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UK Government Wants to Spring Ahead Two Hours
Anonymous Coward writes "In England it has been proposed that the clocks move forward by 2 hours this summer to give us more daylight time in the day, and hopefully in turn stimulate the economy. My question is what impact will this hold for computers that automatically adjust the time to British Summer Time? Could this cause another 'millennium Bug' fiasco?"
Could this cause another 'millennium Bug' fiasco?
Y2K was a much different situation, one which had absolutely nothing to do with such concepts as "daylight savings," "summer time," and the like. Y2K was caused by silly computer abbreviation of dates, and while DST can cause timekeeping bugs, it's unlikely to cause a worldwide meltdown.
I would also like to point out that these things are much more likely to break down the more frequently you change them..
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
I predict lots of people showing up to work 2 hours late if they us their cellphones or iDevice as an alarm clock.
Could this cause another 'millennium Bug' fiasco?"
If it happened tomorrow? It would cause a few problems. If it happens in March? Probably enough time to fix it. If it happens in October or later, no problem. There's usually somewhere in the rest of the world changes their DST policies on a yearly basis -- I believe parts of the U.S. changed in the last year or two.
It's an OS patch which you wouldn't even notice, a new tzdata file or similar.
Why dont we just skipp falling back one autum instead of springing forward two hours in the spring. It would make more sense as it always makes me tired in the mornings when we change the clocke in the spring and two hours seams like a nightmare come Monday morning when the whols country has jetlag.
... it's the whole of the UK. Otherwise, you'd have to adjust your clocks when you drive from one country to another.
I wouldn't expect you Mexicans to know that though.
Probably not a big deal. Time just isn't that important. For instance the iPhones have screwed up simple time shifts multiple times, and noone seems that concerned about it.
-Lod
I think the only economy this would stimulate would be the one involving IT Consultants.
Not that there's anything wrong with that...
From TFA:
Putting the clocks forward by an hour to British Summer Time +1 (equivalent to Greenwich Mean Time +2) would mean lighter evenings in the summer months, but darker mornings.
Am I the only one who feels utterly miserable going to work in the pitch dark, where the first light of the day I see is the fluorescent tubes above my cubicle?
Breakfast served all day!
If you think THAT will help the economy, we're gonna spring forward FIVE FUCKING HOURS. Just think of the unwarranted extrapolations!
Ice Cream has no bones.
England != UK. Can you lot in the United States of Florida PLEASE try to learn this.
With the DST changes that Congress mandated a few years ago, I think most commercial and Open Source OS's could adapt to this change easily.
Since we're no longer bound by Railroad timetables, especially in the UK, the concept of standard time and the time zones truly becomes much more localized. What I fear is one day cities will adopt their own time zones rather than regionally. Wouldn't that be fun? It would be like George Carlin's gag.
"In Baltimore it's 6:42, time for the 11 o'clock report."
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Every time (*ahem*) some gov't tweaks the rules, the new info is encoded, and the updated package is sent out. Note that the superseded info is retained, so that if you ask about a time in 1974 in New York City, it'll adjust correctly for the idiotic Nixonian ``let's all go to work in the dark'' time.
Debian's files live under /usr/share/zoneinfo, and amount to a bit over 6MB of data.
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
Man, this again? We get this from the english MPs every other week. This is the same ol' same ol' with a slight variation of +2 in the summer and +$unknown in the winter. ;-)
For the Nth time, this is not going to happen, the rest of the UK wont agree to it. Scotland is much further north than its mild weather would suggest, and when this was tried shortly after the second world war it was an unmitigated disaster. It was dark till lunchtime in the winter in the Shetland Isles, for little gain in the evening in the summer. And remember we almost have 24 hour daylight in Scotland in the summer, we dont need an extra hours daylight at 3am. And neither we, the Northern Irish, nor the Welsh care if it's dark in England 24 hours-a-day all year round
Every time the government changes and the Conservatives get in they start going on about this. The 'Tories' are an english party, and in England it gets dark at 10pm in the summer. Boo-hoo. It gets dark in Spain at 9pm in the summer, but they are out having beers till 3am. In England everyone is in their beds at 10pm, what do you want an extra hour of light for? Why do you want it to be light while you are asleep or in your house watching cricket and drinking warm beer or whatever it is you guys do? Especially if it's raining. I may be scottish but I've never seen so much rain as I have in Oxfordshire. No wonder you like your boats, you need them.
It's not your timezone you want to change, it's your culture. You want to enjoy your evenings more? Get out more, talk to people in bars without waiting for a formal introduction. It doesnt have to be light outside to have a good time.
Fecking sassenachs. The next time you bring this up we're cutting your power and water.
I may be scottish and as such slighty biased
Ah, the UK, where reinventing the wheel is a daily occurrence!
However, given the British obsession with world war two, this may be an appropriate move - it will be like returning to 1940-1945, when they had "double summer time", mainly so people could work in their gardens, growing vegetables, after they got home from work. Somehow, i don't think this is what they'll be using the extra hour of evening daylight for this time round though - it will be simply an excuse to get more drunk in the evening (if that's possible).
That should totally screw people up and result in total confusion.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The Australian government likes to mess with the day light offset for sporting events and I think they gave everyone a whole 5 weeks advanced notice a few years back. You get to the point where you just tell computer clocks to keep a common offset and then go change it twice a year.
There are some master time zone files that can be found here:
ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/
On Unix like system you can run a command like # zic australasia (or whatever zone is messed up.. or just run them all).
Then things should work.
Here is a script I wrote up to test this sort of nonsense about half a decade ago....
http://www.abnormal.com/~thogard/timezone.shtml
Why dont everyone just switch to metric time and get it over with :|
During WW II, Britain adopted Double Summer Time, skipping ahead two hours. It reverted to one hour after the war (modulo some funkiness a year or so later).
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
I'm a UK taxpayer and I conduct a lot of business with the US west coast. Presently, we're 8 hours apart for most of the year, and that means that I can *just barely* squeeze in a conference call with Californian colleagues (I'm co-owner of boingboing.net and all my partners are in LA and San Francisco) and still get out of the office in time to get my daughter from day-care and get home for dinner.
If the timezone difference goes to 9 hours, I'm buggered. The additional hour will have a direct, negative impact on my net income, as it will either require me to participate less in these transatlantic ventures (for example, it would probably mean no more freelance assignments for US editors, all of which generate UK taxes) or hire expensive babysitters to fetch the kid from day-care (something I also would rather not do for sentimental reasons having nothing to do with the economy).
Its not just you scots who don't want it, plenty of us english arn't too happy either!
I don't much care if its dark when I drive home from work , I'm already awake and have lots of coffee inside me. What I DONT want is it pitch black first thing in the morning when I'm half asleep trying to drive down dark roads with kids trying to get to school crossing said dark roads.
Why the fuck our politicians want this I have no idea. We're more north west than all of the rest of western europe bar ireland which means the time our sun rises and sets bares little resemblence to what happens in germany 500 miles east or france 200 miles south.
Also , can someone explain whats the point of a clock if it doesn't give at least a rough approximation of the real time?
I mean if our politicians really don't see why clocks should tell a good approximation of the actual time why just 2 hours? Why not move them forward 12 hours and then it can be dark while we work but we'll have a nice bright nighttime for all those whingers to go out and have their cappucinos at 11pm or whatever the hell it is they want to do in the light late at night.
Sorry , but I don't see the point of daylight saving AT ALL. Contrary to what some morons seem to believe we (surprise!) don't get an extra hour of daylight. The real problem isn't the time, its the fact that the working day is spread unevenly around midday. If everyone started work at 8am and finished at 4pm then this wouldn't be an issue. If you really need the extra light in the evenings get up earlier - thats all you're doing anyway when the clocks go forward!
... will not make me trust the currency.
why stop there? why not get really outside the box and make it fully algorithmic instead of lookup table based.
The families of Indian call centre employees will be happier - it means that their sons and daughters will be one hour less from the rest of India. If the UK were to be so generous to go +5.30 onto Indian time, even better
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
But it does give me more USABLE daylight.
Currently, for five months of the year it's dark when I leave the house in the morning and it's dark when I get home at night.
There's no time more depressing than end October when the clocks go back. I've spent the previous few weeks going to work in the dark. Now I get to see the sun coming up on my way in (really useful NOT!) and I know I won't see the Sun in the evening until the clocks change again.
Moving the clocks by an hour will give me a brief interval in the evening where essential jobs can be done (sweeping up leaves, fixing dripping outdoor taps etc), freeing up time at the weekend that is currently wasted on those 15 minute jobs that _can't_ be done during the week.
Daylight in the evening is far more valuable than daylight in the morning even if your work hours are flexible. If your doing something messy in the garden then you can pack up as the Sun goes down and then shower and change inside when it's dark. Try to do it in the morning and you cannot start until the sun comes up and then you'll shower and change during daylight hours before leaving for work.
There is an argument that increasing the time difference with the States will affect some interactions. But OTOH, more overlap with the Far East will somewhat compensate for that.
Scotland can have its own timezone if that's what it wants. Perhaps companies that interact extensively with the States will relocate offices there as a result. It would take a little getting used to, especially for people who commute across the border to work but nothing insurmountable.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
"United Kingdom" (a country) "England" (a province)
So very wrong. United Kingdom = state. England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland = countries. Ulster (Northern Ireland + 3 counties in Eire) = province. Great Britain (or just Britain as we're not so big-headed these days) = England + Scotland + Wales + islands (but not Northern Ireland, and definitely not Eire). Nationality of a UK subject - as we're subjects of the Crown rather than citizens of the state - is British.
Hope this clears up the confusion.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
DST sucks when you have kids.
"It's time for night night"
"Why?"
"It's night time"
"No it's not" *Points a light still pouring through window*
"grrrr"
The rules for starting and ending U.S. daylight saving time and British Summer Time are both set by legislation and have changed several times. Hard coding them into software is a serious mistake. The only safe way to deal with DST is to maintain a lookup table for the specific dates each year or a list of the years when the rules changed, and update these tables regularly. The more often the rules change, the more incentive people will have to adopt appropriate practice, rather than encrusting their software around the old rules. (Not that the rules should be changed arbitrarily; they just shouldn't be left unchanged for fear of "breaking" something.)
I would also like to point out that these things are much more likely to break down the more frequently you change them.
I think that sums it up best . . .
OTOH, if people changed these things more frequently, things in general would become less likely to break down, because everyone would become more accustomed to it. We would then be able to relegate those people who allow it to break down to the same caste we today relegate the "what do you mean someone can insert random SQL in my obviously numeric GET parameter?!" people. They would still exist, but nobody would really pay attention to their screams :)
t=t+rand();
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
5 hours would be daylight again? You mean I would have to look at that last-call score in the daylight? No thanks!
"See you later honey, catch me again on standard time."
It's no secret that France has long wanted the Meridian to pass through Paris, where other items that define weights and measure reside, so they can all be in one (*ahem* French *ahem*) place. Once we don't use Greenwich Mean Time the next step will be for France to re-name Paris as "Greenwich", ...
Heh. Apparently the French (and probably a lot of Brits, too) haven't heard that GMT hasn't been used for a quarter century now. The Greenwich Observatory got out of the time standard business back in 1986 (google it), when the official time standard was redefined in a way that wasn't dependent on any place or artifact, and renamed "UTC". Since then, "GMT" has been nothing more than a mispelling of "UTC", usually by someone who doesn't understand the difference.
Actually, if you visit the Greenwich Observatory, you'll find that they do have a nice museum exhibit of the history of their time standard, as well as a number of other good exhibits. It's well worth spending a day of your vacation there. Or visit their nice web site (www.nmm.ac.uk).
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.