Time for a Change?

[George Yetka]

Perhaps a second house, with a second car, and a second watch. We'll show those bastards.

Im actually down to watches, stove, and microwave. Everything else is automatic. Watches don't bother me most are automatic anyway so I have to wind and set time anyway. As for the stove we have to set time 6 times a year for power loss anyway.

[mike stenson]

Interestingly, I found the ~12 hour swing from Asia to be a lot easier to correct from than the 5-6 hour difference from Europe! I did a lot of travel to both prior to retirement. Everybody's internal clock is different I guess...

I don't know why, but to/from Europe is always easier on me. It just feels like a long day, but I get back to my sleep schedule a whole lot easier.

[Bernie Kopfer]

The apparent fact that the majority of citizens would like to eliminate the time shifting we do twice a year indicates that we have a “people deaf” Congress or there is a monetary reason we don’t change the law. I suggest we follow the money since that seems to determine what Congress does.

[Wayne Collier]

There is good news...
At the current rate Congress will almost eliminate Standard sometime in the next century. Their solution will be to Fall Back on the second Sunday in January and Spring Forward on the third Sunday in January. This will be right after they name Kudzu an Endangered Species (Note: In the 1930s they paid farmers $8/acre to plant it).

[Curt Harms]

The potential problem I see with the automatic devices is if Congress changes the dates for daylight saving time. I have two clocks that don't need to be set at all. Bring it home from the store, plug it in and it sets the time. I don't know what they use for a source. I thought about WWV but my experience with devices that use WWV is that they take a while to get the time. The two clocks were nearly instantaneous. Do AC power lines carry some sort of time signal?

[Jim Becker]

Curt, the dates were actually changed a few years ago...

[Richard Hart]

While for most folks, changing the clock is kinda a non-issue these days as you clearly note, there are other aspects about the time change that are more concern...health, sleep, etc. There's really no good reason for it to continue anymore in today's society.

Huh-uh! No way.. I like being able to work in the garden untill after 9:00p in the summer. I'm no morning person so I'm asleep then regardless.

[Curt Harms]

Jet lag sucks. Especially coming from Japan/China back to the US. There's something about arriving before you left that messes with my circadian rhythm. I'm not cut out to travel with The Doctor.

This is very much an issue with long-haul airline crews. I read an article about odd hours sleep disruption. The study quoted said about 20% of people can adapt with no problem, about 40% could cope but with difficulty and 20% never did adapt. I found that plausible. I believe they also found that people who were early-to-bed early-to-rise types had more trouble adapting than people who were late risers. They referred to them as chickens and owls. The owls had an easier time dealing with circadian disruptions. I wish I had kept that article.

[Curt Harms]

Curt, the dates were actually changed a few years ago...

But when/if they change it again .....

[Jim Becker]

But when/if they change it again .....

At this point, if it's changed again, it will be because it will finally be gotten rid of. I don't think there's any practical reason to shrink the current "winter" window further than they did when they pushed the start later a few years ago.