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Is Daylight Saving Shift Really Worth It?
Krishna Dagli writes "Two Ph.D. students at the University of California at Berkeley say that Daylight Saving Shift will not do any good or create any energy savings. We are already spending money for software upgrades in the name of saving energy and after reading following article I wonder has congress really studied the impact of DST shift? " I also read some back story on the concept; OTOH, I found TiVo's suggestions that I manually change everything on my Series 1 device to be somewhat...insulting.
NO!
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Energy savings or not, I like the extra hour of daylight in the evening. It's extra time to play ball, take the dog for a walk or just let my kid play outside.
I'd go for double daylight savings if I could.
Maybe the PhD guys should get out of their classroom and enjoy the day.
I want my daylight savings time for one reason - so I'm not woken at an ungodly (Ungodly? unGodly?) hour when the sun rises at its earliest, and I know I would be - if the sun didn't, my husband, who is very reactive to sunlight, would be awake and that would do it.
I live in Indiana, and I'm thrilled that we're finally doing DST.
I wonder has congress really studied the impact of DST shift?
It is already well-established that the US Congress doesn't bother to read the laws before they pass them.
If they don't even read the law, I doubt they would do any studies.
The obvious answer is that congress needed an easy way to put something down on paper that they care about energy policy.
Was there any in depth hearings on it, any experts called in to testify on the change, any representatives from industries affected by this change, actual debate on the subject? As far as i can remember, it was no on all accounts.
Congress passes a law without knowing the full consequences, simply so they would have something to show in the 06 elections.
Anyone who voted on this is/was a god damn moron.
This change in DST was definitely worth it, if only for the benefit of forcing embedded systems designers to remember to not hard-code DST dates into their code. Historically, these dates have been changed about once per decade in the US alone. Assuming that they'll never change again is plain stupid. This shift will help train the current generation of developers to just not do that.
Clearly this legislations was thought up by a "morning person." You douchebag "morning people" and your silly daylight requirement may suck my left nut.
It shifts all the time. It's even slowly moved westward as cities on an eastern time zone border have pushed to get lumped into the next time zone. Why? Because the vast majority of businesses aren't flexible in their staffing hours and people can't choose to simply go in when they wake up.
My wife says that she wishes DST was all the time, as she has no problems waking up in the dark but tends to work long hours and we regularly stay up until 11 or 12.
And yeah, as a reminder to programmers it's great, but it's also great for all people to realize that time is abstract and can pretty much be whenever. I don't think I've ever heard an elderly person lament the time when we were all standard time.
The days of going to work in the dark and leaving in the dark weigh heavy on the soul/psyche. DST is a big boost, IMO.
But that has nothing to do with DST, that has to do with 1) what time you come and go to work and how long you stay there, and 2) the days are simply shorter in the winter because the Earth's axis. In extreme Northern and Southern climates (think North and South polar regions), its daylight and dark 24 hours a day depending on the season, and changing the clock will not change that.
I heard on NPR the other day, that the _real_ reason for DST is not to save energy, but rather to appease the retail sector. They have data that people are more willing to go out and spend money after work if its not dark. So people go motoring around in their fuel efficient SUVs, blow money, and thus energy is saved!
Personally, I don't understand why humans are so clock oriented vs sun oriented. It kills me that houses in the US are built in random directions (unless there is a nice view) instead of oriented around the Sun.
Sometimes I think humans are the silliest of all animals.
I see your point, and I like it when you are a happy camper, but daylight savings does NOT change how many hours of daylight we have at our disposal.
I repeat DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME DOES NOT GIVE US MORE DAYLIGHT. It does not change the planets tilt, rotation speed, or smell.
Sorry, but it just bugs me when everyone claims it gives us more daylight. DST should be abolished altogether. Any companies that want to change their business hours for the seasons should do so on their own. Factories in the Midwest, like mine, start their employees 2-3 hours earlier in the summer so they can avoid the heat of the day. DST just means now we have to start our employees 3-4 hours earlier to avoid the heat.
DST is my new mortal enemy.
Questioning politicians, it's your duty. The day that you assume that you're less intelligent that politicians is the day that you wave all your rights, human or otherwise.
;-)
Politicians are only people, you're a person too. Question what they do or you're simply a tool. Don't forget either that they work for you.
So yeah, mod parent down
Anyone who thinks the decision to keep the US on DST, or increase the time it is on DST, has anything at all to do with energy savings is woefully naive at best. The US increased DST because of commercial interests involved in outdoor entertainment and business. And those commercial interests bought congresscritters to do their bidding.
Any other government explanation is a lie. No exceptions.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Why don't they just pass a law stating that for purposes of the government, standard work hours are shifted +1/-1hr within a given time period, and encourage private industry to do the same? That way you get your ability to drive home in daylight, and I don't have anyone screwing with my clocks.
(For that matter, if it's that big of a difference, why doesn't private industry decide to change business hours independently? Personally, I don't see it as a big enough change to be worth bothering -- but then, I exercise in the mornings rather than afternoons, and have an employer who allows me to shift my hours at will).
DST isn't about saving energy because it doesn't. It's about adding an hour of sunlight at the end of the day so that people can go out and shop - thus using more energy, not less.
There's a reason that American Chamber of Commerce has strongly support DST since it's inception.
In a 24 hour society, daylight savings is an absolute farce outside of the May->August period when it's possible to have 16 hours of daylight. If there's, say, 14 hours of daylight, then you have 2 hours of darkness in most peoples' days wherever you shift the timezones, and that's only the optimum outcome because millions wake up before daylight and millions stay up after it.
If the government was really interested in "saving energy", it'd clamp down on emissions and fuel efficiency, and promote more effective techniques. Banning incandescent lighting and enforcing energy-saving bulb usage would strip several percent off of electricity demands year round and would cause a whole lot less annoyance than timezone changes. The EU and Australia have already figured this one out.
My girlfriend's after a house with a south-facing yard, so as to catch all the sun it can (she's a garden enthusiast). It's amazing how many estate agents don't actually know which direction a given house faces.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
DST is definitely not about saving energy. Obviously, the real reason is for giving consumers and retailers an extra hour of sunlight, because it increases shopping. Have there been any definitive studies that show energy is conserved? I don't know, to be honest, but probably not. It would be very hard to do. Anyway, we probably use just as much energy in the morning for the extra hour of darkness in our car headlights and indoor lighting.
It shouldn't be a law.. It should be up to the individual, weather or not, to follow DST.. like religious or political view. Also, It should be upto the individual, when to fall back or spring forward. [I would fall back while in bed and spring forward while at work, perhaps on a Monday morning, just like this.]
Screw energy savings. I need the extra hour of light so I can plant my garden after work and maybe even wash the car or something else constructive. I'm going to play basketball with my kid tonight. Yay!!!!
I wish we could stay on DST all year. I hate coming home at 6 p.m. and all I can do is sit on my ass because it's too dark to work or play outside.
I there were any savings, the stock prices of energy companies would have dropped...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Whenever I hear someone talk about how awesome it is to have extra hours of daylight, I ask them why wouldn't it be better to just "recalibrate" the time zones so that "daylight savings time" is the new standard time, then just stop all this switching nonsense.
But time zones are another total pain in the ass, even if there's no switching back and forth. I recently found out the China has a single time zone, whereas the country would encompass about eight zones if they used our style of time zones. And have you seen the time zone map of the US? It makes no sense at all. Alabama is completely on central time, but if you go due north, Michigan is in . . . eastern time? WTF?
I personally advocate the abolition of time zones altogether. Let's all use Greenwich Mean Time, no time changes, and deal with it. Businesses and schools can just change their hours of operation, rather than messing with time itself. Sure, it would be weird to have sunrise at 6 pm and sunset at 6 am, but would it be any more complicated than the current system?
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
The thing to fix is, getting rid of the DST change completely, either way, and stop changing clock twice a year. THAT'S the waste here.
Nothing to say here... move along
I honestly do not get what the big stink is with the DST thing. This change was announced MORE THAN A FREAKIN' YEAR AGO! Any company that did not make preparations long ago DESERVES whatever problems they get. Really, this did not sneak up on us. My company prepared for it, made the appropriate changes to systems from DOS through XP. The DST change came and went. Guess what? No problems. Did it cost us any money? Um...no. When you give yourself plenty of time, you don't have to stop doing your existing job to fix the problem.
Bearded Dragon
Psychologically, I feel a hell of a lot better when it's lighter out later. I know there are millions of people who have some sort of seasonal depression thing that are equally as delighted. I don't know if it saves any energy, but driving home from work when it's nice and bright out and being able to go for a nice walk or something in sunlight makes me happy.
IQ isn't about how 'smart' you are, but more about how you can deductively solve a problem. A person can be smarter that a person with a higher IQ cause they spend more time actively using there lower IQ. Its like the pipe problem. If you have a 1" pipe and a 2" pipe, the 2 inch pipe will fill a bucket twice as fast. Right? Well, what if the 2" pipe only gets a quarter the flow of water the 1" pipe gets? What you are saying is, I'm a fairly bright person, with an IQ I could do great things with, but alas, I'm fairly lazy and stick to what I already know.
As part of the learning process, when we experience unpleasant events, we gain the wisdom to avoid them in the future. The lesson here is: DST has changed many times in the past, and it will certainly change again in the future. Failure to anticipate this causes a lot of extra work for people. Training always has a cost, and we have just seen the cost of this lesson.
Technically, I said that the agent was overpaid, and not that you paid the agent, but...
You pay the agent if you buy through the agent. You write a big check, and some percentage or flat fee comes out of that money and goes to the agent. I don't care how they word it in the agreement (they can word it either way, depending on locality, whether they are a buyer's agent or seller's agent, or whatever) the fact of the matter is that money goes from you to the agent. The seller knows how much the agent is getting paid, and factors that in to the price.
I really wish I had mod points right now. The tag system as it is bugs me when they let articles in with questions in their titles. The tags are to classify the articles, not respond to or give feedback for them. Yes, no, maybe, slownewsday, etc... They're all worthless imo.
There are many kinds of smart.
Some of them are cultural.
Some of them are inherent physically.
People who have the currently popular versions of smart are treated as smart by society.
In the french court, calculus counted for nothing- but you could basically kill a person with the right witty saying.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
To me all that daylight at 4am (ok, a bit of an exageration) in the summertime is wasted. But light at 9pm? Not wasted . . . that means outdoor activity like bike rides after work, especially earlier in the spring when it would be getting dark at 6:30 instead of 7:30. I think that it is this sense that keeps it alive, rather than the Big Brother type of control you imply.