Playing With Time

Will this day ever end??? It seems like today has been extra long...wait! Of course it has, we had a Daylight Savings Time change today. We gained an hour, falling back as it were as opposed to springing forward, the cute phrases designed to remind us which way to turn our dials.

I hate time change.

The clock here on the computer, my cable box, my watches and the clock in the Queen Mary all say 8:26 or thereabouts. Damn it.. we all know it is still 9:26. So why do we do this?

Daylight Savings Time is defined as the process of advancing clocks so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less.

Afternoons have more daylight?? So why does it now get dark at 5:15 instead of 6:15? I don't get it.

Neither do a lot of people. Many countries and some states (Indiana and Arizona) get along fine with out fucking up people's schedules. Originally, DST was supposed to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting. But heating and cooling is the biggest user of energy now and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited and contradictory.

DST's occasional clock shifts present other challenges. They complicate timekeeping and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, recordkeeping, medical devices, and heavy equipment. Many computer-based systems can adjust their clocks automatically, but this can be limited and error-prone, particularly when DST rules change. That is for sure, I have a "smart clock" that can't figure out the rules have changed. It made the change a couple weeks ago, when DST used to occur.

As the fall and winter progress, I will get used to it. I will stop getting up at 4AM and going to bed at 9PM. In the meantime, don't be surprised to find me snoring away when you expect me to be up and going. I am not being lazy, just blame it on DST.