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Daylight Savings Time Increases Energy Use In Indiana
enbody writes "The Freakonomics Blog at NYTimes.com reports on a study of Indiana energy use for daylight savings time showing an increase in energy use of 1%. 'The dataset consists of more than 7 million observations on monthly billing data for the vast majority of households in southern Indiana for three years. Our main finding is that — contrary to the policy's intent — D.S.T. increases residential electricity demand.'" Maybe that's just from millions of coffee makers being pressed into extra duty.
I've gotta say, I'm in England and as soon as the clocks change, my power consumption goes way up. I don't even use heaters where I live so I've never worked out where it's coming from....
I think the key phrase is "D.S.T. increases residential electricity demand."
The company or what/whoever you work for will see a positive effect, at the expense of the consumer. That is exactly what I've always believed DST was meant to do (by those who invented it), in the first place.
Every year, the energy utilities report that they observed no difference in energy use when daylight savings time is changed. It really is time to stop this annoyance.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Down with DST!
1) Any good developer knows you don't redefine time. If a business wants to start work early, just say start at 7AM.
2) What about all the wasted time spent dealing with the change?
without daylight savings time the sun would set by 5pm in October, instead of the November it does now.
Which is why I've always disliked Daylight Savings Time. It bothers me that through the winter months I leave home when it's dark and get home when it's dark. I work inside all day, I almost never see the sun.
Honestly, I've never been able to figure out why they don't just put the clock *ahead* two hours in the fall, and then just leave it there.
Look outside your window tonight, see when the sun goes down, look at the time and then add three hours. Ask yourself if you wish it was 8:00 PM rather than 5:00 PM or, as we get further into the winter months, 7:00 and 4:00 PM. Not only that, summer vacations would be nicer too as we could stay out at the beach longer or enjoy other outdoor activities longer.
It might also have a nice side effect combating the obesity epidemic we're all facing if we gave people more daylight time to play outside.
I don't care what anyone says, what any statistics say, I wish we'd do away with standard time all together.
It gets dark WAY too damn early, and it gets light in the morning WAY too damn early.
I'd rather it be on "Daylight Savings Time" year round. Despense with the setting of the clocks twice a year, and all the headaches that result from it. Just let us go to Daylight Savings Time next year, and then STAY THERE. Forever.
I can't imagine any valid reasonable reason not to.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
an evidence that my country, Japan, shouldn't introduce DST. Japan is again considering to introduce DST even though we already concluded it won't work in Japan for cultural/geometrical reasons decades ago. Pro claims that it's good for environment, but I haven't seen a single scientific evidence to support it. Con, like me, complains that DST will definitely confuse people and IT systems!
Some places, like Indiana, have counties that don't observe DST, which can give a good indication. Also, I imagine you could look at similar communities across a time-zone line, since that would be a one-hour difference with little actual difference.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
When we fall back from DST to standard time, I notice a lot of people seem more visibly depressed, or "blah."
Well, not everyone has the same reaction. What bothers me a lot more is having to get up and drive to work in the dark. I work in a cubicle in a room with no windows, so I don't see daylight until I go for lunch. I used to only have to drive to work in the dark for a few weeks in December and January, but after daylight saving time was extended a few years ago, there seems to be many more such days.
There are also safety issues. Parents don't want their kids walking to school in the dark, and year-round DST would have that effect. I know the "think of the children" argument is not popular on Slashdot, but in this case, I think it is a valid point.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
All day? When you use it twice a day? Just... why?!?
If I have to wait 27 hours for it, it'd better be the best damned coffee in the world
Most excellent. Pedantry is becoming a lost art. You can almost never find a grammar nazi when you need one.
Let's not confuse pedantry with grammar nazism; they are not the same, though they often appear so to the layman.
A pedant is concerned with picayune details of correctness. Such a person has problems with bad science in science fiction movies, for instance.
A grammar nazi is often a very confused person who believes that is 'one true grammar.' Such a person is especially confused when we're talking about corrections to the use of the English language, as there IS no central authority for the language, and what some people assume to be hard and fast 'rules' are actually specific styles that vary from region to region, and publication to publication. The 'AP Style Guide' (AP is for Associated Press), and the Chicago Manual of Style are great examples of the latter. Neither of these are more correct than the other, unless you're writing for a publication that mandates that particular style. A grammar nazi will latch onto one of these things and never let go, not realizing that 'rules' like 'no dangling participles' and whatnot, are no more 'rules' in English than whether you put a comma or not before the last item in a list in a sentence. Many of the AP 'rules' are what they are to save space and/or ink in printed publications, and have little to no bearing (at best) in the modern world, or are unnecessary or deleterious with regard to electronic publishing. You can always tell the English majors and print geeks are involved when you see paragraphs with no blank lines between them, and a 'half-inch' indentation starting each paragraph. The Web is not the same as print (nor is it the same as TV). You'll also notice these people tend to put two spaces after a period, etc., and insist on curly apostrophes and quotation marks. They also love the phrase, 'below the fold,' as if that was a specific measurement on the Web. These people believe that all computer screens use 72 'dpi', and don't understand that CRTs, at least, can vary their 'dpi,' simply by changing resolution. I belive I've strayed from my point here - sorry.
I prefer clarity and ease of understanding before any perceived 'rules' of English grammar, which certainly proves, at least in my case, that pedantry and Grammar Nazism are not the same.
Though I really hate it when people put in unnecessary apostrophes. "CD's" for instance. Gack.
both em-dash and hyphen are available on your keyboard btw
What you linked to does not prove what you said. Putting in codes to output the characters you want is not, in my mind, the same as 'available on your keyboard,' and Pedantic-Man isn't especially interested in such nonsense as outputting different types of dashes/hyphens when the 'minus key' on the keyboard will do for the sake of clarity. Pedantic-Man is also pretty lazy. :)
Pedantic-Man says, "Stay out of trouble!"
how about we define "lunchtime" as the middle of the solar day?
In Michigan Solar time +1 hour doesn't work either because Sunrise and Sunset shift two hours between winter and summer in addition to the length of the day. Having a time change take up only one of those hours playing with the clock.
It's all air-conditioning's fault. To get to sleep in the summer under EDT, people need to run the A/C more later in the evening than they would under EST. With a set-back thermostat, A/C runs fewer hours in the day under EST.