I hate Fall Daylight Savings!

[Russ Filtz]

I normally getup early to beat traffic. Now with the time change there are a bunch of POSEURS on the road, thinking they got up early, and clogging the roads!

Can't wait until they slip back into their old routines. Kind of like driving to work in the dark. I'm in the dark the rest of the day anyway!

[Doug Shepard]

I can never figure out why if the whole purpose of the scheme is to "save daylight" that now it's pitch black out when I take the dog out for her after-supper walk instead of just getting dark by the time we get back. Seems like we ought to be adjusting forward an extra hour from fall through Feb., instead of back. Instead we implement the goofy plan in reverse so that during the months we need it the least (spring/summer) we get it the most. Seems backwards to me.

[Joe Pelonio]

I suppose if it's going to be dark at 4:30pm it may as well be in the winter. The days get so short here that I never did see light, drove to work in the dark and back home in the dark. Now that I'm working at home I have windows.

The worst thing to me is the dogs. The always eat at 6pm, and now they're begging for an hour, starting at 5.

[Russ Filtz]

I think it started for safety of school kids in the morning. If so, it doesn't apply anymore, cause I see kids here lining up for busses at 6:30 in the morning. It's pitch black from Aug to now at that time!

[Glenn Clabo]

Ya Joe...people keep telling me that dogs can't tell time. Both of mine can...at least their stomachs can.

[Charles Wiggins]

Ya Joe...people keep telling me that dogs can't tell time. Both of mine can...at least their stomachs can.

I have them going outside on a fairly regular schedule, but the one that never varies is 11:00 PM - that's their last trip out for the night. Sunday night they both got up and looked at me right as the clock hit 10:00 PM. I'm trying to shift their body clocks in 15 min. increments.

[Jim Becker]

I think it started for safety of school kids in the morning. If so, it doesn't apply anymore, cause I see kids here lining up for busses at 6:30 in the morning. It's pitch black from Aug to now at that time!

Another theory dates back to where things were more agriculturally oriented...likely a combination of the two.

Professor Dr. SWMBO and I were talking about this the other day. Given the technology, etc., we have today, I wonder if it's really worth switching anymore...but most of the world does.

I got hit twice last week...Mexico City, where I was for a few days, went a week earlier than the US. :)

[Jason Roehl]

I'm with you, Jim. We're a 24-hr society now, so I don't think that DST makes one lick of difference. I'd even wager that it costs us energy due to the lost productivity of workers having to adjust there circadian rhythms twice a year. Indiana just started doing DST last year, and I hate it. Last week before the change, because we're at the far western edge of the Eastern time zone, sunrise wasn't until almost 8:30 AM.

[Doyle Alley]

You guys have things a little backwards. Fall is not Daylight Savings Time - summer is. Fall is "regular" time.

[Chris Padilla]

You guys have things a little backwards. Fall is not Daylight Savings Time - summer is. Fall is "regular" time.

You beat me to it. We are now on "reglar" time.

Spring forward, Fall back (as in "back on 'reglar' time") ;)

So Indiana is switching now...interesting. Arizona still doesn't believe in the time change...they may be the only state now, I think.

[Jason Roehl]

You guys have things a little backwards. Fall is not Daylight Savings Time - summer is. Fall is "regular" time.

Either way, it's an hour change that screws things up.

Chris, yes, Indiana changes now. No thanks to "my man Mitch". I suppose it was good for the Indiana economy to stick with NYC year-round instead of confusing everyone as to what time we were (it was a bit of a problem with interstate commerce--missed meetings and teleconferences and the like).

I still think we should go back to the "local noon" system we had 100 years ago. :D With our current technology, it would be easy to do. Every municipality would set their clocks according to the sun's high point each day (which is widely available in tables and such online).

[Jim Becker]

I still think we should go back to the "local noon" system we had 100 years ago. With our current technology, it would be easy to do. Every municipality would set their clocks according to the sun's high point each day (which is widely available in tables and such online).

Oh, man...can you imagine how that would complicate things for folks like me who travel for business? LOL It would drive us to drink. :eek: (more...:o)

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Jim, what do you mean? Your flights might actually arrive on time! :)

-Jeff :)

[Jon Lanier]

Energy conservation has often been used to justify DST. Artificially delaying sunrise and sunset tends to increase electricity usage in the morning and reduce it in the evening. Savings occur if the evening reduction outweighs the morning increase. A U.S. Dept. of Transportation study concluded in 1975 that DST might reduce the country's electricity usage by 1% during March and April. A study after Mexico reintroduced DST in 1996 estimated a reduction of national electricity consumption by 0.7% and of peak load by 500 MW.

An energy argument for observing DST in summer rather than winter is that most people wake up after the summer sun rises regardless of whether DST is in effect, so DST during summer has less need for morning electrical lighting.

Critics argue that the energy savings of DST are overstated, and that DST can sometimes increase energy consumption and peak demand. Also, the rise of air conditioning calls older energy models into question. In 2000 when parts of Australia began DST in late winter, overall electricity consumption did not decrease, but the morning peak load increased. Currently there is no clear evidence that electricity will be saved by the 2007 U.S. rule change.

Or you could just go here and read some other ideas on it.

http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/c.html

[glenn bradley]

Is there really a need to save daylight anymore? Do those that work outdoor jobs (or chores) really care whether it's 2pm or 3pm as long as there is light to work by?

[Mike Henderson]

I still think we should go back to the "local noon" system we had 100 years ago. :D With our current technology, it would be easy to do. Every municipality would set their clocks according to the sun's high point each day (which is widely available in tables and such online).
That would make things tough. Think about telling someone not in your time area that you're going to call them a 4pm. What does 4pm mean?

For communications between time areas, we'd have to use some standard like GMT (I'll call you at 2200GMT) just so we'd have some common time.

Of course, 200 years ago we didn't have "instant" communications so the time between two areas didn't matter (the telegraph was invented about 1837).

But I think common time was originally developed because of the railroad - so that schedules (timetables) could be made and distributed.

Mike

[Elaine Duff]

I have them going outside on a fairly regular schedule, but the one that never varies is 11:00 PM - that's their last trip out for the night. Sunday night they both got up and looked at me right as the clock hit 10:00 PM. I'm trying to shift their body clocks in 15 min. increments.

My dog has decided to try to get me out of bed at 5:15 am. She huffs and puffs for 5 minutes. Then starts the staring. Up on the bed she comes with an immediate drop of her 68 pounds. Thumps her tail on me until I move far enough away... Jumps on me with whatever favorite toy made it into the house and by 5:30am, I'm up. She and her toy are outside. I am very well trained! By Christmas, she'll be back on my routine:D

[Jim Becker]

Jim, what do you mean? Your flights might actually arrive on time!

Who's time??? :eek: :o :p :) :D

[Glenn Clabo]

By Christmas, she'll be back on my routine:D

Elaine...Eliane...Eliane...there is not a dog owner :o in the world that really feels that their dog in on THEIR routine. We all just want other people to think it. ;)

p.s.-It's the tail banging against the wall that is our alarm clock.

[Greg Peterson]

Staring is most effective. I can handle the fidgeting, the jumping up and down off the bed and the laying on my chest, but when she sits there and stares at me I fall completely under her spell. Fifteen minutes later, after being fed and outside, she's back to sleep.

Where would dogs be without man?

[Jason Roehl]

Energy conservation has often been used to justify DST. Artificially delaying sunrise and sunset tends to increase electricity usage in the morning and reduce it in the evening. Savings occur if the evening reduction outweighs the morning increase. A U.S. Dept. of Transportation study concluded in 1975 that DST might reduce the country's electricity usage by 1% during March and April. A study after Mexico reintroduced DST in 1996 estimated a reduction of national electricity consumption by 0.7% and of peak load by 500 MW.

An energy argument for observing DST in summer rather than winter is that most people wake up after the summer sun rises regardless of whether DST is in effect, so DST during summer has less need for morning electrical lighting.

Critics argue that the energy savings of DST are overstated, and that DST can sometimes increase energy consumption and peak demand. Also, the rise of air conditioning calls older energy models into question. In 2000 when parts of Australia began DST in late winter, overall electricity consumption did not decrease, but the morning peak load increased. Currently there is no clear evidence that electricity will be saved by the 2007 U.S. rule change.

Or you could just go here and read some other ideas on it.

http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/c.html

I know that last year when we first started DST, I used more energy, as I had to go buy a window A/C unit for our upstairs sleeping area. Our kids' bedtime was 8:00 PM, and previously, the temperature had waned enough to make the upstairs bearable. With DST pushing daylight back by one hour, the upstairs was downright miserable at their bedtime. (Latest sunset in the summer went from 8:30ish to 9:30ish here).

Of course, this summer, we moved to a house with central A/C, and with it set at a constant temperature, it doesn't matter what time the sun rises and sets, that meter spins wildly either way. :D

[Brian Willan]

The real reason for Daylight Savings Time is not for energy conservation as previously mentioned. It is for the retail industry. Studies show that more people are inclined to shop in daylight hours than not.

Cheers

Brian

[Gary Keedwell]

The real reason for Daylight Savings Time is not for energy conservation as previously mentioned. It is for the retail industry. Studies show that more people are inclined to shop in daylight hours than not.

Cheers

Brian
Naw, if shopping was the reason, they would keep Daylight Savings Time until AFTER Christmas.
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/36/36_15_61.gif
Ho! Ho! Ho! Gary:D

[Brian Elfert]

Me, I'm probably less likely to go shoppiing when it is light out, at least in the fall. I need to be finishing up outdoor chores in what little light there is before dark.

I worked a year and a half in computer retail here in Minneapolis a dozen years ago. During the warmer half of the year our store would be nearly empty during warm sunny weather. If it was raining we would get a lot of shoppers. During the colder half of the year weather didn't matter so much except the store was pretty much completely empty during a snow storm.

[Matt Meiser]

I hated when I was in college in Indiana and we effectively started the year in one time zone switched to another after a few weeks and then switched back before the end of the year. I also worked on a series of projects with people in Indiana and that caused a lot of confusion when we scheduled conference calls.

I wish we would just use GMT. Now that most of my coworkers are in the St. Louis area, there is always confusion about what time a meeting is when discussed verbally (luckily Outlook displays the correct local time in meeting requests)

I deal a lot with data collection and the day where we go through 1-2am twice can cause problems, especially for systems which are critical. Some systems don't like it when a serialized part goes through a downstream station at an earlier time than it went through an upstream station. Others don't like it when you tell it a part was at a station at the same time another was there. A few years ago we had to have a very long conference call one Saturday night with about 10 of us in different locations around the country to deal with what might happen to a system which collected production data on truck gas tanks. To make it even worse, we were supporting three sites, one in Virginia, one here in Michigan, and one in Missouri so we got to drag it out an extra hour. Smart software companies use GMT time for all the timestamps, but the one who made the software we were using wasn't so smart. Real fun.

Last year one of my co-workers at the old job put in a 25 hour day due to the time change.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Matt....think about this

For 10 years I worked for a company headquartered in the Eastern time zone and most of those years I was in the Pacific Time Zone.

0800 eastern is 0500 pacific.....

There was about 4 hours a day when folks at both ends were at their desk.:confused:

[Ken Fitzgerald]

And.....southern Idaho is in the Mountain Time Zone

northern Idaho is in the Pacific Time Zone.......:confused:

[Matt Meiser]

My old company had their corporate HQ in California. Corporate HR and IT showed for work about the time we were headed to lunch. Made for long mornings if you had a problem you needed dealt with. Not that they cared.

[Gary Keedwell]

And what has all this got to do with the economy? OPpppppppsssss:eek: wrong :rolleyes: thread :p

[Ed Scolforo]

We can all thank Ben Franklin for this. Trying to save a few candles...

[Jim Becker]

Matt....think about this

For 10 years I worked for a company headquartered in the Eastern time zone and most of those years I was in the Pacific Time Zone.

0800 eastern is 0500 pacific.....

There was about 4 hours a day when folks at both ends were at their desk.:confused:

I live this now...and not just for the three time zones in NA. I sometimes need to attend meetings or do remote training for folks in Europe or Asia and that means really early in the morning for the "late" sessions for Europe or late at night for the "early" sessions for Asia. Tis a global business!

[Glenn Clabo]

I hear ya Ken...just think about where subs are! I get calls and requests for help at all hours of the day and night...on everyday of the week. I haven't felt like I've had a day of from work for years. AND the CrackBerry is going to be the death of me.

[Jon Lanier]

Is there really a need to save daylight anymore? Do those that work outdoor jobs (or chores) really care whether it's 2pm or 3pm as long as there is light to work by?

If you are running a chainsaw by flood light at 2am .... the neighbors might care. :eek: