BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed

Subject: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Amos
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 10:15 AM

In case you are shaking in your boots anticipating the Spring with its concomitant burden of changing all 47 clocks in your house, here's the authoritative explanation and history of Daylight Savings Time around the globe.

As with so many things, it was all Benjamin Franklin's fault....

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 03:11 PM

The way to avoid the problems of "setting all 47 clocks" is to move to Indiana. EST year-round!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: GUEST,SharonA at the library
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 03:35 PM

Dave: Nope, not everywhere in Indiana. They have three different ways of keeping time there!! Check out the map on the site Amos linked to.

Fascinating stuff, Amos! But it seems Ben Franklin was just joshin' when he discussed ways of making people get up and go to bed at times that would conserve resources and maximize use of daylight (heck, if Franklin hadn't written a humorous piece on the subject, Mark Twain certainly would have!). It wasn't until the 1800s that other people started taking the idea seriously, and it wasn't until the railroads ran that a consistent means of keeping time at all was implemented in the US!

Check out that chart of Daylight Savings Times around the world - it makes me dizzy to think about it. Sharon

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 05:18 PM

Old woman on radio talk show in about 1968:

"I don't approve of this daylight savings time! It'll confuse the chickens"

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 07:09 PM

I have explained this time, so to speak, and time again and all of this time stuff gives everyone so much grief, let me go through it again for you............

As y'all seem to be having a problem in your time conversions, allow me to step in and give you an easy conversion method. Your first problem is that you are operating on the Grenwich MEAN Time standard which is often just as mean as it's name indicates. So let's swap to the more user friendly Icelandic Kinder Gentler Time standard to do our conversion tables. This also does away with the silly concept of the International Date Line (not the 900 one) which foists upon us the ludicrous idea that, though it is tomorrow there, it is yesterday here...which in point of all evidence is patently untrue, as it is today everywhere. Now we can move along to our formula at a more logical and simpler pace.

Take the current surface area of Iceland and subtract the linear distance between there and Pago Pago. Divide this by the square root of Kendall Morse. (I use Kendall here as this will help him in his conquests with the opposite sex. Since very few males have a "square root," his demand should be on the rise...so to speak. I have no "personal" knowledge of Kendall's current situation but I'm inclined to believe he may be in need of a little help as I overheard a recent female companion describe his equipment as a "melting fudgcicle, flanked by two jelly beans.")

In any case, take this total and multiply it by the number of clocks in your home, less the number of dead wristwatches in your upper right hand dresser drawer. Add the difference total (in minutes) of the aforementioned clocks and divide by the average versus the time on your current wristwatch. You can now differentiate under the equal sign to calculate the value of X, that being the time where you live. Don't forget to use the value of pi as a constant...and since the value of pie at diners between Wapakoneta, Ohio and Kokomo, Indiana is $1.75 (US), use that (1.75) instead of the more traditional 3.14159 figure.

Putting it all together you can now readily see that when it is 3:30 P.M., March 9, 2002 in Otswego, it's 2:48 P.M.,October 18, 1893 in Waycross, Georgia. Of course it's always that time in Waycross so don't be confused.

I hope that clears things up for everyone and we'll all be able to get past all this silliness and see that time is forever locked away from all of us inside our wristwatches. Taking yours apart will solve any other mystery still out there although a newer mystery, like why you would be so everlastingly stupid as to take your watch apart, will undoubtedly rear it's ugly head.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Gareth
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 07:44 PM

Dammn ! 3 more weeks and British Summer Time Starts Problem is, with the exception of the VCR timer, and the Cooker Timer I've not reset the clocks since BST ended last year. Funny how it works ok !!!!!

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 10:39 PM

Ah, let's bring in a little music! Sim Savoury and Bud Davidge of Newfoundland have a pretty good commentary on the situation.

Double Daylight Savings Time

Uncle Tom's watch used to shine in the dark
But he gave her a weegie out over the wharf
Don't need her now boys, Uncle Tom said
Since the new daylight savings time scheme was brought in

Who thought it up boys, God love his heart
Tis wonderful seeings our summers so short
With twice as much sunshine, Oh Lord, bless us all
I low we'll be burned up as black as the coal

Double your pleasure, double your fun
For half of the year, we'll have double the sun

The man down at U. I. was scratching his head
Get some funny letters here lately he said
Like if I had enough double daylight punched in
Do you think that me five weeks could pass off for ten

Me grandfather's just about 90 years old
He can't seem to get what is happening you know
All his life he's been up at the crackin' of dawn
Now dawnin' don't crack 'til the day's almost gone

A frisky young feller who lives up the bay
He now hauls his lobster pots twice every day
And got plenty of time when his fishing is through
To burn up some pork chops on his gas barbeque

Double your pleasure, double your fun
For half of the year, we'll have double the sun

Some says it's bad while others says good
Savings on kerosene, shocking on wood
And mothers who can't get their youngsters to bed
Can't sleep cause they got too much light in their head

But supposin' we lived where the sun never sets
Where half of the year the lamp's never lit
So make like the Eskimos living up North
Pull down your blind and your igloo goes dark

Double your pleasure, double your fun
For half of the year, we'll have double the sun
With double the daylight, we'll double the fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 10:43 PM

Durn! Forgot to put on my name. Wouldn't want the police thinkin' I was one of those OTHER guests!.

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Mark Clark
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 12:15 AM

Daylight saving time has always generated a lot of controversy here in the Bible belt. Opinions have ranged anywhere from Communist plot to interfering with God's time. One time back in the 1950s someone wrote a letter to the Des Moines Register complaining that the extra hour of sunlight was burning up her lawn.

On a related note, the International Date Line was originally proposed by a Norwegian named Alex Andersrag. Of course it was then generally known as the Alex Andersrag time band.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 06:18 AM

The Somer's Trad Folk Song club - Albion, Worcester, Fri (on cresby.com) has a clock in the shape of the club logo . It tells British Somer's Time..... they groan as well ..... every spring!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: JennieG
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 06:44 AM

When it got under way here many moons ago I believe the little old ladies were concerned about that extra hour of sunlight fading their curtains and carpets....to say nothing of confused cows. Even now not all states go with daylight saving which confuses the rest of us, never mind about the cows.
Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 01:24 PM

Confused state? It will be!

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 01:31 PM

I had an uncle, a dairy farmer in Kentucky, who was infuriated at the idea that Kentucky might enact daylight savings time. (This was back in the 1950's.) He said, "How am I gonna make my cows get up an hour earlier to be milked?"

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: AKS
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 06:36 AM

Jim, how did your uncle manage then? My parents (now retired for some 12 y's) told that the cows adapted to the time shift in less than a week! Not that they, too, weren't sceptical in the first place, I mean.

Another issue is that there's not much daylight saving to be achieved here in Finland: even in the southernest parts of the country, the sun is up some 20 hours a day in the midsummer time, not to mention the 'upper' Lapland where the longest day lasts two months or so :-)

AKS

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 07:31 AM

If you read the article in depth, you will find that it was an Englishman, William Willett from Chislehurst in Kent, who actually pushed the idea of "Daylight Saving" just before WW1, leading to it's eventual adoption to help the war economy. Incidently, Winston Churchill and H.G. Wells were both members of the group that supported Willett.

Petts Wood, near Chislehurst, (given to the National Trust in memory of Willett) contains a monumental sundial, with the inscription "I will show only the daylight hours". The nearest pub is called "The Daylight Inn" - also in honour of Willett.

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 07:50 AM

I have three Radio Controlled clocks in my house. These receive the time signal blips transmitted from Rugby and keep exact time to the nearest second. They also reset themselves to and from GMT/BST automatically.

Some years ago, the British government tried keeping an hour ahead all year round - British Standard Time. Unfortunately the experiment was not continued. Considering the fact that most people are awake fo a period which is considerably offset towards the evening (mine averages 7am - Midnight) it makes much more sense to keep clocks an hour ahead. I much prefer to have the maximum amount of daylight at the latter end of the day.

Most of the people who were against British Standard Time (some called it Bloody Stupid Time) came from the extreme North - why doesn't the UK have a separate time zone so that these people can use GMT in the winter, while the rest of us keep BST all year round.

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 11:30 AM

AKS: I don't know how my uncle "managed," but I always assumed no change was necessary for him.

His problem, as he saw it, was that the milk truck came at a certain time every day and he had to have his milk ready to be picked up. He assumed that with the change to daylight savings time, the milk truck would come an hour earlier, no matter how inconvenient this was for him.

My opinion, although I never really checked this out, was that the dairy company—the one that bought milk from my uncle—would simply keep to the same schedule, to accommodate all its farmer-suppliers, who were all in the same boat. If the truck used to come around at 8 o'clock, it would now come around at the same time, which would now be called 9 o'clock.

Businesses in the US are free to set their own hours. The only exceptions I know are bars and liquor stores, which are required by law to close at certain times. I suppose there could be other exceptions. In my youth, "blue laws" forced most businesses to be closed on Sundays, but mostly, I think, only habit and tradition limited the hours of business. I don't know what the laws were in Kentucky in the 1950's but I assume they were reasonable and not draconian.

Where the law comes into effect is mainly in the enforcement of contracts. If my uncle had a contract with the dairy company that required him to have his milk ready at a certain time, then if any lawsuit came about, the court would probably interpret the contract according to the daylight savings time law. If the dairy company wanted to play hard ball, so to speak, they could legally refuse any milk that wasn't ready by the appointed time. But what would they have to gain by being so strict? Who would have objected if the dairy company had simply decided to allow the farmers extra time?

It seemed obvious to me, even as a kid, that people would do whatever was reasonable. But it wasn't obvious to my uncle, who apparently had a more pessimistic view of human nature. It made him seem stupid to me at the time, since I lived in a city where daylight savings time was already in effect and it had caused no problems. But now, as I reconsider, I see that it may not have been mere stupidity.

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Trevor
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 12:03 PM

I still haven't figured out why, if it's about making the most of daylight, the clocks go back seven weeks before the solstice and forward again fourteen weeks after it. Why isn't it the same period before and after?

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: C-flat
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 12:11 PM

As a small boy I have a recollection of going to school in, what seemed like, the middle of the night!I guess this would be the experiment that Dave Bryant refers to earlier.That hour made a big difference and there was some concerns over child safety.

Subject: RE: BS: Mysteries of Daylight Time Revealed
From: Louie Roy
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 03:37 PM

The version that I heard was back in the WW2 days Hitler offered $500.00 for every male child born.Tojo not to be out done offered $1000.00 for every male child born.Franklin D not to be out done set the clock up one hour and rationed rubber.Louie Roy