We'll monitor how the issue unfolds in the Congress with an eye to implications for Canadians and our industry. While most people -- excepting vampires -- favour more daylight there are serious issues of concern to the aviation and other industries."
(The Canadian Press reported this afternoon that Premier Dalton McGuinty says the province doesn't want difficulties with its main trading partner, but there are business, environment and social issues to consider before the province follows suit.
( "What are the environmental ups and downs of this? What are the business pros and cons? And then what about life for families? Does it make it more or less difficult?" McGuinty said.
( "We're going to have to take a look at it obviously. We're not anxious to have a disconnect between us and our chief trading partner.")
The Prime Minister's Office was still trying to figure out yesterday which department or minister would be most concerned about the time discrepancy.
In fact, though many Canadians may think we're overgoverned, the potentially significant matter of who goes along with daylight time -- moving the clock ahead an hour in the spring and back an hour in the fall -- is largely left up to individual provinces, even to local municipalities, mostly on a voluntary basis. Saskatchewan, for instance, has always been a daylight time holdout, as have several communities in British Columbia and northern Quebec.
While Crispino agrees the move to extend daylight hours could lead to energy savings, his bigger concern is the additional costs for business.
Gillian Bentley, spokesperson for Calgary-based WestJet airlines, said the time change could be problematic for the carrier, especially for passengers on connecting flights, or if the airline flies into airports with night curfews.
"Obviously we would have to adjust our sch
I had a grandmother that lived to 96. She refused to set her clocks to DST. She kept, "Gods time". You had to always convert the time in your head when dealing with her. What really worried me is I got a quarter of her genes.
Everyone complained a lot about how inconveniect it was going to be, but everything went smoothly.
For my part, I was mainly working with Windows boxes. There was a hot-fix from Microsoft that came out some time before to let Windows know what was going on - and not much else needed to be done.
Believing something doesn't make it true. Not believing something doesn't make it false.
"Mr. President, sign this reform for all of the hard working farmers of this great nation. That extra hour a day for two months will surely help them out with growing all of those plants!"
Then Bush will give a speech about how he's added an extra hour a day of sunlight to the country to help out all of those farmers.
It's gonna work! Mark my words!
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
set the clock back half an hour--and leave it.
- A R T
In Australia, New South Wales extended daylight savings time for a couple of months in 2000 to accommodate the Sydney Olympics.
It basically involved a patch to the timezome files of your machine.
Politicians like to change these things occasionally, and most developers that have to deal with time will have included a configurable setup, because the rules are different from place to place to start with.
the same way IT handled Y2K problem.
...
(i) Hire consultants
(ii) Consultants produce a report essentially saying the whole company will go to pieces unless they hire more consultants to write more reports how to avoid Y2K problem.
(iii)
(iv) Profits (that is, to Y2K consultants).
Can anyone tell me under what Federal authority such a law is passed and enforced by Congress? It seems to me this thing is overbroad and really not within any of Congress's powers. It has no spending clause, it does not limit itself to commerce, and has nothing to do with civil rights...
Then again, my research lasted about 10 minutes.
Can anyone help with this?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Who becomes richer because of this?
I know I'm cynical, but the fact that this always works out kinda bumms me out...
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Really, DST is ridiculous, and will be more so if it's made to be in effect the majority of the year. It's a zero sum game - it has no effect on available day/night, and certainly doesn't "save daylight." Businesses should change their hours if they are affected by changing sunrise/sunset times.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The PTA worries about kids walking to school in the dark. Small hint: if it's dark when kids are going to school, YOU'RE STARTING IT TOO EARLY.
I'm tried of the world being run by morning people
Wow, it's pedant day on slashdot! The point, Captain Obvious, is to provide the most daylight during waking hours for the average diurnal person.
And here DST is all screwed up. We'd need a DST from May to September or something. Currently DST forces us to wake up when the sky's all black.
Why did we do it, you ask? Pressures from the US.
I doubt Mexicans would want to accept a schedule that only makes things only worse. But as usual... we have to obey the all-powerful US otherwise we suffer the consequences.
If Bush wants to sign this to save some bills, why doesn't he stop wasting money in IRAQ. Sheesh.
DST is already bad enough from an Orthodox Jewish perspective, because we our holidays and sabbaths start at nightfall, and this makes "night" exceedingly late for much of the year.
:(
The specific case which shows the problem is the Passover Seder, which has to begin after nightfall, and there's about 2 hours of stuff before eating. Right now, about half the time, Passover falls during ST, and starts at a reasonable hour. With this change, it'll be much harder to keep children up to participate.
-David Barak
Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
All of this just to keep Microsoft happy.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Don't just change it, get rid of it! If it is beneficial for people to start work an hour earlier or later then change the start time to 7 or 9am, don't change the clocks. Who said people have to start work at 8am?
Seriously, DST is of no use anymore.
I live in Arizona, you insensitive clod!
Unless your system is completely braindead, it's already running UTC or similar internally, and it just _displays_ the local time courtesy of the rules in /etc/localtime.
In other words, if the rules change, then that file has to be updated everywhere. I see lots of pain on the horizon for sysadmins across the country.
I agree this is kind of ridiculous but so is you calling this a special interest.
This is about public safety (a rather public interest I dare say), not about the special interest of Firemen. They're not saying that it will cost them more money, but that it will cost more lives.
But this is ridiculous because I never heard of this campaign anyway...
Why not have the DST the whole year around if it is such a great idea? You can then adjust workinghours accordingly.
In Belgium a lot of people working for city or state will work different hours (early in the morning till about 14:00) so they do not have to work in the hotest part of the day. This saves on airco and gives the people almost half a day to enjoy the sun.
I am sure that such a thing can be done with a lot of jobs. Coding is just one of them. I am sure that a programmer could be more interested in working different hours so he does not have to go through rushhour and even could use public transport easier, because he can sit.
When such a thing is much more widespread, the moment when it is midday and time for lunch will be different from person to person.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
...and abolish DST altogehter. For much of Canada DST makes no sense anyways--except perhaps in the most souther parts of the country like Windsor. Why do Canadians have to "save daylight" in the summer? WE HAVE SO DAMN MUCH OF IT ALREADY!
I don't live all that far north--maybe around 300km north of the 49th parallel. Even after you set your clock ahead the sun rises before 7AM--right now it rises here before 6AM. In Saskatoon (they do not change their clocks) it'll get light at 5AM...in either case I'll still be asleep for another 30-90 minutes so I'm not going to care.
Where DST REALLY peeves me off is at bedtime. I have to rise by 7AM so I like to be in bed by 11PM...but it's DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME so its still F'in light outside! Let it get dark before 11PM please--thanks but I don't need any more day--it is long enough. A lot of people in fairly norhtern cities like Edmonton will thank you--and people in Whitehorse and Yellowknife won't even notice the difference since the sun won't set again for another few weeks anyways.
So here is what I think Canada should do: Instead of all the expense and confusion around changing DST, or the similar confusion around keeping it the way we have it when the US will be different, we should just go to standard time and STAY there at the point when the US changed their DST. Sure we will still be different from the US, but it'll be the least painful solution because:
* Even though we'll be out of sync with the US we won't have people getting confused when the US TV programmes remind people to change the clock at a different time than Canadians would have to.
* There is data suggesting that the loss of sleep on the first Sunday of April due to DST is responsible for increasing the number of injury and fatality accidents on the following Monday. Abolishing DST would eliminate that risk.
* Since there are already parts of the world that do not do DST all current electronics and computers support NOT adjusting the clocks. Changing DST would be expensive because all those systems would need to change too.
* It'll finally be dark enough to fall asleep at night in the summer!
I've always thought that DST was backwards anyways--if we moved ahead for the winter then it wouldn't be pitch black by dinner time--it would be totally dark at 7PM instead of 6. I dunno...the whole concept of DST doesn't seem worth it at all to me anyways.
"With many IT applications relying on accurate time information and many having automatic adjustments for DST, how will the IT world handle this change?" I guess slack arse programmers and sysadmins will just have to do some work for a change.
You ask where the logic is in that. It's Congress, they don't need logic for anything they do, as long as they get re-elected again.
(Adjust for CST, PST, whatever). Next, please!
Not that it's any different from GMT...
A few years ago my family moved from the East Coast to Northern Indiana. One of the changes we had to get used to was the removal of DST. We found that change quite refreshing. In Indiana, instead of having to change their clocks the only thing everybody had to do was change their schedules. You either went to school or work a half-hour earlier or later. No problems with a time change. No problems losing an hour.
Another cool thing about the no-time change in that area was the tv reception. The variety of major news channels (CBS, NBC, ABC, etc.) came from two areas. Some stations we got out of Indianapolis (Eastern Standard Time) while others out of Chicago (Central Standard Time). If you had two shows you wanted to watch that came on at the same time on different networks all you had to do was watch one show and then flip to the other show. It was also nice watching Letterman at 10pm.
Now, I'm out of Indiana and have to readjust to the timezone change. Hearing about this proposal makes me glad I didn't vote for Bush.
During the Sydney Olympics daylight savings time was brought forward quite a few months. Microsoft came out with a special time-zone patch, Novell was easy to change and I just created a special time-zone string for Linux.
The changes were minor and didn't impact on anything serious (my watch didn't auto-change, so I did it manually)
I wish they had have left the change in place, the extra months of daylight were great.
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
In 2000 for the Sydney Olympics. Start of DST was moved forward about a month. No big deal computer wise - just a few registry tweaks (windows) and manual editing on Netware and Unix. Repeat - no-one reported any major issues - the world still turned.
DST and the 24 hour time system, taught by singularity stupid academic bastards. There are four simultaneous days in 24 hours. Keep thinking in your 1 cubic singularity stupid cubeless ways. Dr. Ray tought me this as he demonstrated his uncanny ability to "Square the Circle". Even your broken math cannot mask the truth of Cubic Existence.
Make your silly time, fuck DST, and all your clocks are belong to us!
In Brazil, we call DST "Summer Time" (Horário de Verão). Sometimes we jokingly refer to the Standard Time as "Winter Time" (especially during the weeks before/after the switch).
:)
Since in this proposal the non-DST time would last only three months (Dec-Feb), you might as well call that "Winter Time".
The filesystem is the package manager
"how will the IT world handle this change?"
change? you mean your hardware clock isn't set to UT?
Talk about old programs that people didn't realize are not going to work. This could get ugly. But still, I like the pros of it also.
Lobbyists.
The reason they rejected increasing the mileage requirements of pickups, SUV and Minivans is "fear for instability in the auto industry".
I call BS. I always believe that the biggest polluter should be the ones most responsible for lowering the pollutants.
Fucking with DST is basically a "let everyone share MY cost!" scam.
Suddenly those Turkish sheep that followed each other over the cliff don't seem so stoopid after all...
Then you can really appreciate the following logic --
If having DST 7 months out of 12 is good, and 9 months out of 12 is better,
then BEST OF ALL WOULD BE... DST ALL YEAR ROUND!!!
We would be saving that extra hour of daylight all year long!
The benefits are incalculable -- the savings from decreasing our dependence on imported oil alone are incredible!
Now rush right out and contact your legislators with this fantastic concept.
DO IT NOW.
With many IT applications relying on accurate time information and many having automatic adjustments for DST, how will the IT world handle this change?
I'll handle it the way I always handle it. I ignore it.
The applications should be running on some standard time clock, such as UTC, and getting its time zone information (of which DST is a part) from a central time server that knows about it. The central time server, for me (use GPS or NIST), tells me when DST is.
Programs that have to run on "human" time, which are subject to DST need some careful consideration. One needs to understand the difference between running on human time versus presenting information in human time. Only those that have to run on human time need to pay careful attention to the "DST change this week" signal, and take appropiate measures before, during, and after the extra or missing hour. Those that only need to present information in human time still have some work to so - if they store times in UTC they need to know when DST changed so reports viewed after the switch accurately reflect data from before the switch in adjusted human time.
In our connected world there is little reason not to pay attention to NIST, GPS, and other accurate DST resources. We shouldn't be programming DST switches according to a fixed calculation - it can always go away or be changed. Further, it's different in every country, and many change it every year. All programs should take this from a central resource, or at worst allow for some user configuration of DST.
-Adam
You mean the *government* - on which they'll all get the day off. Hell, won't be long before there are more government holidays than there are work days.
Government employees - can't get them to work, can't fire them. Totally useless.
I've NEVER seen a motherboard with DST in the BIOS, The OS handles it. It will take Microsoft about 10 minutes to code a patch that will update the DST dates in Windows (Heck you can even disable DST with a single check box in all recent versions of windows,) and as others have pointed out *nix folks will take care of it easy also.
This is a none issue as fare as PC's are concerned.
The only ones screaming about this causing all sorts of problems are people that don't like DST anyway.
The batteries typically last the full year, yet the current scheme has them changed every six months "just in case." An extra two months won't make a difference, and most of us will continue to change the batteries when the damned things start beeping instead of when the clocks change anyway. To top it off, new construction has the detectors wired in to house current and uses detectors with rechargeable batteries anyway.
Of course really people should just realize that the sun is up for the same number of hours a day regardless of what the clocks say and we should get rid of DST completely.
Dear Sweet Jesus, please make it stop -- I can't tell you how much I hate (hate, hate, Fucking Hate) Daylight Slavings Time ....
-kgj
-kgj
Click and Clack is currently advocating Double Dog Daily Savings Time.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
It's Daylight Saving Time, NOT Daylight Savings Time. Morons.
If they are going to make time changes, why not put the whole world on UTC . Seriously, back in the 1800s every locality, town, villiage, had it's own time. This wrecked havoc with coordinating train schedules, and a Canadian named Fleming proposed standard time, which became GMT, which the world still follows today. Well technology has advanced, and with all the communications world wide over the internet and phone, it is becoming very cumbersome to know what time you are suppose to call or meet someone on the phone or net. I know it is for me. UTC will give the whole world one time. If I tell someone in Paris I am calling them at 3 and I live in LA, we will both be talking the same time with UTC. It will be 3 in LA and 3 in Paris.
Luckily I live in AZ, where I do not have to follow this!
I was reading TFA, and saw this sentence:
Congressional leaders of both parties have signed off on a proposal, being considered in Washington this week, blah blah blah
Geez, it sometimes feels so strange for someone who doesn't live in the US to see something like "both parties have signed"... Here we would see something like "all parties..."
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Change the hours of the typical workday instead. You can't do it for everyone, but you can do it for govermental agencies and courts.
I'm sick of DST. Just get up earlier if you want more daylight. Easy. In fact, time zones in general piss me off. I pick up the phone and call halfway around the world, for all intents and purposes it's the same time everywhere. Why isn't it called the same time? Life would be easy. Who gives a damn it the sun rises at 4:00PM? What difference does it make? You still have to consult a lookup table to figure out what time it is there now, why not just label it the same and know that the sun will be in the middle of the sky at a different time.
I knew it! I'm surrounded by assholes!
Sorry for the rant, couldn't help it on this topic.
In other words, get rid of Daylight Savings Time. Its absurd. Businesses still change their hours at different times of the year (summer hours, holiday hours, etc), with or without Daylight Savings Time. As we become more of an International 24/7 community, Daylight Savings time simply makes no sense.
Changing it (other than eliminating it) makes even less sense, considering the cost!
Well, yea, it's true.
That's why it went into effect in the first place even though I did like it. It's why conservation is a good idea. Things like increased incentives for installing solar or wind power on businesses and homes would do wonders for the environment as well as help alleviate the need for new power plants.
Just a few years ago, Cheney dismissively stated "conservation is a virtue" but not a national priority. Replacing grid transmission cable with fiber optics would do wonders too.
Take a few billion US$ that America pumps into energy subsidies for big oil, big power, etc. and pump it into something that would provide for reduced consumption of oil and gas and increase available power with local renewable power generation, etc. That would provide huge benefits.
Owing to the forced relocation of some southern
soldiers after the US Civil War, parts of
Indiana still have a stone age mentality.
(E.g., it's the birthplace of the KKK,
even though you'd like 'bama or SC would be a
more likely place.) So, parts of Indiana
will not use daylights savings time, old
or revised. (The 'tude: "It's a damn federal
conspiracy, I tell ya.")
Imagine that. Something from Lincoln's era is
still affecting infotech works in Indiana to
this very day!
Other countries around the world regularly cope with DST boundaries moving best on political and religious decisions. Australia even moved DST forward for the 2000 Olympics.
Does the world stop when this happens? Do computers really screw up where it matters when DST changes?
Take a non-US perspective to fully understand the implications of what is being proposed.
You Americans are in fact lucky. To put things in perspective: in Brazil the Congress changes the DST rules *every year*.
"and the trade between Mexico and the U.S. is the largest in the world."
Umm, no.
2002 Canada-US trade = $430 billion
2002 Mexico-US trade = $232 billion
If the answers are not "trivially" and "yes", respectively, then someone has been incompetent.
Everyone knows that DST rules are subject to change at politicians' whim -- the historical record amply demonstrates this. Moreover, handling those changes is a solved problem: have a central, easily-updatable repository of the DST rulesets, such that the "upgrade" to handle any new rules requires no patch at all, unless you call updating the repository to be a "patch". But you certainly shouldn't have N separate applications to patch.
Most systems implement this sort of scheme already.
DST may be a stupid idea, and there are fine reasons to oppose it, but if someone says that the reason we shouldn't tinker with the rules is because of potential IT costs or problems, that's an embarrasment: said someone has just shouted for all the world to hear that IT doesn't have its house in order.
Do a search in Thomas for HR 6, which is the bill in question. The section changing the daylight saving time date is Sec. 111. But... as far as I can tell, that section isn't in the final version passed by the senate (referred to as "H.R.6.EAS"). It also isn't in the "Public Print" of the bill (which you can find here.
I'm not an expert of legislative technicalities, but it could very well be that we're all getting worked up about nothing. I guess we'll have to wait until Thomas posts the final version of the bill.
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized. -AC
I used to be the DST/Time Zone Messiah for a large software company. Meaning that I was responsible for making sure that certain time APIs worked. It was supposed to be simple. All you have to do is lookup the delta and then apply it to GMT right? It wasn't. All because of DST and Time Zones and the history associated with them.
Everyone wanted their documents to reflect the exact time that they were created. They also wanted to be able to calculate the exact time when something occurred in the past. I had headaches dealing with leap days, time zones, DST. I'd get all these bugs from people saying: "My files changed creation dates!"or "The calculation for [some lame historical event] isn't right!" The worst part was when I got some bug for a mail server client that was working on legacy hardware but needed to interface with our new stuff. Sigh.
I think I'm done complaining. Sometimes I miss working there. But when I see topics like these, I feel wonderful!
... in the great Indiana Daylight Saving Time saga! Just this past year, our state legislature voted to turn the entire state to Daylight Saving Time. As it stands now, 77 counties in Indiana do not, with the other 15 scattered amongst northwest, southeast, and southwest Indiana, which, due to their proximity to large metropolitan areas in other time zones, already observe DST (the states in the southern part of the state on ET, in the north on CT).
Now, that's confusing, right? Add in, though, that the legislature never would've gotten the bill passed had it specified a time zone proper for the 77 central counties.
Now, since the legislature just voted to enact DST without specifiying what happens to the 77 other counties, we don't know what time zone we're in! The Feds have refused to order the change as a whole, wanting instead to have hearings on a county-by-county basis! And until such time as either A) hearings can take place to officially move Indiana to Central time (except for the counties in the south which would remain on ET), or B) next summer comes and we're on ET de facto, we're sort of stuck in a netherworld. As the law is written by default, we'd start observing full ET, DST and all come next April, but the jury is strongly divided as to whether or not we should move to central.
And you think changing a couple damn lines of code is a problem?!
DST is a stupid, utterly assinine idea and is Ben Franklin's major evidence of being human and prone to occasional, stunning attacks of stupid. Why set the frigging clock ahead or back when all you have to do is designate earlier times: "our summer business hours are 7am to 4pm" would accomplish the same thing without having solar noon arrive at 1:00pm by the clock. Arizona has the right idea.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Um, I like how you can twist ANY story into a slashdot story by simply inserting a line like this: "How will this affect the IT industry? How will they adjust to this change?"
Please, can we get some REAL news for nerds?
Here in Arizona, we are not yet modern enough to use Daylight Savings Time. And we do not care about DST. Not for a second. Or for an hour forward or back.
I propose that we eliminate "bad" daylight savings day (spring) and increase the frequency of "good" daylight savings time to be weekly (every Sunday after the bars close).
then once a month after the time becomes 4 or 5 hours off we can adjust things by turning the first Monday of every month into a Holiday and making it either 19 or 20 hours to reset things.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
It might have been useful 100 years ago when we were an agricultural society, but I just don't see the benefit now.
If you want daylight, get up earlier.
When I read the headline I thought the Government
was going to actually do something sensible like
eliminate DST altogether. Should have known better
than to expect the Gov. to be sensible!!!
Darn...
Yours Truly,
Eternal Optimist
I suggest that we adjust the time to our clocks daily.
Trust me on this, I'm with the chimps and monkeys (and we are just hairless apes) on this subject.
I mean, doesn't the Earth revolve about the Sun? So every day the sunrise is a little later or a little earlier.
I think having clocks/watches that would minutely adjust for this would be great! The morning would always look about at the same state every morning.
No more would you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark.
If you are into agriculture (where your schedule follows that of your crops) this would help as everyone else would be keeping the same time as you.
If you are able to wake up to sunlight (most natural) then you could fire your alarm clock or maybe keep it as back-up. I think this would be beneficial to people who work 2nd and 3rd shifts as well.
Think about it. No more losing an hour or having to adjust those clocks that don't adjust themselves.
I know businesses and banks wouldn't like this but screw them! If we all hang together they would have no choice.
Join me my brethren in ushering in a New Age of Reason! One where We push Time around! Never again to painfully re-adjust to a new time! Let's keep the time of our farthest fore-fathers.
Just think of flight schedules for international travel, many people buy tickets well in advance for the holidays or the high season. Since the rest of the world isn't shifting, the airlines will have to notify customers of different departure times.
"The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,'' said U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who co-sponsored the measure with U.S. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.). Hello, Representative Dumbass. i'd like to point out that we can't make more daylight. You can shift it from morning to afternoon, but we don't have more of it. Tool.
Thank you, that is all.
I was going to include some of that sentiment, but I thought I'd start small. With the internet age, it at least wouldn't hurt for netizens to use GMT instead of hassle with timezones (How many clan meets have I missed). But I'm all for GMT all-the-way.
""The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,'' said U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)"
The amount of sunlight depends on the rotation and tilt of the earth, not an arbitrary setting on a time marking device. Nothing, including this law, can change that. You can't legislate nature.
Institute flex time nationwide and you solve most of this problem, and others. More people take the early bias on flex time rather than the late. It also helps solve traffic congestion. Less congestion means less petrol burned less efficiently, reducing emissions.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
This follows on the heels of the Maine's legislature voting to move to the Atlantic time zone. Of course, Maine was planning to just move to Atlantic zone but not use daylight time anymore. The suggestion to increase daylight time for the rest of the US make the impact of Maine decision another two months smaller. Kind of makes it pointless, IMHO.
One article on Maine's time zone thing
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
DST is there to make factory workers get up an hour earlier, without the government having to admit that it's telling everybody to get up earlier in the morning. Rather than messing with the clocks, they *could* just tell the TV stations to run earlier schedules, and most Americans would obey....
There's no reason to set the clock to some other time - during Standard Time, the sun is at its highest at 12 Noon in the middle of the timezone area, and you could just as well leave it there.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18581/artic le_detail.asp ... Michael Downing .... has recently published Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time (Shoemaker & Hoard), a charming light history of time in America. ... one can conclude from Spring Forward that we should blame the twice-yearly time change on capitalists. Downing explains that "without Daylight Saving, the commodities, stock, and bond traders on Wall Street could expect no opportunity at all for arbitrage--buying securities on one market for immediate resale in another market at an advantageous price and profiting by the price discrepancy." The time change gave traders one hour in which the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange were both open. .... Federal legislators often justified their bills by arguing that the change would save fuel costs. But Downing argues that a real case for this was never made.....
Daylight Savings!
By Kelly Jane Torrance
This is dumb. DST has been in effect for about 40 years. It precedes the software industry as we know it. The cost of patching all the devices, hardware + software, is likely to run into the billions. Maybe these congressmen think our IT industry needs a quick jolt? Great, but what about the expense to the industries using the technology.
How about initiatives for smart energy policies instead of quick hacks? Almost every household in the U.S. could save 1% on their energy bill if they just had a little education/incentive.
I say we have a national referendum on DST, and settle this once and for all. My bet is it would be sent packing, by a landslide.
What other countries have DST? Do they indent to change as well?
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Thank God I live in Arizona and don't have to put up with the "change your clocks forward and backwards" crap.
It is absolutely absurd that Boston - nevermind West Quoddy Head, Maine - is in the same timezone as Detroit, MI.
Legislators here in MA have suggested moving to the Atlantic Time zone, getting the benefits of "Daylight Savings" year-round.
Unfortunately, it is just a pipe dream.
In Australia at least, its whomever, you guessed it, the Queen/King of England is... kind of circular reasoning to me...
Yes, just make DST *the* time year-round, like pretending you live in the next time zone over.
Nobody has to change their clocks, and everybody gets to sleep in an extra hour.
Actually, by the timezone map, Alaska has already done that (but their daylight hours are messed up from being so far north). Hawaii straddles the hour line, so they are basically on half saving time all the time, depending on which island they are on.
It can't be that bad. The people in western china have to deal with the official time being 2-3 hours off sun time.
Real sysadmins use Z on their equipment. And if you don't, your network isn't big enough to deserve any sympathy to have to patch for this kind of change.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
The whole IT aspect to this issue is really part of a larger issue. Computers and various time keeping devices are too dependent on our method of date and time keeping. Any changes in our calendar system or a shift in time keeping as in the DST will cause disruption and large amounts of work for IT departments. Imagine what would happen if the political winds changed and something like the International Fixed Calendar were to be adopted.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
I thought Celine Dion is the Queen of Canada!
Or maybe it's William Shatner.
No. Wait. He's the Drama Queen of Canada.
I remember once reading that Russia did this - daylight savings during winter and double daylight savings during winter. And this is a country that knows time zones. And dark winter days.
...MY COMPUTER WILL SET ITSELF TO NON-DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME 2 MONTHS TOO EARLY! ....Uhhh, hello, has anyone thought that maybe, you could, well, O, TURN IT BACK MANUALLY!
Why isn't anyone more than a little upset that the government is mandating that we pretend it's a different time every so often. I like the poster that said if you want more daylight, get up earlier. I just don't get how it's OK that one day, you wake up, and BY LAW, you lose an hour. Give up on DST. What a stupid idea. We're turning into a nation of sheep. At least sheep don't have to figure out this time shifting thing that we do....
You know, we tried extending daylight savings time before, back in the energy crises of the 1970s (or there abouts). It was shortened back to its present form to keep kids from being run over going to school in the dark (at one end), and allowing them to celebrate a traditional Halloween without staying up too late (at the other end).
Going back to try this again sounds inordinately stupid to me.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
I get really depressed in the Winter when it gets dark at 4 in the afternoon... even though I go into work at 5am to have just those couple of hours to do things outside, it would be nice to not have to get up so goddamn early just to not feel miserable all the time...
During winter in Sydney, I get home in the dark even though it's only 6pm. This means that it's practically impossible to do any work which involves being outside (short of installing new lights... rental house, and all that) and that the only time I can get any home productivity is on the weekends.
Meanwhile during summer, they add an extra hour of daylight to the day.
If you ask me, they have it the wrong way around. If you're going to have daylight "savings" time, let's move the daylight hours to where they will actually help... winter.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Being in the Hoosier state which is on EST all year round, rather than switching EDT, we have a unique perspective. Our legislation finally passed DST for us this year. We have heard all of the crazy rambles against it. These are same rambles that everyone is arguing about extending DST.
Here is something ridiculous. People do NOT actually think that we are affecting the Earth's rotation, so stop telling everyone that they are idiots for thinking so (obviously, there most likely are a few out there, but not the general populus). We are shifting our schedule so that we have more daylight during the majority of people's waking hours. Since we consume more resources when we are awake, being able to use sunlight for longer, rather than artificial lighting, we WILL be saving resources. The crazy thing is... I see mostly tree hugging liberals complaining about DST (that and the hillbilly portion of the conservative group). This is actually a move for better treatment of the environment. Now, let me qualify that statement by saying this is what I found in the debate in Indiana. Perhaps the national debate will not have tree hugging liberals being hypocritical, it is still young... we have been fighting for DST in Indiana for decades with the hillbillies being the resistance for twenty years, and the tree huggers doing if for the past ten when the hillbillies IQ, on average, seemed to jump about 10-15 points higher. Why were the tree huggers in Indiana against it? Because it was proposed by our recently gotten Republican majority in the House and Senate in our state government, and the end of a 16 year governorship by Democrats. The DST issue was brought up by Republicans, and they want them to fail... plain and simple.
So let's all agree. We do not actually think we are changing the Earth's rotation. We know that the actually number of daylight hours will remain the same. We also know that there will be some difficult adjustments. However, ten years from now, it will be a distant memory, and we will be consuming less resources because we have more naturally produced resources during the time when we will be using them.
Do not let this become silly partisan BS like it did in Indiana... we all know this is really the right thing to do, so let's do it. Liberals, for the most part, because we are being a more green society, and conservatives, for the most part, because it will be more economical.
I myself, being an ultra-conservative, economically, and a moderate, to slightly right, social conservative who rather side on the grounds of common sense... I like it from all angles. Save money, use less resources, which reduces foreign reliance on oil, increases security, and makes for cleaner air and water for us all to live with.
Politics, Life, and More on my Aspiring for the Future
> against anything by calling it "American-style"? (I'll tell you: it's
> the kind of country that, 138 years later, still prints their colonial
> ruler's face on their money.)
Why is this modded as "Insightful" rather than "Flamebait" or "Troll"?
Aside from the fact that the poster appears to be seeing "knee-jerk reaction" in the article that few others are seeing---most everyone else seems to consider it quite coolly and reasonably written---posting a newspaper article for the express purpose of insulting its country of origin is difficult to call anything other than trolling for a flamewar.
As for the secondary point of the poster, well, there are plenty of good reasons why Canada wouldn't be quite so interested in extending DST as the US. The most obvious one is that the US is further south, and hence doesn't have nearly as many worries about icy roads---making everyone drive to work an hour earlier in November mornings is going to put a whole lot more people at risk from black ice on the roads.
1. Abolish Daylight Savings Time.
2. Announce that all government offices, schools, etc. will open and close 1 hour earlier in the period from March to November.
3. Encourage other business to do likewise.
Done!
Appears Congresscritters are feeling the "heat"
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
I honestly can't believe this is such a big deal. Every country has their own DST rules already, any software that needs to work in the global environment needs to know these rules and, best of all, modern operating systems already handle these rules so that individual apps are blissfully unaware of what timezone they are in.
So...
Who cares if someone adds a new ruleset?
Clear, Dark Skies
The point, Captain Obvious, is to provide the most daylight during waking hours for the average diurnal person.
And having different work schedules depending on season is somehow inconcievable, and changing the actual time for the entire country is, somehow, a better approach.
I mean, change the 9to5 for 8to4? WHAT? NEVER! Lets have all clocks in the country changed instead, duh!
You can't take the sky from me...
That was too funny. I just wish I had some mod points.
Daylight savings originated in Germany during World War One as a way to save oil used to burn lamps at night. This quickly spread to the US and the UK. It was removed after WW1 ended but reinstated in 1942 for WW2. Is this extra 2 months of daylight savings a desperate attempt to save oil for the "War on Terror"?
three months ago...
"how will the IT world handle this change?"
They'll handle it by learning to get it right the first time. When is DST? When the signal put out by WWV and WWVB says it is. End of problem.
Or you can just ignore it, much like Unix has ignored several decades worth of leap seconds (a far more thorny problem, in my opinion, than periodically being off by an integer hour).
I was brought up on a farm. On the kitchen wall there was a clock that was always set to Standard time and never changed. We used to call it cow clock, so the cattle was fed and milked at righ time.
Sun come up, sun go down, makes no difference to me.
they should eliminate dst altogether IMHO.
Daylight Wasting Time has got to be one of the most stupid solutions ever devised to a completely non-existant problem... Truthfully I could live with it from May to September, but why do we need everyone rushing off to work before daylight four months of the year? Why do we need school children out waiting for the school bus in the dark four months of the year? How can moving the AM rush hour into darkness save energy? How can moving the PM rush hour into the heat of the day save energy? The problem is our politicans are so busy fighting about stupid stuff, the only thing they can agree on, is this sort of non solution to a non problem. It would make more sense to eliminate all underware except thongs, saving fabric, energy, and the raw materials... More daylight wasting time is something we can certainly live without...
Is there a reason the children can't take a nap? Or, for that matter, sleep in that morning?
Assuming you're legally entitled to take religious holidays off work, school, etc., you can restructure your day around the daylight and not business hours.
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
I'm now in Australia (where they also have DST), working on a project that involves entering important patient information, which can occur around the clock.
In the course of writing the handler for DST, we came to realise that any standard UI widget that only lets you enter a date and a time is fundamentally flawed for dealing with critically important dates and DST. This is because every possible time that occurs between 1am and 2am on the "fall back" night (in the current system) actually occurs twice that night, an hour apart from each other, and there's no way to disambiguate which one it is given only the date and the time.
I suspect this is not accounted for at all in a LOT of systems. We haven't come across any kind of standard way for the user to indicate whether they mean 1:30am before the "fall back" (for instance) or 1:30am after.
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
It just adds to chaos, which we try to overcome.
DST calculations doubly so. Everywhere on the planet should be GMT. I get up at 5pm, people in London get up at 7am. No pesky timezones to figure out. If we have a meeting at 3am, the meeting is at 3am everywhere.
No more Indian timezones off by 30 minutes, or the zone in Nepal that's off by 15 minutes.
If the U.S. wants to change their DST, fine. Canada doesn't need to. Everything works fine here. It's not broke, so it doesn't need to be fixed.
So Long U.S.A, and Thanks for All the Fish.
I used to live much further north and I since moving I really miss the days when it would be 10pm and still completely light out. Closer to the border it is very obscure that the sun comes up around 5am and it's completely bright out but around 9pm it starts getting dark.
I highly agree with the winter though. It is an utter waste of sunlight when it's not sunny until 9am and it's gone by 4pm.
Perhaps what would benefit Canada is if more regions followed the Peace region of BC and use a different setup than the southern portions. In the Peace region, during the winter they use the same time as Alberta and during the summer they use the same time as BC. In other words, they use Mountain time with no daylight savings.
I think this is a scheme to get more work out of us. Generally people don't like to be at work when the sun goes down.
A better switch would be to the metric system.
I'd be so happy if "they" would give up the daylight saving time. All my clocks are running UTC and I'm just calculating the local time on the fly since years. It's much easier than setting all my watches and clocks all the time. In the broadcasting business nobody cares about any time offsets anyway. It's all about UTC.
The funny thing is, that the switchover is not happening at the same date worldwide. That makes the whole problem more difficult.
It's confusing enough for me, that for example LA is nine (or ten!) hours "back".
... 10am to 2pm is my standard lunch hour......
You know your government is out of control... when it institutes daylight savings time in the first place, and you know its really out of control when it starts randomly changing when the arbitrary change occurs.
... we are so powerful we can change time and if you ants don't like it you can stick it kind of attitude.
Time and time zones are kind of a creation of governments, especially the British empire, which is why GMT is where it is. Time zones are OK things, especially versus the chaos that they imposed order on.
But daylight savings time is a complete abomination. If the time when kids go to school or you go to work doesn't jive well with the Sun, then change the time you go to school or work and don't F**K with time itself. Politicians who sieze control of time are just engaging in the ultimate power grab, ita a
@de_machina
If they want to fix DST, it would be more sensible to move both the starting date and the end date according to the available hours of daylight (think "equinox"). DST makes more sense in late March than it does in October, let alone November.
You keep using that word, I don't think you know what it means...
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
People make fun of Americans for speaking only one language. Well, these people have never met a Spaniard.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
I test my smoke detector daily by cooking dinner. As of yesterday, it's still working.
If there is only going to be about four months (nov-mar)of "standard time", then whats the point of changing at all? If daylight savings time is so good lets just stick with it year around.
Remember the year 2000 gold rush for contractors? Well prepare for another.
/Rubs paws together.
The sad thing about this problem is that it's being created deliberately by a bunch of idiotic beurocrats with too much time on their hands, rather than because of the need to save two bytes of data.
And all to be done at short notice... ha ha... let the over-charging commence!
Coding Monkey.org - Spanging the heavy spade of truth into t
I know it won't be officially supported, but do you think someone could write a hack for my sundial so it will comply with this?
or else!
As someone who has Seasonal Affective Disorder, switching back to Standard Time can be hell. This fall I will have to sit in front of a special lamp so my body thinks it's still daylight outside. At least I live in the South, and we have longer days in the winter than people in the northern states.
Businesses like keeping the same hours regardless of season, and it's a lot easier to program in daylight savings time than to have to change your hours every season.
Which is easier, changing the clocks or asking the whole world to adjust every few months and "get up an hour earlier"?
Never overestimate the power of the psychological.
100 "centidays" per day I say :p
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
the more daylight we have the less energy we use? WTF? changing our clocks WILL NOT change the amount of time the sun is up. why do we even have daylight savings? cant we just pick one time zone and stick with it?
Free electronics!
If the one sold at Radio Shack is this Atomic Digital Travel Clock, then it receives a signal from WWVB, and their digital signal includes a daylight savings time indication, so assuming they do the right thing the "atomic clock" will Just Work.
Really, people, this is probably a lot less complicated than you might think. Many UN*Xes can just deal with it with zoneinfo file updates, and several people have indicated that it's a registry change in Windows. Perhaps some applications have their own time zone rule files, and perhaps OS/360^H^H^H^H^H^HMVS and z/OS aren't as easy to fix, but a lot of machines and applications will require only a small file/registry tweak.
Actually, after a 40 year trial with RHD a few elderly people still can't cope so they're reverting to LHD in 2007!
(..or so goes an old joke about swedes)
Harald
We in the north (of EU) are using more power than before the change and the saving in the south does not compensate for it.
DST has been "reinvented" during the oil crisis in the '70ties to save on the oil reserves... it is optimiezed for minimizing fuel consumption (and are good for the environment as a side effect) if it is changed the fuel consumption goes up in the north and down in the south (North and south are on the northern hemisfere).
A more efficient DST must to be in steps, just like the timezones.
I agree with others about daylight savings time. British Summer Time sucks balls and is pointless and should be got rid of. I'm guessing that the U.S. finds it similarly lacking in reason any more. It's supposedly for farmers, isn't it? But I've never seen the point - they aren't in an office so they can just get up with the sunrise, surely?
Guess what - many (most?) other countries don't play daylight savings games. I'm living in Japan right now (I'm an American) and I truly do not miss it at all. Japan had DST during the occupation and the first thing they did after MacArthur left was chuck it.
An old joke about this is to tell your boss: I need to have shorter working hours; sixty minutes is just too darn long.
It's already a pain when there's one week a year where Europe and the US are not the normal number of hours. This will make it worse, especially at the time when the west coast is 9-10 hours apart from Europe instead of 8-9. Obviously for other people it will get easier at times, but surely global effects count in favour of keeping this stuff as simple and strandard as possible.
Time Zones and DST is too similar in thinking as Time Cube, as in a "Stupid educated learn DST" kinda way.
Support universal digital time, via Triangular Earth Calender. For time and calendar, it's simply the most logical.
"All that is left is a signoff by President Bush." False. The House and Senate must both vote on the bill.
Never mind increasing automobile mileage standards, let's change the time to make us feel better about using twice as much energy as anyone else on the planet.
Here in Indiana, we just saw our great "Never have to change time" lives taken away by the "paid for by business" politicians. I now have the choice to move to AZ or just ignore clocks.
"Clocks! We don't need no stink'n clocks!"
Now I just get there when I get there and leave when I want.
Peachy!
Hear, hear!
As someone who has been involved with DST related programming, this couldn't happen soon enough for me.
Now, what can we do about this, to make it happen?
Well, for one, we could write a virus, err, I mean a self-replicating utility, that forces everyone's computer to stay off DST! Ha! That alone could do the trick!
PS., I am rather surprised to see someone complain about too much of that 'DAMN' sunlight!
anyone point out that you can't actually "saves" time? you can save time, though.
WTF? How is this "Bush's" plan... from the article: "The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,'' said U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who co-sponsored the measure with U.S. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.). I guess the truth doesn't matter...as long as there's another excuse to bash Bush.
Does anyone here know what that jerk is talking about ??
If they want to set DST for 9 months out of the year, why don't they just set DST for 12 months and eliminate the need to change the clocks at all?
I hate DST with a passion fueled by the very fires of hell. My question is why mess with the actual wall clock time, when instituting national 'summer hours' would be easier? After all, what you're trying to do is modify human behavior.
On whatever date, all stores/gov't offices switch to summer hours - open an hour earlier in the summer. The clocks are left alone, there's no double 2am problem, TV schedules stay the same, life goes on as before without the need to futz with clocks.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I agree, I really don't get why we even have time zones - they really aren't necessary. In Canada, we could go to work at 10:00am in the winter and 8:00am in the summer - we don't need to change the clocks, we just get up and do things at different times.
I definitely would rather have more hours in the winter though. I really hate getting up in the morning (dark), working all day (gets light out later in the morning... I've already been at work for several hours in the dark). Then I get to watch the sun go down while I'm still at work, and drive home when its completely dark. It gets depressing quickly.. not seeing the sun for more than a few minutes per day.
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.
A related bill is being discussed in Congress to also change the start and end dates of seasons. While most law makers Global Warming is still believed to be an unproven theory, they propose to change move the beginning of Summer to March 1st and the End of Summer to October 31st, which making the other 3 seasons correspondly smaller.
This proposal aims at lessening the number of complains received from people complaining about how unreasonably hot the weather has become in the Spring and Fall seasons.
It's time for a new time system. One that would always maximize the hours of daylight. Now that we have computers in our toasters and microwave ovens, we have the technology.
Daytime and schedules will now be measured in hours/minutes/seconds since sunrise. There would still be time zones of 1 hour, so that everyone in the same timezone would be in sync. Most people would get up around sunrise. Most businesses would open 1 or 2 hours after sunrise.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
It's nice to see the American government coming up with a solution like this instead of concentrating on and suggesting alternate energies.
Uh, why can't it do both? What's the down side to attempting to decrease energy usage through a means that won't really affect many of us in a meaningful way?
--
RumorsDaily
Last time I checked Canada was about as high up on the lists of priorities as the IAFC. Not to sound like a bad neighbor... but really... If Canadiens don't like early daylight savings time, don't observe it. If you do like early daylight savings time, then observe it.
Try moving to Indiana - then you will realize WTF daylight savings time is all about. Durring the last vote, the major reason was that the farmers said it would mess up the cows... Think about this for a second.... 'mess up the cows.' Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot-OVER. Last time I checked the Cow's didn't wear watches. Pigs do; but they don't like the cows, so they won't tell them what's up. Additionally Wisconsin has about 50x as many cows as Indiana and they still observe DST.
Everyone here is about down the middle - 50/50 (and most are very adiment about their opinion). I personally set my clocks ahead anyway. But I just know that people close an hour earlier than they say they will. I also respond with the added bonus 'your time' when someone asks me the time - that makes it fun when I tell them I am from the same place as them, but I choose to observe daylight savings time.
read this article - 2 paragraphs - starting about the second one down. DST - WTF All I have to say is that the reason companies don't come here is not because companies are confused by times, it's because it's f@#k'n Indiana and there is jack squat else here... (Indianapolis is OK)
I think you've hit on several important points, DST is bad for several reasons. ...But what I'd be interested in seeing is if Canada opts not to follow suite with the US in implementing DST - and what it would mean to the economy...
With stock markets in the States opening earlier than in Canada and closing earlier as well, investors would have a highly reliable crystal ball with which to make decisions... If the economy down south is showing a downward trend, Canadian investors will have an hour's warning time to respond. The chaos would eventually level off but it could create some pretty spectacular short-term profits...
Spaniards will speak with you in any language you want--as long as it's Spanish.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Everyone pushes for DST for 'energy savings'. Consider this: DST pushes in the past have all been on the premise that this would save energy because people would use fewer lights.
With the increase in central air, though, the primary power draw isn't light, but air. If the sun set earlier in the day, people would have less time at home where their air is fighting hot daytime temperatures.
The right way to combat energy usage in the modern time is to END DST, keep year-round standard time, OR, go to reverse-DST, to add more daylight at the end of the day in the winter, to get passive solar help.
I hate switching between the two times. I'd prefer DST all the time or not at all.
-l
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I never really liked having DST in the first place. Why not just adjust the time ahead 1/2 hour all the time and be done with it?
The line was funny dude, not all humor has to follow the stringent truth guidelines of Fox News or Bush. Relax.
~S
Indiana, one of the few holdouts of DST has decided to start using it. They claim it's an energy saving issue and a business issue, and I'm not buying it.
I'm sitting in a building full of offices. It is fantastically sunny today, but with few exceptions (myself being one), the are lit by electric lights. (Flourescents give me a headache, so I work by natural light as much as possible.)
It matters not what time it is, or even if these people work a night shift instead of a day shift, the lights will be on when they're there, and, maybe, off when they're not.
Observation tells me the same is true of most any business in an urban environment. Stores and restaurants are lighted based on occupancy, not time of day.
Same thing's mostly true in homes. More electrical stuff is on when people are home and awake than when they aren't and time of day or amount of sunlight has little or nothing to do with it.
In any case, changing from not using DST to using it can only (theoretically) make a difference in energy consumption for the part of the year that's different from current practice. If we switch to match Eastern time, that'd make us different in the summer, if we go Central (the preferred choice, I hear), we'd be different in the winter.
If the winter part of DST is made shorter (and we go Central, as they're suggesting), we will save less energy than the amount we're supposed to be saving by switching to DST. Therefore, if energy savings is the reason, it's a bad idea.
Not that I believe in the energy argument anyway, but less of however much is still less.
The main reason some people want to get Indiana on DST is the "problem" of explaining what time it is here to businesses in other states. Guess what? Some of them are going to be in different timezones no matter what you do. If you really want to sync with people somewhere else, change your work hours.
No one I talk to elsewhere really cares what time it is here, they just want to know when we're available for communication. They're going to put it on their calendars in their local time anyway.
The other argument for DST is not one the lawmakers have been pushing (because they only want to talk about theoretically saving money) is the social one. That is, that people want to do things outdoors, outside of work, when the sun is up.
That would make sense except that it doesn't. Civil twilight starts tonight (July 21) at 8:44 pm. It would be the same if we were on CDT. It would be 9:44 pm(!) if we were on EDT. So it's OK now, right?
OK, so how about winter? On Christmas day, civil twilight starts at 5:57 pm (current time or EST). If we switch to CST, it'll be 4:57 pm(!). Is that better? Really?
I used civil twilight rather than sunset because we're talking about people being outdoors. Sunset is about 30 minutes earlier.
I spent a year in South Bend. The best thing I can say for the place is that it's a short drive from Chicago.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Seconds are the standard SI unit of time. We should forget about crap like minutes, hours, and the likes and switch to a pure seconds-based system.
There are 86.4 kiloseconds in a day. However, we are not farmers. Day and night don't matter. We should make 100 kiloseconds the standard length of a sleep-wakefulness cycle. My body always wants to stay up for an extra three hours and I pay for it in the morning. With an extra 3.8 standard hours in a "day", we'd be able to stay up longer and sleep in every time.
Certain shorthands will disappear when we switch to seconds, kiloseconds, and megaseconds, but others will arise to take their place. Long-term durations and short-term durations will become much easier to relate to each other.
So...
- Replace days with periods of 100 kiloseconds for an extra 3.8 hours of fun and rest
- Replace weeks with periods of 10 megaseconds. A weekend can last 300 kiloseconds (or more). w00t!
- Have New Years-style parties every 100 megaseconds. Sweeeeeeet.:)
- Forget the damn astrological bs of days, months, and years. What has the moon ever done for you? Nothing! Then why should you give a damn about it? It's easier to just do everything in seconds.:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
DST policy is the domain of provincial governments, and in some cases municpalities can even go their own route (such as those like Lloyminster which straddles the AB/SK border, or the Pace region of BC). Your best bet is to write your MLA/MPP/MNA or petition your provincial legislature.
There was an article about this in the newspaper and it seems Canadians were caught very off-guard about the idea--there was no consultation with Canada OR Mexico on this decision even though it would affect us very much. To do this change would be very expensive and in some cases dangerous due to the complexity and confusion in coordinating this kind of change--and IMO the benefits are small to nonexistent--especially for residents in more northern locales.
If we stay with DST as it is now regardless of what the US does, it would be the cheapest solution in the short-term, but the ongoing confusion due to being one hour off in some direction two months of the year in addition to the annoyance of still changing the clocks twice a year would be costly in the long run.
Therefore I think if the US goes ahead with this silly scheme it would be the perfect opportunity for Canada to abolish DST entirely. We would no longer have to make sure all our clocks have been changed, and since automated systems already support disabling DST the cost of the change would be minimal. Long term, it would simplify business (payroll and other time-sensitive systems won't have to use the added complexity). If the US does indeed go forward with this change I urge all Canadians to petition their governments to abolish DST.
I'd propose to add three months instead of two. This would save another month of daylight. And while at it, just add two months at the beginning as well. Also, to simplify remembering the day, set the start of DST to the first day of the month, and the end of DST to the last (so a month is either completely DST, or not at all). Doing all those, DST will start at Jan 1, and end at Dec 31. Now just let it start at the beginning of Jan 1, and end at the end of Dec 31. This will simplify DST, as you have only to remember one time, where you set the clock back, and immediatly undo that operation. Of course you could also simply note that this combination is a no-op anyway and skip it completely. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I imagine they can deal with it.
For traders in Vancouver BC, the situation is barley tolerable as it is--they start work when the market opens--in TORONTO AND NEW YORK. So while all those people in the east have until 9AM to get going, those poor Vancouverites have to be up, at work and ready to go at SIX IN THE MORNING. If the US changes DST and Candad doesn't do so immediately, that means their day starts at FIVE in the morning for a month every spring. Furthermore, many traders typically have to do some kind of business until the close of business--on the WEST coast. Vancouverites are so close to Washington state that they'd probably have to work an hour LATER for a month in the fall until the US changes back to standard time.
I'm thinking now that if the proponents of DST think that the longer DST is the more energy it saves and the better it is for everyone, why should we bother having "standard" time at all--just make DST the standard and leave our clocks alone from now on? Personally, I'd appreciate that the most--in Decemnber it is pitch black by the time I leave the office--if there was not clock switching and DST was year 'round at least I'd be able to see the sun go down form HOME for more of the year.
His name is Smokey Bear, not Smokey the Bear. "Smokey the Bear" is a popular song written in 1952 by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins. The subject is Smokey Bear. According to the Forest Service's Smokey Bear website, a "the" was added to keep the song's rhythm.
cpeterso
...as did several other EU nations. Even though -as a Swede- I appreciate the (mostly unwarranted) praise, I fail to see the impact your nationality would have on applying OS patches. The patches that worked for us should for for the US, unless your weird and mysterious software laws perform their usual voodoo, of course.
But now we have electronics to perform arithmetic. Further, we have GPS, which can tell you where you are to high precision. Combining these allows you to have a sideral time watch that keeps up with the time zone continuously. The whole computation problem goes away (is taken care of) and siderial time just works.
Alternative, cheaper technology for a wristwatch is the FlintStones style sun dial. Hard to get the microsecond accuracy available from GPS, but probably good enough for those on a budget.
-- Stephen.
Perhaps, mr skeptic, I can interest you in the Sono Bono Daylight Savings extension act (SBDSea.)
The act will extend daylight savings time year round.
"Upton estimates the move will save the country $360 million (U.S.) for the extra 60 days that daylight time will be in effect"
my god, they are seriously doing this for a mere $360million in energy? seriously, that is pocket change! to put it in perspective it will be saving each american about $1 per year...
This was the file at center of the April 01 2001 daylight savings time snafu. See the links below:
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/1999/jan-18-99.ht m
Microsoft's Unintentional April's Fool's Bug
http://www.cknow.com/articles/62/1/Computer-Knowle dge-Newsletter-Archive---1999/print/62
http://www.rescomp.upenn.edu/docs/hype/old/aprilon e.html
Daylight Saving Time is in the summer when there is plenty of daylight to make it home in time already.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
have no children.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
How many extra IT workers does it take to update zone files which are automatically updated?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Score yourself at home
This is slashdot... I'm sure many people reading this frequently "score" {with} themselves at home.
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
For example France : "Le denier du cult" relate to the money give as alm during church (if I recall correctly). Furthermore in many part of the world, the main difference between a cult and a church by legal definition is the NUMBER of follower.
As for "mandate that people think for themselves, to always think clearly and rationally and not act on mere impulse or emotion" well I would like to know where you pull that out. I would think of a certain party of the body. Usually for christianism the precept are given hammer-like without questionning, and a single authoritative figure (ex: the pope) can questionesly decide something which then will more or less be valid to any fervent catholic (example : putting the preservative at the "index"). Faith is NOT to be questionned. This is heresy. Remmember the inquisition ? Posing the wrong question could lead you to be burned alive. Even today it can lead you to be stoned in certain part of the world, and it certainly can lead you to be shuned or worst in the western part of the world. Typically if you want to avoid question you just say "God made me do it" or "God told me".
Please do not make any religion as an entertaining educating experience where people can ask a lot of wonderful question. This is an untruth historically, and even now on so many level that it is difficult to know where to begin with... Religion in general force a certain type of locked "answer/precept" and does not allow any questionning aside what lead to those answer. You are comfunding with science or moral or philosophy.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org