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Impact of Daylight Savings Time Changes?
jason718 writes "With the pending changes to U.S. Daylight Savings Time, what impact will those changes have to existing systems and their applications? Are some operating systems more open than others with regard to the configuration of Daylight Savings Time start and end dates, or will we need yet another update or patch to modify the internal calendar?"
This seems like it is going to be a great deal of trouble. Although most software will be fairly easily patched, it still seems like a hastle. People will inevitably forget to patch, and different will be handling time differently.
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Arizona's position on Daylight Saving Time is enlightened, and we should all follow their shining example.
If you want to go to work an hour earlier, just go to work an hour earlier. All this goddamn "pretend it's an hour later than it really is" bullshit is completely whacked. People who think DST is a good idea are like people who think setting their alarm clocks ten minutes later will improve the likelihood that they will get to work on time.
Noon should always be when the sun is directly over my time-zone. If you want to adjust the business day according to available sunlight, it makes more sense to: 1. Change the start time instead of the clocks. 2. Do it gradually, the way available light changes gradually. That way you don't fuck up people's sleep cycles either.
I wonder if the health problems (and sick days off work) due to disrupted sleep patterns has actually cost our society more than the energy saved by the whole DST concept. Seems like something which should have been studied by now...
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I have about 54 Unix servers to care and feed.
I estimate that we will perform zero patches to handle these specific rule changes.
The switch already happens - it'll just happen on different days. And if you recall, these changes have happened before - so it isn't really unexpected for those who have been in the business a while.
The Y2K contracting folks will have you jumping off your seats, but for everyone who runs these systems: no big deal.
I'm sure some home users will be caught off guard, but then again most desktop users have their clock set to the wrong timezone.
Sheesh.
Ok, let's take as a given that Peak Oil has already passed, just for the sake of argument.
All that this means is that crude oil pumped from the ground will continue to become more expensive. Not in great leaps and bounds, but at a relatively steady pace.
As crude oil becomes more expensive, alternate fuels become relatively less expensive. Sooner rather than later we'll see both synthetic crude (from farm waste, of all things) and expanded hydrogen trade.
In a hundred years, we won't be back to hand-working on farms. We'll have a bunch of telecommuters working the same networked jobs they all want to work now, and the same green revolution farms, only the tractors will use more electric motors and less internal combustion.
Is Peak Oil going to give us change? Yes. It is going to cause a capitalist apocolypse? No, not really. We did rather well before gasoline, and we'll do farily well long after it's gone.