Well Daylight Saving Time (DST) starts at 2:00 am local time on Sunday, March 10. Most of the country will spring forward an hour. There are certain areas that don't observe it (Hawaii, most of Arizona, various US territories). Some of you love it, some of you hate it, most probably don't pay attention except for twice a year. Any thoughts or opinions?
Somewhat related, are there a lot of signs out there marking time zone boundaries? I have seen them marked at the Hoover Dam, and I see Nevada has a sign on northbound US 93 just after the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge. There weren't any signs I could remember between Bullhead City AZ and Laughlin NV.
If it weren't for DST, we'd not have a 6 pm sunset until March 22nd... Always find it a plus as it allows for more photography later in the day when on the road as well.
I love Daylight Saving Time...but wish it were still done on the first Sunday of April, not this early. Also...why isn't Indianapolis in the CENTRAL time zone? Their longitude is nearly identical to that of Nashville, which is obviously in the central time zone.
I wish the country would go onto daylight savings time all year. Two years of living in Arizona made me realize the shift is more annoying than anything else, but I do prefer a later sunrise and sunset, so stick with daylight savings time. I guess one of the old arguments against DST year round is that kids can't stand out at the bus stop in the dark, but for better or worse the whole notion of kids standing out at bus stops unattended is going away anyway, so may as well just go to DST year round.
QuoteSomewhat related, are there a lot of signs out there marking time zone boundaries? I have seen them marked at the Hoover Dam, and I see Nevada has a sign on northbound US 93 just after the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge. There weren't any signs I could remember between Bullhead City AZ and Laughlin NV.
There's signs most places I've seen. Arizona is dicey though- there's no "we don't observe daylight savings time" signs going into Arizona from Utah or New Mexico (or "daylight savings time observed" the other direction), so part of the year that's confusing.
I don't think there is a sign at Bullhead/Laughlin though, going through my pictures, but I'd say that's the exception rather than the norm for most of the country. Actually, I don't think there are any time zone signs as you enter Arizona from any state. There are "entering Pacific time" as you cross into California, but nothing as you enter Arizona.
Quote from: swbrotha100 on March 09, 2013, 06:06:30 PMWell Daylight Saving Time (DST) starts at 2:00 am local time on Sunday, March 10. Most of the country will spring forward an hour. There are certain areas that don't observe it (Hawaii, most of Arizona, various US territories). Some of you love it, some of you hate it, most probably don't pay attention except for twice a year. Any thoughts or opinions?
Like others who have commented on this thread, I would actually prefer DST year-round, not standard time year-round or some other variation like DST in winter and double-DST in summer. The change is a nuisance, but I deal with it by simply not changing the time on unimportant clocks in the autumn and mentally preparing myself to lose an hour of free time the evening the clocks move forward in spring.
The contexts in which DST time changes cause me maximum inconvenience are all IT-related. Older versions of
robocopy fail (this particular issue wasn't fixed until the /DST switch was introduced in Windows 7's version of
robocopy). I also have
wget wrapper scripts which rely on timestamp parsing to determine whether files found on a given server have been uploaded since that server was last checked. To save coding effort, I hard-coded the timezone offsets, and during DST changes this causes me problems since my computer is set to British time and now neither of the annual time changes are synchronized between the US and the EU. (Before the US and Canada lengthened DST, one of the changes occurred at the same time on both sides of the Atlantic--I can't remember whether it was spring or autumn.)
QuoteSomewhat related, are there a lot of signs out there marking time zone boundaries? I have seen them marked at the Hoover Dam, and I see Nevada has a sign on northbound US 93 just after the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge. There weren't any signs I could remember between Bullhead City AZ and Laughlin NV.
In my experience, timezone crossing signs are more or less universal. But, like Corco, I don't think I have ever seen a sign indicating that DST is observed.
Quote from: J N Winkler on March 09, 2013, 07:16:17 PM
To save coding effort, I hard-coded the timezone offsets, and during DST changes this causes me problems since my computer is set to British time and now neither of the annual time changes are synchronized between the US and the EU.
Why not keep your computer on UTC?
Posted 2013-03-10, 0032Z
Quote from: swbrotha100 on March 09, 2013, 06:06:30 PM
Somewhat related, are there a lot of signs out there marking time zone boundaries? I have seen them marked at the Hoover Dam, and I see Nevada has a sign on northbound US 93 just after the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge. There weren't any signs I could remember between Bullhead City AZ and Laughlin NV.
IIRC, there is a pair of clocks on the Hoover Dam, to avoid confusion about whether on a particular date Arizona time is different from Nevada time. Very helpful, IMO.
Quote from: route56 on March 09, 2013, 07:34:03 PMWhy not keep your computer on UTC?
I considered that, but then realized it would not solve my problem. The servers I work with use the local time, whatever that happens to be, so if my computer were on UTC year-round, I would have one offset for three-quarters of the year and a different offset for the remainder of the year (the lone exception being a server located in Arizona). Under the present arrangement, with the North American servers going to DST on the US schedule and my computer going to DST on the EU schedule, there are at most four weeks each year when my hard-coded offsets are wrong by one hour.
The change in the US DST schedule several years ago not only lengthened the fraction of the year that is subject to DST compared to Europe, but also ensured that DST lag between the US and Europe always shrinks (never expands) the timezone offset. This means there is no longer any possibility of my missing a file when one of my
wget scripts checks a server. (In order for a file to be missed, the true timezone offset would have to be greater than the hard-coded offset and the file would have to be uploaded with a timestamp falling in the window between the true check time and the imputed check time. This is also the reason I use a hard-coded offset of 8 hours for the script that checks the Arizona server--the true offset is 7 hours in the winter and 8 hours with DST, but is never greater than 8 hours.)
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on March 09, 2013, 06:54:47 PM
I love Daylight Saving Time...but wish it were still done on the first Sunday of April, not this early. Also...why isn't Indianapolis in the CENTRAL time zone? Their longitude is nearly identical to that of Nashville, which is obviously in the central time zone.
Arguing about time zones is as much of a Hooiser tradition as basketball and there will never be a clear answer on what is right for Indiana time wise. Geographically it probably should be Central, but Indianapolis is also on the same longitude as Lousiville and Grand Rapids and both are on Eastern. Everyone won't be happy with whatever decision is made, which is why lawmakers recently have brought up the talk of moving to Central...again. In the past I did enjoy letting this night pass unmarked with no changing of the clocks, but knowing where to take or add an hour across which boundary at which time of the year did get confusing for some, which is why Indiana shrugged its shoulders and said "fine we'll change our clocks too." Personally I don't get the appeal of changing clocks and wonder how everyone else stands to do it yearly, 24 hours is 24 hours and the sun will rise and set when it wants too, you can't change these two points.
Having the sun stay up later in the summer is a great plus, so we need DST for that... but if we stayed on it all year, we'd have problems in the winter.
Really, the inconvenience comes from jarring everyone's schedules by changing an hour at once - studies have shown this negatively impacts your health by messing with sleep patterns. If we were to somehow make the change more gradual, you could eliminate that damage to people's circadian rhythms. In a future where every clock is somehow part of a computer, it could become practical to do something like add a minute to every third day from December 21st to June 21st, and then subtract a minute from every third day from June 21st to December 21st. The number of minutes to add/subtract could even vary by latitude.
The perfect world, ideal case would be to have our clocks such that the sun rises at the same time every day throughout the year (say, 7 AM), and only the time it sets varies seasonally.
I'd rather the changeover be on the last Sunday in March, same as it is in Europe. Eliminates the nuisance of the time difference being a different number of hours for a few weeks (even though it benefits us by making London only four hours ahead of Eastern Time). Doing business during those weeks is a nuisance because most people forget about the difference.
Quote from: swbrotha100 on March 09, 2013, 06:06:30 PM
Well Daylight Saving Time (DST) starts at 2:00 am local time on Sunday, March 10. Most of the country will spring forward an hour. There are certain areas that don't observe it (Hawaii, most of Arizona, various US territories). Some of you love it, some of you hate it, most probably don't pay attention except for twice a year. Any thoughts or opinions?
Somewhat related, are there a lot of signs out there marking time zone boundaries? I have seen them marked at the Hoover Dam, and I see Nevada has a sign on northbound US 93 just after the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge. There weren't any signs I could remember between Bullhead City AZ and Laughlin NV.
Indiana used to have signs for the change between the time zones and the areas which observed and did not observe DST along the freeways and Toll Road.
I, too, prefer DST because it gives an hour longer of daylight in the afternoons/evenings. Better not only for photography but for actually getting some work done outside when you get home from work. I'm happy that the move forward has been extended into early March and I was happy that the change back to standard time was pushed back into November. As for the lost hour of sleep, I'll just sleep an extra hour tomorrow morning and all will be well.
The change at this time of the year means I'll have an extra hour of daylight to travel in after the Monticello meet. I'm very leery of driving after dark, especially on high-speed roads like interstates, because of deer.
QuoteThe perfect world, ideal case would be to have our clocks such that the sun rises at the same time every day throughout the year (say, 7 AM), and only the time it sets varies seasonally.
You want to look a couple hundred years into the future, when the technology is fully there and developed to allow for some sort of adaptive sun based clock, I wouldn't be surprised to see our traditional concept of a linear clock go away entirely in favor of something more dynamic like that.
Quote from: Alex on March 09, 2013, 06:38:29 PM
If it weren't for DST, we'd not have a 6 pm sunset until March 22nd... Always find it a plus as it allows for more photography later in the day when on the road as well.
A whole 12 days gained! Pretty pointless there.
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 09, 2013, 10:15:03 PMI'd rather the changeover be on the last Sunday in March, same as it is in Europe.
The March change seems about right. The EU's October change (a month after the equinox) is too late - it's dark too late in the mornings: OK, it only gives us a week or two, but the two weeks or so before the change are a nightmare for even very mild SAD sufferers that doesn't seem so bad in early November. Only good thing about the change in late October is the week where you feel a lot less depressed after the change has occurred.
IIRC the EU split is clocks back-8 weeks-equinox-12 weeks-clocks forward. 10 weeks either side feels about right (Oct more than Mar though).
Quote from: corco on March 09, 2013, 06:55:38 PMI wish the country would go onto daylight savings time all year. Two years of living in Arizona made me realize the shift is more annoying than anything else, but I do prefer a later sunrise and sunset, so stick with daylight savings time.
The shift sucks, but why on earth move to DST all year round (which isn't what AZ has, which is regular time all year round)? We've, as a species, settled on lighter mornings and darker evenings - we work lopsided around noon, with more work in the evening to make sure we have the light in the mornings; we happily do stuff after dark, but before light is the dead time.
QuoteI guess one of the old arguments against DST year round is that kids can't stand out at the bus stop in the dark, but for better or worse the whole notion of kids standing out at bus stops unattended is going away anyway, so may as well just go to DST year round.
We get this one in the UK the other way around - kids shouldn't travel from school in the dark. OK, I finished later than most (1545), which counteracts my southerly latitude (~51N) but I had about two weeks of walking home in the dark and a bit less walking to in the dark (for 0845). I'd have had two months of going to school in the dark under BST, but apparently that was less of a problem than two weeks going home in the dark.
Your argument also hasn't said why DST, rather than normal time year-round.
In the UK, certainly, this 'extra hour of sunlight after work for chores' argument makes no sense, as during the 20 weeks not on DST, you might actually be able to use that extra hour in March, but not the other 16 weeks. For 12 of those weeks, under year-round Summertime/CET, you'd not have any weekday daylight exposure if in an office, whereas now that might be 6 weeks (depends on the hours you work - some people simply won't get any use of the sun during the week from September through March under DST, though might see some in the morning under GMT, due to working/commuting for too much of their time).
Quote from: Duke87 on March 09, 2013, 10:00:18 PMHaving the sun stay up later in the summer is a great plus, so we need DST for that... but if we stayed on it all year, we'd have problems in the winter.
Indeed, from roughly March to September you can steal the hour in the morning and give it on the evening by shifting the clocks (I know someone who thinks it's backwards and works on the principle that there's not enough light in the evening in winter and we need to steal one from the morning, but that there's too much in the summer with DST, so don't do the shift then. He's a tool who refuses to wake up before 8 and typically wakes at about 8:45 - which is well lit for 10 months of the year, but most people are at work/school by then) - we are awake for more time p.m. than a.m. (says the person who has claimed 5 hours of the a.m. already, but won't be losing any p.m. hours. Silly New Zealand being 13 hours ahead currently, so cricket runs from 2100-0500 GMT), so light will be more useful at 7pm than 5am - but there needs to be light at 5am to move, which isn't the case in winter - when the sun does come up, we need it.
QuoteThe perfect world, ideal case would be to have our clocks such that the sun rises at the same time every day throughout the year (say, 7 AM), and only the time it sets varies seasonally.
Perhaps fine south of the 49th, but north of the 50th (eg in the UK), that means very early sunsets in winter - noon in the middle works better than sunrise at hour x (also in summer, dawn at 7am, rather than 3am, means dusk at 1am, rather than 9pm (times local no DST and typical for June or July)). Also the issue of differing time differences (key one being hemispheres)
---
As an aside, the UK tried year-round summer time on a trial. MPs from Southerly and Easterly locations of the UK were saying that constituents were left feeling tired due to the late dawns in the winter - not just Scotland and Norn Iron. Economically (ironically, given the supposed boost moving from Western to Central European Time causes, that it gets suggested as a way to stimulate growth) it wasn't good either, and productivity was down. Illness went up, too, IIRC what I gleaned from the Hansard debate. The vote to make it permanent didn't happen as the Government didn't want to be embarrassed. But then we get proposals twice a year to repeat the folly with no reference back.
---
This is interesting on this issue - massively attacks Spain being on CET (see also Indiana on EST - though not having DST did help) as unnatural and dangerous.
From what I heard of Daylight Savings time, Indiana (or one part of the state) doesn't observe DST from a tale of farmers concerned their livestock will be confused by the time change. I knew AZ doesn't do DST for unknown reasons AFAIK, but each municipality and state has a choice to observe (or not adhere to) Daylight Savings time. All we know is we lose a hour of sleep tomorrow and be harder to get up for work this Monday. :sleep:
Quote from: Mike D boy on March 10, 2013, 03:20:16 AM
From what I heard of Daylight Savings time, Indiana (or one part of the state) doesn't observe DST from a tale of farmers concerned their livestock will be confused by the time change. I knew AZ doesn't do DST for unknown reasons AFAIK, but each municipality and state has a choice to observe (or not adhere to) Daylight Savings time. All we know is we lose a hour of sleep tomorrow and be harder to get up for work this Monday. :sleep:
All of Indiana started doing DST back in 2006. Before that, only the Eastern Time Zone in Indiana stayed on standard time all year.
In Arizona, there's no desire for an extra hour of sun in the summer months due to how hot it gets. DST was observed in 1967 and hasn't been observed since (except for the Navajo Nation, in the northeast part of the state.
Quote from: swbrotha100 on March 10, 2013, 04:11:50 AMAll of Indiana started doing DST back in 2006. Before that, only most of the Eastern Time Zone in Indiana stayed on standard time all year.
Fixed that for you.
In many ways it was weird - Indiana is natural Central territory and was (mostly) effectively on Central Time with winter DST...
All the arguments about Daylight Savings Time are as tedious as complaints about Valentine's Day and the commercialization of Christmas.
Quote from: english si on March 10, 2013, 04:53:38 AM
Quote from: swbrotha100 on March 10, 2013, 04:11:50 AMAll of Indiana started doing DST back in 2006. Before that, only most of the Eastern Time Zone in Indiana stayed on standard time all year.
Fixed that for you.
In many ways it was weird - Indiana is natural Central territory and was (mostly) effectively on Central Time with winter DST...
There are still a lot of Hoosiers who want to go back to the way time in Indiana was. It's quite interesting as time in Indiana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Indiana) has gone back and forth between Eastern and Central Time quite a few times.
Quote from: english si on March 09, 2013, 11:59:06 PM
Quote from: Alex on March 09, 2013, 06:38:29 PM
If it weren't for DST, we'd not have a 6 pm sunset until March 22nd... Always find it a plus as it allows for more photography later in the day when on the road as well.
A whole 12 days gained! Pretty pointless there.
The point was that because of our location in Central Time Zone, we get the shaft with uber early sunrises and sunsets. A 6 pm sunset on March 22nd is the latest of any place I have lived which has been in the northeast/mid-atlantic, southeast, and southwest. 6 pm is my "reasonable sunset time", so its a staple for me to look forward to it. Growing up in Newark, DE, I always looked forward to March 7th, when 6 pm sunsets returned.
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 09, 2013, 10:15:03 PM
I'd rather the changeover be on the last Sunday in March, same as it is in Europe. Eliminates the nuisance of the time difference being a different number of hours for a few weeks (even though it benefits us by making London only four hours ahead of Eastern Time). Doing business during those weeks is a nuisance because most people forget about the difference.
Absolutely correct.
Why the D.C. politicians
had to set the Daylight Time/Standard Time changeovers to be different from our friends in the EU was (and is) a real mystery.
I've never understood why anyone would want extra daylight in the mornings. Realistically, all you use the morning for is dragging yourself out of bed and into an artificially-lighted school/work place. All that daylight outside is wasted while you're inside. Once I enter the workforce, I fully expect that a good chunk of the year I won't see a single speck of daylight thanks to "standard" time (why is it still called that anyways? There's nothing standard about a time that is used only 5 months of a 12 month year). All standard time does is give everyone seasonal effective disorder.
It doesn't help that my sleep cycle just doesn't care about sunlight - I'm naturally wired to go to sleep at 2/3 AM and wake up around 9/10 AM, everything else be damned. It makes getting up in the morning really hard regardless of the amount of sunlight.
Also, it is NOT fun to enter a lecture hall at 4 with it looking like noon and exit at 5 with the sky looking like midnight.
Just move the clocks 30-minutes and keep it there. Forever.
Quote from: corco on March 09, 2013, 10:33:31 PM
QuoteThe perfect world, ideal case would be to have our clocks such that the sun rises at the same time every day throughout the year (say, 7 AM), and only the time it sets varies seasonally.
You want to look a couple hundred years into the future, when the technology is fully there and developed to allow for some sort of adaptive sun based clock, I wouldn't be surprised to see our traditional concept of a linear clock go away entirely in favor of something more dynamic like that.
Ben Franklin was chocked full of ahead-of-his-time ideas, but this is one that, IMHO, he should have kept to himself. Don't reset your clocks, reset your schedule!
:meh:
(BTW, BF promoted the idea as a way of saving energy - in his day it was candle wax in the evenings.)
I kind of think that having the whole World on UTC is an idea that has merit.
:nod:
Also, 'standard time' was first set up by railroads due to the difficulties in train scheduling and dispatching when every little town along the way had their clocks set to their local 'solar' time, which varied a couple of minutes from town to town as one traveled eastward or westward. This wasn't a problem when *nothing* traveled faster than a horse could run, but once the 19th century got going in earnest, it became an issue.
In North America, after much private-sector horse-trading (mainly involving railroad companies), time was 'standardized' at noon EST on 1883-11-18 when a time signal was telegraphed across the USA and Canada and clocks were reset to the top of the hour of whatever time zone they were in.
Daylight Saving Time was adopted in the USA for one year in 1918 but repealed the following year and was not re-instated until WWII.
---------------------------
And yes, there are days when I wished that I could dig up and wring the neck of whoever it was who discovered the principal of the pendulum clock escapement mechanism! GRRRrrrrr....
:-P
Mike
One place where it makes sense in the summer is Portland, Maine. On June 21st, their local sunrise and sunset is 4:59 AM and 8:26 PM. Imagine a 3:59 AM sunrise on the first day of summer? No thank you!:(
(Hartford will get as long as 5:16 AM and 8:30 PM.)
OK, your guys are now in DST, here it won't happen until March 31st. Due to this, I had to change the time offset of this forum to keep in line with my local hour, only to change it again on Easter :/.
Here we use CET (Central European Time, one hour ahead UTC) despite being sightly West of Greenwich meridian. This, and the DST makes that on June 21st at 10 p.m. we still have sunlight.
Quote from: CNGL-Leudimin on March 10, 2013, 03:58:01 PMHere we use CET (Central European Time, one hour ahead UTC) despite being sightly West of Greenwich meridian. This, and the DST makes that on June 21st at 10 p.m. we still have sunlight.
Don't you have problems with children having to walk to school in the dark in the winter (as English Si describes upthread for the DST/double-DST experiment in Britain between 1968 and 1971)?
Quote from: deanej on March 10, 2013, 12:40:17 PMI've never understood why anyone would want extra daylight in the mornings. Realistically, all you use the morning for is dragging yourself out of bed and into an artificially-lighted school/work place.
Which is something we need the sun for. Sure, we don't typically need the sunrise before 6, hence DST, but making dawn happen at 8, 9, or even 10 or later (in eg the UK in mid-winter) in winter is just too late, hence the lack of DST in winter.
QuoteAll that daylight outside is wasted while you're inside.
yes, so getting an hour+ before you start work at 7 to 8 or 8 to 9 is better than having that hour in the afternoon from 3 to 4 or 4 to 5, when you are still at work!
Given the hours we generally work, if you are going to get light outside work hours in winter, it will be in the morning.
QuoteOnce I enter the workforce, I fully expect that a good chunk of the year I won't see a single speck of daylight thanks to "standard" time.
Much more likely under DST, actually, given working hours.
QuoteAll standard time does is give everyone seasonal effective disorder.
Again, wrong way around - part of the treatment of SAD isn't 'dusk' boxes but dawn boxes, for giving you a sunrise to wake up with. Also DST in winter/bad social time with the late sunrise gives you 'social jet lag'.
QuoteIt doesn't help that my sleep cycle just doesn't care about sunlight - I'm naturally wired to go to sleep at 2/3 AM and wake up around 9/10 AM, everything else be damned. It makes getting up in the morning really hard regardless of the amount of sunlight.
That's a late 'middle' (of about half 5-half 6), not not giving a shit about where the sun is - you'll probably find it's nearer 3-10 on DST and 2-9 on Standard time. You can, I guess, be unnaturally wired to ignore the sun, but by nature we're wired to rely on the sun to reset our body clock (see the video I posted about social jet lag).
QuoteAlso, it is NOT fun to enter a lecture hall at 4 with it looking like noon and exit at 5 with the sky looking like midnight.
Move South! OK, in the tropics it's get dark quickly at 6 with little variation in time. Move north and the change is more gradual, though earlier in winter and later in the summer. DST just moves that change from the 1600s to the 1700s (though moving the reverse from the 0800s to the 0900s). The problem here is simply the lack of daylight, not where it is.
Certainly, in my uni days, we had our contact hours in the forth quarter of the 12 hours between midnight and midday, and nearly all the first half the 12 hours between midnight and midday (9 to 5:30). If people were good at getting up in the dark, and needed lots of daylight in the evenings, we'd have had our hours of possible contact time running much earlier, say a fifty-fifty split with 0745-0415 times, or even the reverse of the real split with 0630-0300 hours (instead of 5.5 hours in the evening and 3 in the morning, flip that round). The worker's traditional 9-5 day would have been 8-4 or even 7-3; my school day would have been shifted forward by at least half an hour (half an hour would have put it 50-50).
They did an experiment at a school with high rates of truancy in North East England, beginning with September - instead of starting school at 9, move it to 10. Truancy dropped significantly on the equivalent time the year before around mid-October.
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on March 10, 2013, 03:33:35 PM
One place where it makes sense in the summer is Portland, Maine. On June 21st, their local sunrise and sunset is 4:59 AM and 8:26 PM. Imagine a 3:59 AM sunrise on the first day of summer? No thank you!:(
Err, the 'first' day of summer there is called "midsummer's day" or 'the longest day' (not quite the earliest sunrise or latest sunset, which happen around that time).
I have roughly these times for daylight at the summer solstice: 4:43 AM to 9:23 PM for this year (with DST included). Both an 0343 sunrise and a 2123 sunset have their problems (especially as the light lasts about hour more at either end, before becoming twilight), dealing with the sunset causes the problem of changing back for the height of summer (we don't really need the daylight in the evening then). It's almost as if we have too much light at that time of year! In reality it never gets dark around that time of year, even in Southern England.
Glasgow has midsummer times of 4:31 AM and 10:06 PM (times with DST), and mid-winter times of 8:46 AM and 3:45 PM (times without DST - and pretty much identical to my school day at high school), here has winter solstice times of 8:06 AM and 3:54 PM (which if on DST would be the classical 9-5 work day and thus means workforce see no daylight, rather than have an hour before work if they start at 9).
Quote from: J N Winkler on March 10, 2013, 04:01:26 PM
Quote from: CNGL-Leudimin on March 10, 2013, 03:58:01 PMHere we use CET (Central European Time, one hour ahead UTC) despite being sightly West of Greenwich meridian. This, and the DST makes that on June 21st at 10 p.m. we still have sunlight.
Don't you have problems with children having to walk to school in the dark in the winter (as English Si describes upthread for the DST/double-DST experiment in Britain between 1968 and 1971)?
Nope. On December 21st there is sunlight at 9 a.m. I had already to get up at 6 a.m., and I can confirm sunrise is around 8:30 a.m. OTOH, at 6 p.m. is already dark.
Ms1995hoo and I were just out for a walk due to the later sunset and it occurred to us that in the United States we now observe "standard" time for about four months and Daylight Saving Time for about eight months each year. Maybe the terminology ought to change so the advanced clock is "standard" time and the "winter" clock is "winter" time (so you'd have EST from March to November and "EWT" from November to March). Of course, I know an awful lot of people who misuse "EST" during the summer in an attempt to be precise when in fact "EDT" would be correct.
Earlier today prior to puck drop at Verizon Center I was wondering how many people might show up an hour late (not many, as it turned out) and it occurred to me that one constituency that ought to like the current DST schedule in the US is Western Christian churches (meaning non-Orthodox denominations) because under the current DST rules, Easter Sunday can never fall on the day the clocks go ahead (under the Western system, Easter can't fall prior to March 22, and under current US law, DST can't start later than March 14). This doesn't apply to most of the Orthodox Church because they calculate the date of Easter differently using the Julian Calendar mapped onto the current calendar.
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on March 10, 2013, 03:33:35 PM
One place where it makes sense in the summer is Portland, Maine. On June 21st, their local sunrise and sunset is 4:59 AM and 8:26 PM. Imagine a 3:59 AM sunrise on the first day of summer? No thank you!:(
(Hartford will get as long as 5:16 AM and 8:30 PM.)
Nothing on Alaska, where summertime daylight and winter darkness are so long (up to 24 hours each north of the Arctic Circle, but it gets close even at lower latitudes) that DST is almost irrelevant. It matters only to keep Alaska in synch with most of the U.S. and Canada. Some Alaskans would give up DST, to stay closer in synch with business partners in Asia (apparently the rest of North America doesn't matter as much for those people).
DST is pretty irrelevant in Hawaii for different reasons -- maximum daylight is about 13 hours, minimum daylight is about 11 hours. Hawaii's strong economic ties with countries not observing DST are just icing on the cake.
Changing to DST in spring and back in fall works well for us. It approximates the natural schedule of waking near dawn year 'round. I do realize that the advantages are bigger the farther north you go, so for me in Seattle the advantages are bigger than for someone in San Diego.
If we had standard time year 'round, in June dawn would come about 3:30 AM. We don't need sun that early, whereas having that hour in the evening makes exercise, gardening, etc. in the evening more pleasant.
On the other hand, if we had DST year 'round, in December dawn wouldn't come until after 8:00 AM, so rising and the morning commute would be in darkness.
Students of history may remember that every place choosing its own time based on the sun being at its highest at noon is what we used to do, before railroads. It caused huge problems. The timetables had to be at different times every railway stop. The problems become more severe now, as the world is more connected. We call all over the place and don't want to think about office hours being different in every town in the country.
I do wish all the northern hemisphere countries could agree to change on the same dates, though.
I am amazed that any computer operating system in use today uses local time, rather than keeping time in CUT and displaying it according to locale.
I remember back in that late '60's/early '70s when Michigan never changed their clocks. Thus in a place like Detroit, it was an hour behind it's Canadian neighbor Windsor Ontario in the summer months as well as Toledo, Ohio.
Quote from: kkt on March 10, 2013, 08:35:34 PM
I am amazed that any computer operating system in use today uses local time, rather than keeping time in CUT UTC and displaying it according to locale.
FTFY: The proper abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC. If you have a problem with that, blame the French :)
Quote from: swbrotha100 on March 09, 2013, 06:06:30 PM
Well Daylight Saving Time (DST) starts at 2:00 am local time on Sunday, March 10. Most of the country will spring forward an hour. There are certain areas that don't observe it (Hawaii, most of Arizona, various US territories). Some of you love it, some of you hate it, most probably don't pay attention except for twice a year. Any thoughts or opinions?
Somewhat related, are there a lot of signs out there marking time zone boundaries?
The only sign I've ever seen marking a time zone boundary is on I-40 West between Knoxville and Nashville, TN.
I wish they would just make DST the new Standard Time. We're on DST basically 3/4 of the year now as it is.
Quote from: oscar on March 10, 2013, 08:34:02 PM
Nothing on Alaska, where summertime daylight and winter darkness are so long (up to 24 hours each north of the Arctic Circle, but it gets close even at lower latitudes) that DST is almost irrelevant. It matters only to keep Alaska in synch with most of the U.S. and Canada. Some Alaskans would give up DST, to stay closer in synch with business partners in Asia (apparently the rest of North America doesn't matter as much for those people).
Finland, Sweden and Norway are similarly far north - and even in the far south of Sweden (the province of Scania, where the city of Malmö is located, it really does not get totally dark overnight in June and July.
Quote from: route56 on March 10, 2013, 09:46:46 PM
Quote from: kkt on March 10, 2013, 08:35:34 PM
I am amazed that any computer operating system in use today uses local time, rather than keeping time in CUT UTC and displaying it according to locale.
FTFY: The proper abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC. If you have a problem with that, blame the French :)
Oops. I knew that...
I hate Daylight Savings Time. I loathe it. I wish I could run over it with a forklift. I wish I could put it through a meat grinder and stomp on it with boots. I've started calling it Exactly The Same Amount Of Daylight Time, since it doesn't save one second of daylight.
For me, it's hard to get out of bed when the sun isn't up. Once my feet hit the floor, I'm all right, but it's a real struggle to make my body vertical while it's still dark. Come March, it starts getting a tiny bit lighter each day around the time I get up, and so I get my hopes up about it getting easier to get out of bed in the mornings. Then my hopes are VIOLENTLY CRUSHED by the EVIL time change. AAAGGGHHH!!!!! KILL!! KILL!! KILL!! KILL!! DIE!! DIE!! DIE!!
I don't care if the sun is up or not when I get off work. It's cold in the winter, so I don't feel like going out anywhere. By the time the weather warms up, it's light outside later anyway, even without ETSAODT. By the time summer is in full swing, and the kids are playing outside, and all that jazz, it's light almost till their bedtime. In fact, it's hard to get them to bed on time in the middle of summer, because ETSAODT means it's not dark yet at their bedtime.
With the extended season for ETSAODT, it can make driving to México interesting. Three years ago, we drove south without having to change our clocks. A week later, driving north, we had to change our clocks at the border. The USA had sprung forward while we were in México. People were sort of confused at first.
As for signs indicating the time zone boundary, I only recall seeing them at the Central/Mountain change on I-70, but I hardly ever travel outside of the Central Time Zone, escpecially driving.
Quote from: kphoger on March 11, 2013, 11:47:50 AM
As for signs indicating the time zone boundary, I only recall seeing them at the Central/Mountain change on I-70, but I hardly ever travel outside of the Central Time Zone, escpecially driving.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.route56.com%2Fgallery%2Fzp-core%2Fi.php%3Fa%3D2002%2Fjul02%2F02colo%26amp%3Bi%3D16341.jpg%26amp%3Bs%3D375%26amp%3Bq%3D85%26amp%3Bwmk%3DUS_56&hash=e13d543bc7e0ee08241d7887d5313aed7840d4ca)
Westbound I-70, 2002
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.route56.com%2Fgallery%2Fzp-core%2Fi.php%3Fa%3D2005%2Fjun05%26amp%3Bi%3D22804.jpg%26amp%3Bs%3D580%26amp%3Bwmk%3DUS_56&hash=3f8bed1d7b7c2b0197e7eba8eafd45b9808abd50)
Eastbound I-70, 2007
I've only driven across time zone boundaries a few times (and I do not recall my first trip across one because I was 1 year old at the time), but I do recall time zone signs at the Alabama/Georgia state line and on either side of the border between Maine and New Brunswick. (In the latter case, my first trip to New Brunswick was simply a day trip to Campobello Island, so we didn't bother changing our watches.) I don't recall any signs upon exiting the ferry between Maine and Nova Scotia or the ferry between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, though I'm pretty sure I recall there being a PA announcement in each case reminding people of it, much like how when you fly they usually announce the local time upon landing.
(The most fun I've had with time zones was on the flight shown in my avatar at left. A friend of mine shot that video at Heathrow at 18.45 on a Sunday. The flight landed at JFK at 17.06 the same afternoon. Five-hour time difference, flight took 3 hours 21 minutes. Hence "arrive before you leave.")
I hate daylight saving time. it's a stupid illusion perpetuated by stupid people.
if you want an hour of extra daylight in the afternoon, wake up an hour earlier.
don't make me lose an hour once a year, resulting in several days of disorientation, just because you can't drag your sorry ass out of bed.
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on March 09, 2013, 06:54:47 PM
I love Daylight Saving Time...but wish it were still done on the first Sunday of April, not this early. Also...why isn't Indianapolis in the CENTRAL time zone? Their longitude is nearly identical to that of Nashville, which is obviously in the central time zone.
Time zones have been such a tumultuous subject in Indiana that it even has its own Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Indiana
Indiana naturally falls in the Central Time Zone band (actual line should be near Columbus, OH). When most of the state got switched to Eastern, they were allowed to not observe DST as a concession. That made being on Eastern more tolerable since we didn't have the extremely late sunrises and sunsets in the summer. Over time, there seemed to be a lot of confusion on the part of people from other areas traveling to Indiana about the time zones, and it got to the point where not observing DST was perceived as an economic disadvantage to the state. There was even a 2-part episode of The West Wing with a major plotline that involved time zone confusion in Indiana.
In 2006, the state voted to begin observing DST. This was nice as it eliminated the confusion nationwide, but moving clocks forward an hour for DST combined with already being an hour ahead of the natural time zone has created some obscene sunrise/sunset schedules for March. Today in Lafayette, IN, the sunrise was not until 8:06 am and sunset will be at 7:49 pm.
I get that there are a lot of people who will enjoy that 7:49 pm sunset, but an 8:06 am sunrise is not good. There are a lot of adults commuting to work and kids commuting to school between 7-8 am, and safety has been raised as a serious reason why this kind of schedule is bad.
I would prefer to see Indiana move to Central Time with an observance of DST and my second choice would be to keep Eastern Time but revert back to non-observance of DST.
Quote from: english si on March 10, 2013, 04:06:15 PM
Which is something we need the sun for. Sure, we don't typically need the sunrise before 6, hence DST, but making dawn happen at 8, 9, or even 10 or later (in eg the UK in mid-winter) in winter is just too late, hence the lack of DST in winter.
Well, maybe the UK needs the switch then. Down here in upstate NY, we never have sun rise later than 7 no matter what.
Quoteyes, so getting an hour+ before you start work at 7 to 8 or 8 to 9 is better than having that hour in the afternoon from 3 to 4 or 4 to 5, when you are still at work! Given the hours we generally work, if you are going to get light outside work hours in winter, it will be in the morning.
Likewise, we never have the sun set earlier than 4:30 either, so you actually would get some after-work daylight here.
QuoteYou can, I guess, be unnaturally wired to ignore the sun, but by nature we're wired to rely on the sun to reset our body clock (see the video I posted about social jet lag).
I think the video might be missing (or is it in another post?). I did read some articles though - while many were basically early bird propaganda, there were some interesting points. "Social jet lag" is a bit of a misnomer in my case - I'm not up late on the weekends because of social reasons, I'm up because my body just isn't tired. During the week, the hours I'm awake on the weekends are spent awake in bed trying to fall asleep (and failing). I've had this problem for as long as I can remember, though it got worse once I got my own computer (I'm in front of a computer screen just about every waking moment, which might be why my sleep cycle doesn't care about daylight).
QuoteThe worker's traditional 9-5 day would have been 8-4 or even 7-3; my school day would have been shifted forward by at least half an hour (half an hour would have put it 50-50).
Here in the US, "9-5" is more like "8-5" since lunch is not included in the hours and most managers are early birds.
QuoteThey did an experiment at a school with high rates of truancy in North East England, beginning with September - instead of starting school at 9, move it to 10. Truancy dropped significantly on the equivalent time the year before around mid-October.
Wow, school sure starts later in England than here! In the US, I know of no school that starts as late as 10 - even 9 is considered REALLY late, with 8 being common for elementary-age kids and 7:30 or even earlier for teens. One teacher I had in high school even did lab makeups at 6 AM!
Quote from: The Wall Street Journal: Feb. 27, 2008
Indiana's change of heart gave University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor Matthew Kotchen and Ph.D. student Laura Grant a unique way to see how the time shift affects energy use. Using more than seven million monthly meter readings from Duke Energy Corp., covering nearly all the households in southern Indiana for three years, they were able to compare energy consumption before and after counties began observing daylight-saving time. Readings from counties that had already adopted daylight-saving time provided a control group that helped them to adjust for changes in weather from one year to the next.
Their finding: Having the entire state switch to daylight-saving time each year, rather than stay on standard time, costs Indiana households an additional $8.6 million in electricity bills. They conclude that the reduced cost of lighting in afternoons during daylight-saving time is more than offset by the higher air-conditioning costs on hot afternoons and increased heating costs on cool mornings.
"I've never had a paper with such a clear and unambiguous finding as this," says Mr. Kotchen, who presented the paper at a National Bureau of Economic Research conference this month.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120406767043794825.html
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 11, 2013, 12:06:11 PM
I hate daylight saving time. it's a stupid illusion perpetuated by stupid people.
Is it possible to discuss something you feel strongly about without namecalling?
Quote
if you want an hour of extra daylight in the afternoon, wake up an hour earlier.
Um, right. Also, persuade my work that their open hours should be an hour early. And Metro that their bus schedules need to be an hour earlier. And my daughter's school that they should adjust their schedule an hour earlier. Also, after-school lesson times, business opening times. Now, if only there was some simple way all those different entities could change their schedules on the same day...
Quote
don't make me lose an hour once a year, resulting in several days of disorientation, just because you can't drag your sorry ass out of bed.
Several days of disorientation seems to be the reaction of a small minority. Have you tried getting up a little bit earlier each day for a week before the change happens? Do you get jetlag when crossing a single time zone?
Quote from: kkt on March 11, 2013, 01:53:23 PM
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 11, 2013, 12:06:11 PM
if you want an hour of extra daylight in the afternoon, wake up an hour earlier.
Um, right. Also, persuade my work that their open hours should be an hour early. And Metro that their bus schedules need to be an hour earlier. And my daughter's school that they should adjust their schedule an hour earlier. Also, after-school lesson times, business opening times. Now, if only there was some simple way all those different entities could change their schedules on the same day...
Well, they've
already been persuaded to open an hour early and close an hour early. It's called Daylight Savings Time. We just get to pretend that's not what's actually happening. The sun doesn't really come up an hour later and set an hour later, after all. So, really, it would just be convincing everybody to
stop adjusting their schedules on the same day twice a year. Think how many headaches could be prevented just in payroll departments around the country–no longer will time clocks be off an hour four times a year, as it is at my workplace (current start of DST, old start of DST, old end of DST, current end of DST).
My favorite story was of a lady who complained about Daylight Savings Time because her flowers couldn't handle a whole extra hour of sunlight every afternoon.
Based on the posts, I guess the reply "yawn" is okay for this thread? :)
I prefer the extra hour of sunlight after the work day is done, since it's usually dark when I start my day, no matter where I am. Waking up when the sun is out is a pipe dream perpetuated by sleep-aid commercials.
Same crap as jetlag. Deal with it, it's not going away, either.
Quote from: formulanone on March 11, 2013, 02:31:39 PM
Waking up when the sun is out is a pipe dream perpetuated by sleep-aid commercials.
My alarm is set for 6 AM, and it was already starting to be light outside when
EVIL!! KILL!! KILL!! DIE!! DIE!! STOMP!! CRASH!! SLASH!![/terminated]
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 11, 2013, 12:05:32 PM
............or the ferry between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, though I'm pretty sure I recall there being a PA announcement in each case reminding people of it
And Newfoundland is in one of those half-hour zones.........a half-hour ahead of Atlantic Time and an hour and a half ahead of Eastern.
Quote.....most fun I've had with time zones was on the flight shown in my avatar at left. A friend of mine shot that video at Heathrow at 18.45 on a Sunday. The flight landed at JFK at 17.06 the same afternoon. Five-hour time difference, flight took 3 hours 21 minutes. Hence "arrive before you leave.")
I've wondered about your avatar......Cool!!
Quote from: ghYHZ on March 11, 2013, 05:31:34 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 11, 2013, 12:05:32 PM
.....most fun I've had with time zones was on the flight shown in my avatar at left. A friend of mine shot that video at Heathrow at 18.45 on a Sunday. The flight landed at JFK at 17.06 the same afternoon. Five-hour time difference, flight took 3 hours 21 minutes. Hence "arrive before you leave.")
I've wondered about your avatar......Cool!!
I'm in that picture, you just can't see me there in Seat 20D. :-D
Quote from: kphoger on March 11, 2013, 11:47:50 AM
I've started calling it Exactly The Same Amount Of Daylight Time, since it doesn't save one second of daylight.
It's not intended to save daylight. The savings is supposed to come on your electric bill. The idea being that if an hour of daylight is shifted into the early evening (when most people are at home), you'll use less electricity because you won't need to turn lights on in your house until one hour later than you otherwise would.
Quote from: broadhurst04 on March 11, 2013, 08:15:54 PMIt's not intended to save daylight. The savings is supposed to come on your electric bill. The idea being that if an hour of daylight is shifted into the early evening (when most people are at home), you'll use less electricity because you won't need to turn lights on in your house until one hour later than you otherwise would.
Except that it doesn't do much, if anything, on that front and (in warmer areas) may do more harm than good.
And here's the social jet lag video - far from being early birds it's the opposite, arguing against the tyranny of early birds making us get up early on clock time and stupid time zone boundaries making clock time not in sync with solar time and body time (which are linked, but how is different for different people) - that the social time is ahead of the solar time. DST in winter just exacerbates that.
Watching all of you hatin' on DST makes me laugh. I like it. I was actually able to do some things outside this afternoon when I got home from work that I wouldn't have been able to do last week because of a lack of daylight. What I hate is falling back in autumn.
And Central Time. I hate Central Time. I'm glad my part of Kentucky is in the Eastern Time Zone. I know that we were in Central Time temporarily a couple of times.
Quote from: english si on March 11, 2013, 08:49:25 PM
And here's the social jet lag video - far from being early birds it's the opposite, arguing against the tyranny of early birds making us get up early on clock time and stupid time zone boundaries making clock time not in sync with solar time and body time (which are linked, but how is different for different people) - that the social time is ahead of the solar time. DST in winter just exacerbates that.
That's what I figured from the articles, but that doesn't stop the media from trying to spin it as "get up early all the time".
I don't understand why so many people complain about Daylight Saving Time. I think people who complain about the loss of one hour of sleep are making it to be a bigger deal than it has to be. Who cares... it's just ONE HOUR. It's not like you're losing three or four hours.
I personally like DST and hope it sticks around. I like how the daylight gets shifted later into the evening hours. It's nice. Plus, I agree with the person who said that extra daylight in the morning hours is not necessary - unless you're talking about kids walking to school or waiting for a bus in the dark. Is it really that bad? I think not!
I'm not saying the shift might not be worth it- I definitely enjoyed the extra hour of sunlight yesterday afternoon and used that time to grill a steak and start doing yardwork as the snow melts.
I think the mass one hour shift is harder than it is when traveling because everything in your exact normal routine happens exactly as usual, just one hour earlier. That's far more disorienting than traveling to Nebraska or something where your routine is totally different and you don't even notice that one hour difference.
Until four months ago, I'd worked the last two years doing 4 overnights a week and then trying to live a normal life during the school day the rest of the week- body in constant state of not having any sort of cycle. I found that adjustment back and forth easier than the one hour shift now that I'm in an established routine.
Quote from: A.J. Bertin on March 12, 2013, 11:19:28 AM
I don't understand why so many people complain about Daylight Saving Time. I think people who complain about the loss of one hour of sleep are making it to be a bigger deal than it has to be. Who cares... it's just ONE HOUR. It's not like you're losing three or four hours.
I personally like DST and hope it sticks around. I like how the daylight gets shifted later into the evening hours. It's nice. Plus, I agree with the person who said that extra daylight in the morning hours is not necessary - unless you're talking about kids walking to school or waiting for a bus in the dark. Is it really that bad? I think not!
Kids getting injured/killed while waiting for school buses in the dark? Yes, I think that's bad. How obscenely selfish of me not to want that to happen to kids!
Quote from: corco on March 12, 2013, 11:22:33 AM
I'm not saying the shift might not be worth it- I definitely enjoyed the extra hour of sunlight yesterday afternoon and used that time to grill a steak and start doing yardwork as the snow melts.
I could do the same thing by going to work an hour earlier.
QuoteI think the mass one hour shift is harder than it is when traveling because everything in your exact normal routine happens exactly as usual, just one hour earlier. That's far more disorienting than traveling to Nebraska or something where your routine is totally different and you don't even notice that one hour difference.
bingo. people compare it to jet lag, except a major component of jet lag is "wow, I was just sitting in an awful metal tube for several hours", so of course you're gonna feel disoriented.
Quote from: hbelkins on March 11, 2013, 10:26:40 PM
Watching all of you hatin' on DST makes me laugh. I like it. I was actually able to do some things outside this afternoon when I got home from work that I wouldn't have been able to do last week because of a lack of daylight. What I hate is falling back in autumn.
I very rarely pay it much regard in the fall. "oh, right, an extra hour." and I may or may not wake up earlier that Sunday.
Quote from: cabiness42 on March 12, 2013, 12:23:28 PM
Kids getting injured/killed while waiting for school buses in the dark? Yes, I think that's bad. How obscenely selfish of me not to want that to happen to kids!
Not so much "waiting for school buses" but walking to school. See other thread about drivers (who I think must not have kids) wanting to drive 30+ mph in school zones even when it's dark.
Quote from: hbelkins on March 11, 2013, 10:26:40 PM
Watching all of you hatin' on DST makes me laugh. I like it. I was actually able to do some things outside this afternoon when I got home from work that I wouldn't have been able to do last week because of a lack of daylight. What I hate is falling back in autumn.
And Central Time. I hate Central Time. I'm glad my part of Kentucky is in the Eastern Time Zone. I know that we were in Central Time temporarily a couple of times.
What's so bad about Central Time?
My favorite is when people wish we would switch to full-time Daylight Savings Time. That's the exact same thing as me wishing we would abandon Daylight Savings Time altogether–just off by one hour. If having an extra hour of daylight in the afternoon is that important to you, and getting up in the dark is no problem for you, then what you really want is for business to be conducted one hour earlier every day; no need to call it Daylight Savings Time at all. We're really wishing for the same thing, but we have different natural schedules.
Quote from: kphoger on March 12, 2013, 09:00:23 PMIf having an extra hour of daylight in the afternoon is that important to you, and getting up in the dark is no problem for you, then what you really want is for business to be conducted one hour earlier every day; no need to call it Daylight Savings Time at all.
"Full-time DST" is really just convenient shorthand compared to "move to the next time zone east," which in context can be ambiguous because there are often large differences between legal and geographical time zones and it is not always clear which is meant. It is also readily understood because discussion as to these preferences typically occurs only near a DST time change.
I suspect what most people object to is the time change, not the time zone assignment as such, and given a choice between two possible time zone assignments without DST and the appropriate geographical time zone with DST, most people would rank the less favorable of the DST-free time zone assignments above the correct time zone with DST. There are good reasons most countries have needed some type of forcing event, such as a war, to adopt DST for the first time, with retention or reinstatement of DST in peacetime being driven by
ex ante lobbies. Meanwhile, there are several countries--such as Russia--which have gone over to "full-time DST."
Quote from: swbrotha100 on March 12, 2013, 08:30:37 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on March 11, 2013, 10:26:40 PM
Watching all of you hatin' on DST makes me laugh. I like it. I was actually able to do some things outside this afternoon when I got home from work that I wouldn't have been able to do last week because of a lack of daylight. What I hate is falling back in autumn.
And Central Time. I hate Central Time. I'm glad my part of Kentucky is in the Eastern Time Zone. I know that we were in Central Time temporarily a couple of times.
What's so bad about Central Time?
I just hate adjusting to it when I travel.
Quote from: hbelkins on March 11, 2013, 10:26:40 PM
Watching all of you hatin' on DST makes me laugh. I like it. I was actually able to do some things outside this afternoon when I got home from work that I wouldn't have been able to do last week because of a lack of daylight. What I hate is falling back in autumn.
We may not agree on everything, H.B., but I do agree with you on this. I may be an early riser, but I like having that extra hour of sunlight in the evening hours.
Quote from: J N Winkler on March 12, 2013, 09:16:38 PMMeanwhile, there are several countries--such as Russia--which have gone over to "full-time DST."
And states like Indiana, Kentucky, countries like France and Spain, etc that basically have moved to full time DST, with double DST (or basically one time zone to the east). Which of course makes hbelkins more strange.
Quote from: hbelkins on March 11, 2013, 10:26:40 PMWatching all of you hatin' on DST makes me laugh. I like it. I was actually able to do some things outside this afternoon when I got home from work that I wouldn't have been able to do last week because of a lack of daylight. What I hate is falling back in autumn.
You must really finish work late - not only are you far enough south and this a time of year to be pretty much on the 6pm sunset with solar noon at 12pm, but you are also on year-round DST due to not being under the natural time zone of Central, so it's at least half an hour later than that. Add an hour to that and you are looking at you returning at 7pm. Given I've been informed that America's standard is a 40 hour week (rather than a 35 hour week, though we might do 8.30 or 8 or 9 to 5 or 5.30 for 37.5 or 40 hour official weeks and many people work more), that means starting late, surely? You must surely have a lot of light in the morning for doing those chores!
DST is great. DST in winter (inc late October, which is on a no-change situation) isn't great. The first few weeks of DST is so-so on benefit, especially in America with the earlier start. I certainly wasn't hatin' on DST - I was hating on the hate of standard time and the incomprehensible love of DST so much to have it all year round! Also the non-SAD sufferers declaration that getting up in the dark is no biggy.
Kentucky on year-round DST? WTF?
I typically get home between 5:30 and 6. By the time I say hello to my wife and get my clothes changed, even in March there's very little daylight left to get much of anything done outside.
Quote from: hbelkins on March 13, 2013, 11:16:29 AM
Kentucky on year-round DST? WTF?
Sorry, it's slightly further east than I thought - the middle is only about 5 hours 20 minutes behind Greenwich, not the 5 hours 40 minutes I thought. Its previous toying with Central time, and Indiana's oddness made me think it was naturally just inside the natural Central Time longitudes, but had moved to Eastern, effectively giving it DST all year round, with double in the summer.
I also need to remember that the sun sets quicker there - here, about 3 minutes behind Greenwich, it's light enough to not need a light at 1830 here at the moment (though car headlights are needed, due to the darkening effect of windshields), but you being more minutes behind the theoretical time doesn't mean you'd have a 1850 time before it gets too dark, due to being further south - and 45 minutes/an hour is enough time to do some chores outside.
Most of Alaska has year round DST, with double in the summer - only the panhandle and the eastern edge is in the -9 zone geographically and Nome is in the middle of -11.
Spain is the worst - it wasn't forced onto Berlin Time by the Nazis (Netherlands were +0:20, France GMT before invasion, and just haven't gone back), but chose to go CET, despite being almost all in the western hemisphere and a small bit has natural time more than one and a half hours off CET (so 2.5 hours in summer). Alaska, at least, is mostly empty so it doesn't matter as much!
Quote from: english si on March 13, 2013, 09:09:59 AM
Given I've been informed that America's standard is a 40 hour week (rather than a 35 hour week, though we might do 8.30 or 8 or 9 to 5 or 5.30 for 37.5 or 40 hour official weeks and many people work more), that means starting late, surely? You must surely have a lot of light in the morning for doing those chores!
40 hours/week is official "full time", not including lunch. But many people work longer, either through working two or more "part time" jobs or by being salaried and exempt from overtime or by working "off the clock" by loyalty to the job or feeling that they'll look bad if they don't.
Quote from: kkt on March 12, 2013, 01:28:28 PM
Quote from: cabiness42 on March 12, 2013, 12:23:28 PM
Kids getting injured/killed while waiting for school buses in the dark? Yes, I think that's bad. How obscenely selfish of me not to want that to happen to kids!
Not so much "waiting for school buses" but walking to school. See other thread about drivers (who I think must not have kids) wanting to drive 30+ mph in school zones even when it's dark.
People still walk to school in the morning? In my district, all the walkers were driven in the morning by their parents on the way to work; they only walked home in the afternoon. Why? Because they could.
Quote from: kkt on March 13, 2013, 12:06:57 PM
Quote from: english si on March 13, 2013, 09:09:59 AM
Given I've been informed that America's standard is a 40 hour week (rather than a 35 hour week, though we might do 8.30 or 8 or 9 to 5 or 5.30 for 37.5 or 40 hour official weeks and many people work more), that means starting late, surely? You must surely have a lot of light in the morning for doing those chores!
40 hours/week is official "full time", not including lunch. But many people work longer, either through working two or more "part time" jobs or by being salaried and exempt from overtime or by working "off the clock" by loyalty to the job or feeling that they'll look bad if they don't.
And many places are adopting official 60 hour work weeks.
Quote from: hbelkins on March 13, 2013, 11:16:29 AM
Kentucky on year-round DST? WTF?
"Year-round DST" is another way of saying that an area is one time zone to the east of where it should be. 75 degrees west longitude is the actual spot on the globe that is 5 hours west of the prime meridian. 90 degrees west is exactly 6 hours west. To get your sunlight schedule closest to the "natural setting" you would split the difference at 82.5 degrees and east of there would be Eastern time and west of there would be Central. 82.5 degrees cuts through the very eastern portion of Kentucky, so about 95% of Kentucky is naturally in the Central time zone.
Lexington is at about 84.5 degrees and is on Eastern time, so they are already getting sunsets 38 minutes later than what would be natural and DST makes that 1:38.
Louisville is at about 85.7 degrees and is also on Eastern time, so they are already getting sunsets 43 minutes later than what would be natural and DST makes that 1:43.
For an even more extreme example, Terre Haute, IN is at 87.4 degrees and is also on Eastern time, so they are getting sunsets 50 minutes later than natural with DST making it 1:50.
China is/was all on one time zone, so the western part of the country was several hours "off" of what would be the natural time. That didn't mean people were working in the middle of the night–just that they started work at an odd "time" on the clock. All of this really boils down to what time you want to start work.
Quote from: deanej on March 13, 2013, 12:15:09 PM
Quote from: kkt on March 12, 2013, 01:28:28 PM
Not so much "waiting for school buses" but walking to school. See other thread about drivers (who I think must not have kids) wanting to drive 30+ mph in school zones even when it's dark.
People still walk to school in the morning? In my district, all the walkers were driven in the morning by their parents on the way to work; they only walked home in the afternoon. Why? Because they could.
Yes, they do. Our district does not provide busing for students who live less than 1/2 mile from school, and in most cases by the time they're two miles away they're closer to some other school, so there's a small busing donut around each school. If the students live within walking distance, why drive them? Helicopter parents? Genuinely dangerous neighborhood?
The sun should come up in late morning, giving us more evening hours to do things. Daylight Savings Time should be year round and how about one more hour of it?
Quote from: texaskdog on March 13, 2013, 01:14:29 PM
The sun should come up in late morning, giving us more evening hours to do things. Daylight Savings Time should be year round and how about one more hour of it?
the sun should shine 24 hours a day. let's keep manipulating the clocks until we can achieve this.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 13, 2013, 01:29:17 PM
Quote from: texaskdog on March 13, 2013, 01:14:29 PM
The sun should come up in late morning, giving us more evening hours to do things. Daylight Savings Time should be year round and how about one more hour of it?
the sun should shine 24 hours a day. let's keep manipulating the clocks until we can achieve this.
Aren't there some areas around the Arctic Circle where this is already true for at least a few days every year?
Quote from: DaBigE on March 13, 2013, 02:11:54 PM
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 13, 2013, 01:29:17 PM
Quote from: texaskdog on March 13, 2013, 01:14:29 PM
The sun should come up in late morning, giving us more evening hours to do things. Daylight Savings Time should be year round and how about one more hour of it?
the sun should shine 24 hours a day. let's keep manipulating the clocks until we can achieve this.
Aren't there some areas around the Arctic Circle where this is already true for at least a few days every year?
yes, but we need it
all the time!
Quote from: DaBigE on March 13, 2013, 02:11:54 PM
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 13, 2013, 01:29:17 PM
the sun should shine 24 hours a day. let's keep manipulating the clocks until we can achieve this.
Aren't there some areas around the Arctic Circle where this is already true for at least a few days every year?
If by "a few days" you mean fully half the year, then yes.
The sun does not shine 24 hours a day near the Arctic Circle for fully half the year. Near the North Pole, I suppose, but that's a long way from the Arctic Circle.
Quote from: kphoger on March 13, 2013, 05:12:52 PM
The sun does not shine 24 hours a day near the Arctic Circle for fully half the year. Near the North Pole, I suppose, but that's a long way from the Arctic Circle.
The South Pole, too, which is even further from the Arctic Circle.
Quote from: kkt on March 13, 2013, 01:11:37 PM
Quote from: deanej on March 13, 2013, 12:15:09 PM
Quote from: kkt on March 12, 2013, 01:28:28 PM
Not so much "waiting for school buses" but walking to school. See other thread about drivers (who I think must not have kids) wanting to drive 30+ mph in school zones even when it's dark.
People still walk to school in the morning? In my district, all the walkers were driven in the morning by their parents on the way to work; they only walked home in the afternoon. Why? Because they could.
Yes, they do. Our district does not provide busing for students who live less than 1/2 mile from school, and in most cases by the time they're two miles away they're closer to some other school, so there's a small busing donut around each school. If the students live within walking distance, why drive them? Helicopter parents? Genuinely dangerous neighborhood?
I think laziness. It's definitely not a bad area; quite the opposite, actually. School taxes in the area are VERY high. The district is centralized and has a small amount of students compared to the other suburbs, and student achievement rivals private schools (for this reason, houses in the area rarely stay on sale long enough to be listed). On second thought, my area probably doesn't represent mainstream America in the slightest (90% of voters are democrats). It's more like a piece of Canada transported south (hey, we have the snow for it, and the schools never close ;)).
Quote from: kphoger on March 13, 2013, 05:12:52 PM
The sun does not shine 24 hours a day near the Arctic Circle for fully half the year. Near the North Pole, I suppose, but that's a long way from the Arctic Circle.
Even if the sun sets in Anchorage they still get 24 hours of daylight for a few months being that it is still light for a while before & after sunset.
Quote from: texaskdog on March 14, 2013, 10:36:13 AM
Quote from: kphoger on March 13, 2013, 05:12:52 PM
The sun does not shine 24 hours a day near the Arctic Circle for fully half the year. Near the North Pole, I suppose, but that's a long way from the Arctic Circle.
Even if the sun sets in Anchorage they still get 24 hours of daylight for a few months being that it is still light for a while before & after sunset.
Anchorage is below the Arctic Circle, and the sun does set even around the summer solstice and you get twilight for a few hours until dawn. (I haven't been to Anchorage, but I've been to Yellowknife, which is a little farther north than Anchorage.)
Quote from: Mike D boy on March 10, 2013, 03:20:16 AM
From what I heard of Daylight Savings time, Indiana (or one part of the state) doesn't observe DST from a tale of farmers concerned their livestock will be confused by the time change. ...
I never understood that argument. Who said you have to tell the cows about DST?
The main thing I don't understand about this is why the changeover dates are not symmetric. In the US, we now keep DST in the fall until, what, about 7 weeks before the solstice? But we don't switch back in the spring until around 11 weeks after the solstice. I'd be happy to split the difference, and go about 9 or 10 weeks on each side of the solstice in standard time. Why is a dark morning OK at the end of October but an equally dark morning is a problem in mid-to-late February?
Quote from: kkt on March 14, 2013, 12:38:11 PM
Quote from: texaskdog on March 14, 2013, 10:36:13 AM
Quote from: kphoger on March 13, 2013, 05:12:52 PM
The sun does not shine 24 hours a day near the Arctic Circle for fully half the year. Near the North Pole, I suppose, but that's a long way from the Arctic Circle.
Even if the sun sets in Anchorage they still get 24 hours of daylight for a few months being that it is still light for a while before & after sunset.
Anchorage is below the Arctic Circle, and the sun does set even around the summer solstice and you get twilight for a few hours until dawn. (I haven't been to Anchorage, but I've been to Yellowknife, which is a little farther north than Anchorage.)
In Fairbanks on the summer solstice the sun sets for just under three hours (it actually sets after midnight) but the twilight is more than ample to fool you into thinking the sun was still up. Somewhere around here I have a picture I took at 2am on a cloudy
day morning. It looked like a twilight elsewhere.
edit: found it...
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbishopdan.com%2Fimages%2F2a.jpg&hash=019c681728758b38771d687235be7c82210d6d8f)
Quote from: kkt on March 13, 2013, 12:06:57 PM
Quote from: english si on March 13, 2013, 09:09:59 AM
Given I've been informed that America's standard is a 40 hour week (rather than a 35 hour week, though we might do 8.30 or 8 or 9 to 5 or 5.30 for 37.5 or 40 hour official weeks and many people work more), that means starting late, surely? You must surely have a lot of light in the morning for doing those chores!
40 hours/week is official "full time", not including lunch. But many people work longer, either through working two or more "part time" jobs or by being salaried and exempt from overtime or by working "off the clock" by loyalty to the job or feeling that they'll look bad if they don't.
Yeah, I can't tell you the last time I only worked 40 hours. 50 is usually expected of most folks in our business.
Quote from: Jim on March 14, 2013, 04:09:04 PM
Quote from: Mike D boy on March 10, 2013, 03:20:16 AM
From what I heard of Daylight Savings time, Indiana (or one part of the state) doesn't observe DST from a tale of farmers concerned their livestock will be confused by the time change. ...
I never understood that argument. Who said you have to tell the cows about DST?
I think that's sort of the point–the animals have no idea that their human caretakers are observing a different time and so they still expect to be fed/watered at the "same time" without regard to our clocks. Or, put differently, my wife and I had tickets to a 12:30 hockey game last Sunday. If we'd forgotten to change our clocks, we'd have shown up an hour late. Presumably the farmers have to adjust their feeding schedule by an hour when the clocks go ahead because if the animals expect to be fed at, say, 7:00, and we then move the clocks ahead an hour, the animals expect to get their food at what to us is 8:00. Presumably it throws off the farmers' routines.
The alternative is to feed the animals at the same "clock time"–that is, if you feed them at 7:00 Standard Time, you also feed them at 7:00 DST. But they would perceive that as being at a different time and presumably it confuses them.
At least that seems like it's how it should work out. Those of you who have pets, do find your dogs expect to be walked or taken outside to crap at "a different time" right after the time change? If so, is that time one hour "later" than you expected? I know the friendly squirrels who visit our deck most days looking for peanuts have not been showing up this week when I'm eating breakfast the way they have all winter, and I assume it's because I'm now there "earlier" than they expect me to be.
Quote from: Jim on March 14, 2013, 04:12:38 PM
The main thing I don't understand about this is why the changeover dates are not symmetric. In the US, we now keep DST in the fall until, what, about 7 weeks before the solstice? But we don't switch back in the spring until around 11 weeks after the solstice. I'd be happy to split the difference, and go about 9 or 10 weeks on each side of the solstice in standard time. Why is a dark morning OK at the end of October but an equally dark morning is a problem in mid-to-late February?
Most commentary I've seen about changing the end date from October to November centered around a desire to keep it light an hour later because of kids out running around on Halloween, rather than anything to do with dark mornings. I've certainly seen all too many little kids in dark costumes running out into the street without looking first. I always hope no pizza delivery man is speeding down the street when that happens.....
Farmers don't go by the clock, they go by dawn and dusk. If a farmer isn't smart enough to know that he should gradually change feeding, milking, whatever schedules at DST changes rather than suddenly altering them a full hour–then he deserves to fail as a farmer.
I mean, heck, what about all those babies who wake up an hour earlier expecting to be fed, yet the mom refuses to get out of bed until the clock reads 4:00? WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 14, 2013, 05:41:42 PMThose of you who have pets, do find your dogs expect to be walked or taken outside to crap at "a different time" right after the time change?
yep! usually our smaller dog starts moving around in her crate a few minutes before she knows it's feeding time, but there has been a morning or two this week where she had no idea that breakfast was served, and she awoke to her door opening!
Quote from: kphoger on March 14, 2013, 05:46:27 PM
Farmers don't go by the clock, they go by dawn and dusk. If a farmer isn't smart enough to know that he should gradually change feeding, milking, whatever schedules at DST changes rather than suddenly altering them a full hour–then he deserves to fail as a farmer.
I mean, heck, what about all those babies who wake up an hour earlier expecting to be fed, yet the mom refuses to get out of bed until the clock reads 4:00? WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!
Well, I'm not a farmer, so that's why I was careful to include the word "presumably" several times and to say "I think" the issue is what I was saying. All I know is that I've seen so many news articles over the years–and not just in the American media, either–in which farmers talk about how their animals don't know anything about the time change that I figure there must be something to the issue. I did some nosing around after posting my prior comment and one article I found says that part of the problem is that the customers with whom the farmers deal aren't necessarily willing to adjust their schedules by an hour if the farmers operate an hour "off schedule" to reflect the time difference. It seems milking cows is one of the biggest issues. If it weren't for having to deliver their farm products at a particular time it'd be easy for the farmers just to continue to operate on Standard Time.
Your point about gradually adjusting does make sense, assuming cows' milking times can be adjusted like that.
This thread is now making me think of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer decided it was silly to wait until April and so he turned his watch ahead immediately.
alas, it seems the farmer's most optimal solution is to operate simultaneously on two different schedules: one for his animals, and one for his human appointments.
"5am (standard) - milk cows"
"8am (daylight) - feed store opens; buy feed"
yeesh!
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 13, 2013, 03:06:18 PM
Quote from: DaBigE on March 13, 2013, 02:11:54 PM
Quote from: agentsteel53 on March 13, 2013, 01:29:17 PM
Quote from: texaskdog on March 13, 2013, 01:14:29 PM
The sun should come up in late morning, giving us more evening hours to do things. Daylight Savings Time should be year round and how about one more hour of it?
the sun should shine 24 hours a day. let's keep manipulating the clocks until we can achieve this.
Aren't there some areas around the Arctic Circle where this is already true for at least a few days every year?
yes, but we need it all the time!
That certainly would aid in road photography.
Quote from: Brandon on March 14, 2013, 08:22:10 PM
That certainly would aid in road photography.
Unless you're taking a photo facing north.
Quote from: swbrotha100 on March 09, 2013, 06:06:30 PMSomewhat related, are there a lot of signs out there marking time zone boundaries? I have seen them marked at the Hoover Dam, and I see Nevada has a sign on northbound US 93 just after the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge. There weren't any signs I could remember between Bullhead City AZ and Laughlin NV.
Oregon tells you what to do:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sabre-roads.org.uk%2Fwiki%2Fimages%2F5%2F53%2FOregon-pacific-timezone-sign-with-instructions.png&hash=92d5935ee01eb9022fac0631855aef42b3d08667)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sabre-roads.org.uk%2Fwiki%2Fimages%2F2%2F29%2FOregon-mountain-timezone-sign-with-instructions.png&hash=5f8c07648e64d0f0fa95cd00edcc9344815bf539)
Edit: These signs are re-drawn from Oregon DOT sign drawing S-2740 (from a contract with chopblock caption "Signing installation: Harney County line - Burns Jct. Unit #2, Steens Highway, Malheur County").
Is Alanland on Daylight Savings Time?
:evilgrin:
It both is and isn't.
Quote from: vdeane on April 02, 2013, 05:02:33 PM
It both is and isn't.
no, it just isn't. Alanland is both on, and not on, Alanland Time, and Alanland Time both does, and does not, change clocks. the two uncertainties cancel out, yielding a definitive "Alanland is on Daylight Savings Time".
furthermore, noon occurs three times a day, at least four of which are during darkness.
Quote from: kphoger on April 02, 2013, 04:27:08 PM
Is Alanland on Daylight Savings Time?
:evilgrin:
Nevermind. I just found an article on wikipedia about it:
Quote from: http://al.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Alanland#DST
§ 5. Võrdluse kasutamine reklaamis
(2) Võrdluse kasutamisel ei tohi reklaam:
1) põhjustada reklaami tellija ja tema konkurendi, samuti reklaami tellija ja tema konkurendi kaubamärkide, nimede, kaupade või teenuste, nende oluliste tunnuste ega müügitingimuste segiajamist või tõenäolist segiajamist;
2) põhineda konkurendi kaubamärgi, nime ja muude eristatavate tunnuste maine ega konkureeriva kauba päritolunimetuse enda huvides ärakasutamisel;
3) päritolunimetusega kauba puhul seostuda kaubaga, millel ei ole sama nimetus;
4) esitada kaupa või teenust Eestis õiguskaitset omava kaubamärgiga tähistatud kauba või teenuse koopia või jäljendina.
So that cleared that up.
Quote from: kphoger on April 02, 2013, 06:02:29 PM
Quote from: http://al.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Alanland#DST
§ 5. Võrdluse kasutamine reklaamis
(2) Võrdluse kasutamisel ei tohi reklaam:
1) põhjustada reklaami tellija ja tema konkurendi, samuti reklaami tellija ja tema konkurendi kaubamärkide, nimede, kaupade või teenuste, nende oluliste tunnuste ega müügitingimuste segiajamist või tõenäolist segiajamist;
2) põhineda konkurendi kaubamärgi, nime ja muude eristatavate tunnuste maine ega konkureeriva kauba päritolunimetuse enda huvides ärakasutamisel;
3) päritolunimetusega kauba puhul seostuda kaubaga, millel ei ole sama nimetus;
4) esitada kaupa või teenust Eestis õiguskaitset omava kaubamärgiga tähistatud kauba või teenuse koopia või jäljendina.
So that cleared that up.
They speak
Estonian in Alanland?
You seriously linked to the wikipedia article on the Estonian language? That's awesome. :biggrin:
So, the US observes DST as well as Europe, Kyrgyzstan doesn't so (Sorry, too much Sporcle for me) and Alanland both does and doesn't.
Anyway, I'd like the US switched between Standard Time and DST at the same time as Europe, so I wouldn't have to change my time offset with the forum 4 times a year (Had to change it last Sunday when DST went into force here).
Quote from: CNGL-Leudimin on April 03, 2013, 06:31:20 AMAnyway, I'd like the US switched between Standard Time and DST at the same time as Europe, so I wouldn't have to change my time offset with the forum 4 times a year (Had to change it last Sunday when DST went into force here).
Before DST was expanded in the US, one of the time changes was actually coordinated across the Atlantic--I think it was in the spring. This lack of coordination in time changes is one reason I never bother to adjust my timezone offset in any forum I visit. Another is that changing a clock is wasted effort on any timekeeping device that I do not actually use to tell the time.
Quote from: J N Winkler on April 03, 2013, 11:27:17 AM
Quote from: CNGL-Leudimin on April 03, 2013, 06:31:20 AMAnyway, I'd like the US switched between Standard Time and DST at the same time as Europe, so I wouldn't have to change my time offset with the forum 4 times a year (Had to change it last Sunday when DST went into force here).
Before DST was expanded in the US, one of the time changes was actually coordinated across the Atlantic--I think it was in the spring. This lack of coordination in time changes is one reason I never bother to adjust my timezone offset in any forum I visit. Another is that changing a clock is wasted effort on any timekeeping device that I do not actually use to tell the time.
It was the one in the fall (last Sunday in October). DST in Europe starts on the last Sunday in March. In the US it originally started on the last Sunday in April; during the second Reagan Administration it was extended to the first Sunday in April. The "last Sunday in October" end date remained the same until the 2007 change that moved it to "second Sunday in March through first Sunday in November."
Quote from: J N Winkler on April 03, 2013, 11:27:17 AM
Before DST was expanded in the US, one of the time changes was actually coordinated across the Atlantic--I think it was in the spring. This lack of coordination in time changes is one reason I never bother to adjust my timezone offset in any forum I visit. Another is that changing a clock is wasted effort on any timekeeping device that I do not actually use to tell the time.
yeah, my forum settings are eastern time (must be a default) so the time stamps are a bit off... but I never pay too close attention to exactly when something was posted.
Quote from: 1995hoo on April 03, 2013, 11:36:31 AMIt was the one in the fall (last Sunday in October). DST in Europe starts on the last Sunday in March. In the US it originally started on the last Sunday in April; during the second Reagan Administration it was extended to the first Sunday in April. The "last Sunday in October" end date remained the same until the 2007 change that moved it to "second Sunday in March through first Sunday in November."
When I lived in Italy (1992-1994) DST did start the last Sunday in March, but ended the last Sunday in September.