BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: open mike
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 09:56 PM

did this happen==the changing?

is that why my computer and cell clocks

are different from my wrist and wall clocks?

when was it? why did i not know?

i had my radio show yesterday and was on time...

i usually operate on daylight wasting time..

sometimes, when in Elko nevada, my cell phone

clock flips back and forth by an hour or two.

unfortunately the service that used to tell you
the time over the phone has been discontinued
as "they" believe that everyone has a cell phone
or a computer to tell them what time is is.

this recorded message used to also tel you the
temperature, in the town i was in when i was young
so long ago...

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 08:48 PM

The trouble with daylight saving is that you're just getting used to waking up in daylight when they switch the lights off again, but nobody tells drivers of private cars so they think it must be daylight and drive around for an extra hour in the dark with no lights on.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: gnu
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 06:56 PM

And it's a good point, LH. Gramma Owens used to say she couldn't understand it... more turnip and carrots and spuds onions and barley in the pot on the back of the stove and let winter be winter....be a good lad Gary and play us a tune and I'll make dumplings.

Those were simple days. I miss them.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 06:04 PM

No, but in traditional hunter-gatherer societies the short days of winter were a time for mostly staying indoors if at all possible and gathering with others around a fire, sharing handicrafts and storytelling and other socializing. You wouldn't sleep for a whole 16 hours a day, certainly, but you would go out far less than in the good weather of spring, summer, and fall. People used to store up as much preserved food as they could in the harvest season in order to get through those harsh conditions of winter.

Where we differ from those traditional people is obvious. We just continue doing the same darned daily work schedule and traveling no matter what the hell Nature is doing, because we have made making money the condition of survival. This causes us to do much that is out of sync with Nature, and that was my point.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: gnu
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 05:44 PM

I dunno about you, LH, but I know few humans that sleep 16 hours a day around here in mid winter.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Rasener
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 04:44 PM

Thanks Naughty40

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 04:12 PM

There is a natural time to get up (for day animals), and it is around or just before sunrise. If you're a night animal, it's around sunset.

Take electric lights and other powered devices away from human beings, and they will soon move back into their natural cycle and get up around or just before sunrise, and go to sleep not long after sunset.

And it's healthier that way too.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Gurney
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 03:09 PM

In NZ, there is a lot of dairying, and the farmers moan sometimes at the tyranny of the milk collection tanker. The cows have developed a time habit, and instead of strolling into the milking parlour on time, they stroll in one hour late.
In the natural state, of course, there is a name for animals which are still asleep at dawn.
Breakfast.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 02:56 PM

These days, electric lights in homes probably make up a very small fraction of the electricity we use. (Most businesses have to have lights on regardless of whether there's daylight outside; then there's all the electricity used by our computers, photocopiers, refrigerators, fans, air conditioners, pumps, and myriad electronic devices we didn't have when DST was invented.)

While it's logical to expect there is SOME savings due to DST, I'd bet it's so small that most people wouldn't bother with it if it were voluntary and if saving money were the ONLY reason to do it.

But saving money isn't the only reason.

For most people, it really doesn't make sense to be sleeping in the morning after the sun is up, and then staying awake long after the sun goes down. (Yeah, I know, musicians....) They'd rather be enjoying the sunlight.

I don't really see how animals and farmers are relevant. Can't you just let animals stick to their own schedules? Don't they do that anyway? Farmers are pretty independent. They can get up and go to bed whenever they want, regardless of what the clock says. Wouldn't farmers naturally get up earlier in summer anyway? They'd probably adjust gradually instead of all at once, but they can still do that, regardless of whether the rest of us observe DST.

I don't think there are any time police that go around waking up farmers or fining them if they sleep too late. Come to think of it, they don't do that for city people, either.

When you come right down to it, compliance is voluntary. The law only defines what we mean when we say 8 o'clock. It doesn't say you have to go to work then. That's between you and your employer.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: gnu
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 02:52 PM

Some folkies show up with weed... not necessarily on time, tho.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 02:49 PM

The only real problem I have noted with it, is that folk music events (and probably others) which start about 8PM often have problems getting the audience to show up on time. People get this notion/feeling in their heads that "nothing starts till after dark, so I don't have to think about it yet".......or maybe they know, but just cant bear to stop weeding the garden till they can't see any more.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 02:22 PM

Not me. It encourages me to sit on the back porch (deck) after dinner and watch golfers make fools of themselves. Best show in town.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 02:02 PM

It prolly saves a bit on electricity, but those longer daylight hours seem to encourage folks to go places, in their energy-consuming cars.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: naughtyforty
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 01:18 PM

According to my calendar (UK) British Summertime commences on Sunday 28 March so I guess we put the clocks forward one hour sometime after midnight on that day (or before we go to bed if before then!)

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Rasener
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 01:10 PM

When do the times chnage in the UK?

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 01:01 PM

If you want or must blame someone, blame one of the greatest minds of the 18th Century: Benjamin Franklin. The idea was to give farmers more daylight in which to get work with the crops done.

During WW2 the clocks were pushed ahead two hours.

I've been doing it all of my life, so I'm used to it. Think though of those in Indiana, where MOST of the State is on Eastern Time but doesn't used daylight time, EXCEPT for those counties that are on Central Time and DO use Daylight Time OR are along the Ohio River and are on Eastern Time AND use Daylight Time. So going from South Bend to Gary means that you have to go from EST to CDT, which works out the same, except when both are on Standard Time.

Or Arizona, where a huge chunk of the State, known as the Big Rez, goes on Daylight Time except for those spots in the Rez that don't because they aren't Navaho.

I won't even mention Hawaii.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 12:48 PM

They tried not changing the time in the UK many years back..and it resulted in more accidents on the roads, particularly involving school children, who went to school in the dark.


Here's the man to blame, or thank.

George Vernon Hudson - Inventor of Daylight Saving Time idea

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: gnu
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 12:42 PM

If we did not shift here, it would be dark near 3PM for about 15 days either side of the winter solstice, meaning higher energy usage in public buildings, businesses, etc. Outdoor work would suffer as well. Schoolchildren walking home in poor light (not so much these days, of course, but you can see whay that would have been a big deal in the past).

As for a quantitative analysis of the actual energy savings, I assume it would be almost impossible, even based on an emperical order of magnitude, to to propose a figure which would be reasonably acceted without arguement and perhaps even grandstanding. However, given the fact that I am an astute and emminently qualified engineer well versed in cost-benefit analysis, I offer the following. A penny saved is a penny earned.

I'm with Spaw. Been of like mind since my old man first took me trout fishing on Blind Brook after work in early June when I was 10 years old and we got back to the car at 10PM. I was allowed to stay up until 10PM!

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 12:40 PM

I asked the Dachshund. He says it's a stupid idea. I tend to agree.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 12:11 PM

As I posted here years ago, I actually heard on old woman say on a radio talk show once, "I don't like it...it will confuse the chickens!"

Me? It's the best day of the year, and as you know, Saul, I no longer smoke them things, so I'll just celebrate by cutting up some wood in that extra hour.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: Charmion
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 12:10 PM

If I remember correctly, the original idea was to give factory hands more days of the year when they could both travel to work and get home again in daylight. It's not terribly important to us, but it really mattered during the Second World War, and the period of economic recovery that followed it.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 11:32 AM

I'm with Spaw. I think it's stupid.

Subject: RE: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 11:26 AM

I have no idea Saul but like a lot of folks I just see it as more evening time in the summer. I could care less if it saves anything and if I had my way, we'd be on it year round!

Spaw

Subject: BS: Daylight Savings? Uh, right...
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 11:22 AM

Does anyone know of any actual REAL scientific study that shows that changing the clock as we do saves any energy? I know that livestock, domestic pets, and wildlife all get confused until they overcome the virtual jet lag caused by the change. And then, if that wasn't enough trouble, President Numbnutz shifted the US off of the agreed-upon worldwide standard.

If I don't smoke a bowl of Frogmorton on the Town in my blond Tinsky XL billiard, I think I will just put the extra time in the bank with my portion of the national debt.

Saul