daylight stupid time

Once I hit my early 40's I knew exercize had to become more important. After multiple surgeries, I figured the lowest impact / highly effective exercize would be swimming. I sure do like hittin' those 33 laps in the daytlight, while sun is up higher, the lovely young scenery is more apt to be out lounging around, and the weather is at its warmest. I'll take DST year round please. B)

 

There are places that simply refuse to go along with it. Yahk, BC, tried it and didn't like it, so they just don't. The whole Province of Saskatchewan basically says 'the cows have to be milked at the same time anyway.' Things get a little confusing in Lloydminster, literally ON the Alberta/Saskatchewan border, where part of the year, the other side of town is in a different time zone, and part of the year it isn't. It could be worse. We could go back to the days before Sir Sanford Fleming, and each town could set its own clock by the local high noon. Or, we could ignore the whole crazy idea and have everybody on the planet show up for work at the one and only true 9am, dark or not. B)

 

I agree with Hobbit!!!

(Except that DST apparently profits retailers, as it gives shoppers more daylight after work.)

I offer, as a modest alternative, that the entire planet go onto sidereal time. Pick a star that's roughly over the equator, define noon as when that star is directly over the Greenwich meridian, and it would be the same time everywhere on the planet. I think it would make the day 4 minutes shorter and add one day to the length of the year, but that's okay.

 

Oh man. DST has been a thorn in my side since I began understanding what it was all about. Well, not DST - just the time change. I don't give a damn WHERE the clocks are set (I have probably heard more folks desire DST year-round than those who want noon to simply be when the sun is straight up). Just set the dang things and leave them there. It usually takes me about, oh, half a year to set the clocks every half a year. Sigh.

And Daniel is right - plenty of folks do benefit from it - just not society as a whole. And I agree with you Hobbit - if we can force everybody to do this on a whim, why can't we enforce some regulations that help everybody? What is it about DST that the population just accepts as part of our lives now?

I've known people who think DST actually ADDS more daylight to our days. I've been asked if DST means I can make more or less power with PV. Seriously. There are people who think we're changing the length of our days, and are all for the time-change because of that! I guess all we really need to do is make the days 25 hours long, and we're set! These peoples' vote counts as much as mine.

As a kid I remember just being confused 2x/year when the clocks were changed. Couldn't figure out why it was *suddenly* so much lighter or darker in the morning depending on the season. I just knew that it sucked. If everybody is happy with DST all the time, then I see no problem in that. If it is somehow dangerously dark for the kiddies to get to school in the morning, then change the start time to something safer.

When the folk start posting about all the energy savings from clock-changing, I'll have some more responses.

So... how the hell DO we get rid of the time change?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Mar 10 2007, 12:40 PM) [snapback]403471[/snapback]</div>

By ignoring it. Get enough people to refuse to abide by it and it'll go away. Just like war.

I worked on a dairy farm. They basically worked from sunup to sundown, regardless of what the clock said, and they milked the cows at the same real time, regardless of what the clock said. Being devout Christians (and, I will add, excellent people) they did no field work on Sundays, but they still worked 7 days a week, 365 days a year and one more on leap years, feeding and milking the cows, and cleaning out the milk parlor afterwards. DST really didn't affect them at all.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Mar 10 2007, 09:21 AM) [snapback]403398[/snapback]</div>

APPLE and MSOFT issued a hot-fix/patch early this year; any half-brained user that did regular AUTOMATIC updates will NOT have any problems.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Mar 10 2007, 09:21 AM) [snapback]403398[/snapback]</div>

Your first mistake is believing the government can do something useful. It seems like all they can do is give away or spend our money.

Personally I like DST. I can kick the kids out of the house after dinner and they have a good time playing outside. My only problem with it is dealing with Arizona. Now when are they the same time as me?

 

Clocks were a good invention from a scientific viewpoint, but I'm not sure if our close attention to time has been a help or a hindrance to our psychic evolution. I know how I feel about clocks every morning at 6:30am.

 

Happy Happy Joy Joy!!!!! I LOOOOVE Daylight Saving Time!

For those of you who are against Daylight Saving Time, blame Benjamin Franklin.
http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin.html
Apparently great minds do think alike . . . and sleep away the morning.

I am NOT a morning person. Never was. Never will be!

Even as a grade schooler, I thought it absolutely ridiculous waking us kids up THAT early to go to school. In high school I KNEW IT!!!! Simply retarded! :angry: My ideal high school would have started classes right after lunch. If you wished to do extracurricular sports and stuff, great – get up early and do it while you are fresh . . . not in the evening when you are tired from being in school all day long.

And to go along with my ideal high school schedule . . . the ideal world time! Computers and such would be set to some more accurate DMWT - Decimal Metric World Time that I'm sure astronomers could agree on. On the other hand, local clocks would be set to LSST . . . Local Sunset Standard Time. Our clocks would be set for local sunset. Sunset would always be at 9 pm. No, it's not a workable system, but it would make for a much better lifestyle . . . unless you lived in the Arctic or Antarctic . . . where time would sometimes come to either a standstill or move verrrrrryyyyyy slooooooow.

So now I get an extra hour of daylight for several extra weeks. BRILLIANT!!!! :wub:

I don't care if the sun rises at 6, 7, 8 or even 9 am. The inside of my eyelids looks just as dark. But, having an hour more of daylight during my waking hours . . . priceless!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spoid @ Mar 10 2007, 04:00 PM) [snapback]403533[/snapback]</div>

Arizona is easy, at least it's the same clock time all over the state. Try Indiana. Some towns are Eastern, some are Central, some observe DST, some don't.

Let's just all go to Zulu time and be done with it...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Les Gas @ Mar 10 2007, 08:58 PM) [snapback]403639[/snapback]</div>

Accurate timekeeping became necessary when the industrial revolution forced people to sell their labor. Previously people worked the land or crafted goods: their time was their own and it didn't matter exactly how many hours they worked. But with the rise of wage labor, everyone needed to know how many hours they spent in the factory.

So nothing's changed, when your alarm clock wakes you up at 6:30. Amazing, really, that clocks are still doing what they were originally invented for. ... As well as helping you to get to class on time, make your flights, and catch your favorite soap on the tv.

 

Daniel, I think time keeping was more influenced by transportation than jobs. Accurate time keeping is necessary for good celestial navigation at sea. Dividing the country into four time zones greatly facilitated railroad schedules.

The airline industry is saying that this congressionally mandated change to DST is going to cost them millions and hurt their landing rights at foreign airports.

When life and commerce are local, time keeping can be local too. When you try to coördinate over distance is when standard time becomes important.

I also agree with SPE that using Summarian division of time seems extremely antiquated. 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours folded in half to two 12 hour cycles -- Where's the logic?

Time seems real. Past, present, and future (at least at the macro level). The division of time into units is a man-made invention, then to screw it up by changing the standard at will...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bill Merchant @ Mar 10 2007, 11:43 PM) [snapback]403686[/snapback]</div>

The first clocks were accurate enough for workplace hours but neither small enough nor accurate enough for navigation, and railroads were yet to be invented.

Otherwise I agree with everything you posted.

Of course, the extreme need for a way to calculate longitude at sea was what motivated the invention of extremely accurate chronometers. (As well as a plethora of quack inventions intended for the same purpose.)

 

For Bill et al... All of Indiana observes daylight time...been this way since last year...a hand full of counties near chicago, and a few in the sw section of the state are on CDT, wheras the rest of the state is on EDT...but like Bill said...Zulu time works for me...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bill Merchant @ Mar 10 2007, 11:43 PM) [snapback]403686[/snapback]</div>

...and some history:
http://www.maybeck.com/ztime/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bill Merchant @ Mar 10 2007, 10:43 PM) [snapback]403686[/snapback]</div>

The calendar should also be changed. We should have 13 months of 28 days (4 weeks) each with two intercalendrical days--one most years, two each leap year. That's a 364 + 1 day year (364 + 2 day leap year). I would make the extra day(s) a holiday, on leap years spacing them six months apart. Every month would have the same number of days. The months would be more consistent with the lunar cycle (there are 13 full moons each year). Holidays (and your birthday) would always fall on the same day of the week. The business world would benefit greatly from the date consistency, as would we all.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Mar 11 2007, 09:05 AM) [snapback]403745[/snapback]</div>

The first clock was the sun. Hour glasses were probably next, and were used to subdivide the day. Accurate time measurement was necessary for labor, but standardized time was necessary for transportation and navigation. Otherwise noon is when the sun is at the zenith.

Tom

 

Curious, that ham radio operators (and maybe others as well???) refer to Greenwich Mean Time by the name of an African tribe (Zulu). It's just about as eazy to say "GMT" as "Zulu," and much easier to tap out the former than the latter by morse code.