"Why we try and "maximize daylight" like we're plants is actually an archaic practice first thought up in the late
1700s and often attributed to Benjamin Franklin. As some elementary school teacher may have explained to you, this was a practice to accommodate agricultural workers and farmers (wrong, and we'll get to this in a minute) or lower the nation's electricity usage."
A lot of that is prime b.s. There is actually no benefit or rhyme or reason we have to endure this weekend's time shift and no reason we should even be playing with the idea of losing and gaining hours. Here's why:
The Energy Savings Are Minimal
DST Is Bad For Your Health
Time Shifts Are Bad For Your Productivity
DST Is Not Financially Responsible
DST Is Not Helping Any Farmers
You Don't Even Like DST
The Atlantic's Alexander Abad-Santos
28 comments:
Move to Arizona.
Shame? Seems like that is the wrong word for it. Stupid might work better. Although I do not mind DST, I think we should to the shift year around (with kids going to school when it is dark and at least having some daylight at the end of the day). But in the south it is more negligible on benefit, up north it tends to be a wash too (because days are so short in winter).
The metric system works better too, but we are stupid about that too. I know people hate the french system, but following the measurement standard of the world helps with imports.
They had Double Daylight in WWII.
Of course, things worked back then.
Personally I like that there is more daylight time in the spring and summer so I can get some exercise after I leave work.
Greatest shame?
Can't be true. I get two dozen FB posts on other greatest shames of American from lefties by 9 every morning!
The world is coming to an end!
Although I'm awake, I can't comment yet - it's still an hour too early.
It even confused rh and my atomic clocks!
To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure if we are having daylight savings now, or is that what we had Saturday.
I like the early daylight that we experienced this morning.
My wife got up this morning one hour earlier than usual, not counting DST.
You heard me right.
One hour EARLIER THAN USUAL.
Some time has passed, now, and I just asked her what the hell she was thinking. She says, "I thought I had to get up earlier to compensate."
"Obviously," I said, "But why?"
"I was confused."
"You mean like Uncle Leo confused?"
That made her laugh which is why we get along, I guess. A big part of staying married seems to be two people losing their minds in unison, the way God intended.
I absolutely HATE Daylight Savings time and changing the clocks. I am disoriented and pissy for several weeks about it twice a year.
Maybe it is because I have been self employed for many years and the Dumbplumber has always been self employed so we don't have to "punch a time clock".
I get up when it is light or when I feel like it and go to bed when I feel like it. The cats and birds and other animals don't know what time it is and expect to be fed on their internal clock's schedule. We don't have to adhere to any rigid artificial time schedules. Since we DVR our entertainement or use NetFlix etc....it doesn't matter what time it is for that. News? Use the Internet.
I really resent the Government trying to tell me when I "SHOULD" get up, have dinner etc.
Rant over. Just two more weeks of being annoyed.
It also screws up atomic clocks.
They're micro-accurate except the hour might be wrong, as half of mine are this morning.
In addition it reveals bugs in atomic clock software. At 19:00 tonight, a half dozen of my atomic clocks will reset themselves to DST from EST (at 00:00 UTC). Tomorrow morning they will be back on EST, except those that screwed up the radio signal again.
So there's two days of doubtful hour readings each time change.
It's bad enough that the left is coming after a working lifetime of accrued savings--now they're coming for my time savings as well.
Lol pollo, if you like your daylight "savings" you can keep it.
You can get a wrist watch these days that's in constant communication with some atomic clock somewhere.
I've got an atomic alarm clock on my nightstand. Sometimes it's accurate. Sometimes it's not. I got it at WalMart for ten dollars.
Decades ago my father got a short wave radio so he could listen to the Canadian Time Signals, whatever the hell they were. He'd tune into the station and listen to it for hours on end.
He didn't seem like a loon to me way back then but I was pretty young.
DST was called War Time during WW II. Like having children save gum wrappers, and Lucky Strike changing the color of their packs, it contributed nothing to the war effort but helped unify the population for the war.
I frequently get visual migraines right after the time change.
So, I just looked up daylight savings time, and found out that that was what we were on Saturday. You should only be pissed off about it once a year.
I woke up at 5:30 - which was 4:30. Clearly I do not know how to take advantage of the extra hour I've been given.
So we are off DST now.. Can we just stay off it? It's like a drug, and I'm ready for rehab.
I always wonder why people say "we have an extra hour of daylight now." What? The hours of daylight are exactly what they are-- it's just a time shift. An annoying sugar free time shift.
I always wonder why people say "we have an extra hour of daylight now." What? The hours of daylight are exactly what they are-- it's just a time shift.
Ditto. You want more daylight??.....get up earlier and go to bed later. The hours of daylight didn't change because we changed the clocks.
The thing that made DST dithpickable was working at the Tech Center, (South East) and living in the foothills (English for piedmont, and located on the West side of the city geographically, obviously.) So, sun right smack in the eyes while driving to work. Both ways. Driving home too. What a bummer because it's a long drive and traffic is heavy no matter what you do.
But that's okay because over time it self corrects. It's only really REALLY bad for a few days and then bad but not so bad as that, and then just regular bad and then plain bad, then sort of bad, then not bad at all, then,
BANG! Off DST and the same thing all over again. But it's not so bad because over time it self-corrects and goes from really REALLY bad to ....
And then BANG! back on to DST and all over again for another year of the same thing so you go, "I need to quit this job."
This has to be the biggest non-issue ever. Wow, changing clocks twice a year - ONE WHOLE HOUR!!!
Its not even difficult to remember since your cellphone and computer adjust automatically.
Or you can just remember "Spring forward - Fall back".
This has to be the biggest non-issue ever. Wow, changing clocks twice a year - ONE WHOLE HOUR!!!
Its not even difficult to remember since your cellphone and computer adjust automatically.
Or you can just remember "Spring forward - Fall back".
The grilling industry spends a lotta money lobbying Congress to extend daylight in the evening so people will still cookout. No shit.
The grilling industry is barking up the wrong tree.
They should lobby the tilt of the earth, the hemisphere, and the position of the earth as it rotates around the sun, and the sun itself... and... my and DBQ's circadian rhythms.
Well, if it weren't for the switch I wouldn't have come downstairs at an ungodly 5:15 AM and turned on what passes for a classical music station in this part of the woods and heard, for the first time, Dvoraks' String Quartet in F, which the announcer kindly informed me was composed while Dvorak stayed in Spillville, Iowa (big Czech community) and was inspired, supposedly, by the mornings he spent sitting beside the Turkey River that flows through Spillville. It was a lovely piece of music. Which I most likely never would have heard had it not been for the switch to EST from DST. So there's that.
This is a product of the need politicians have to be seen doing something. We have a problem, oh gosh, I can't be seen not doing anything about it! What will I do?
I've got it: propose more daylight savings time!
Sometimes it's just annoying, as in this case. But then there is the ban on incandescent light bulbs, and the flow restrictors, and so-called energy-saving appliances, such as clothes washers that don't clean your clothes but do smell bad (because they use less water). These things do real harm, although not of crisis proportions...
Like the need successive politicians had to be for more home-ownership. Remember that? Every candidate for president in my memory would have that plank in his platform. Who would be crazy enough to be against more home-owners? So they all piled on...
And the bubble burst in 2008.
What we need is an incentive system for politicians to promise to do less.
My idea, many years ago, was to take the entire federal budget and divide it up among 535 members of Congress. They all got an equal share. Out of it, they had to pay for all the essential services; and they could pass out all the goodies they wanted. But--here was the key difference--they got to keep half of what they didn't spend!
The way I figure it, you elect a better class of politicians: in it for the money, rather than the power.
If it's a choice of Ferdinand Marcos, or Che Guevara, I'll take Ferd every time.
By the way, this same need to be seen doing something is why members of Congress mostly give idiotic comments during so-called "debates" and "hearings."
Everyone gets 5 minutes to ask questions at a hearing, but instead of pursuing an intelligent line of questions, they say inane things, or bluster a lot, then someone else takes a turn. It's all about creating something to play on the TV channel back home. And they'll book time to give speeches, late at night, when no one is in the House or Senate chambers.
I recall someone had the great idea of having the camera pan the empty chamber while the congressman was absurdly addressing her invisible colleagues, but they put a stop to that very quickly!
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