I can't believe this !@$ about the US changing the rules on Daylight Savings Time

[thewayne]

"To save fossil fuel" my Sweet Aunt's patootie! If they were serious about such things they'd increase the CAFE standards every year by 0.2 MPG and not allow carry-forward credits.

I really hope that Canada doesn't change its time zones. Knowing how much they don't like our current administration, I think they probably won't.

I've never understood the benefit for DST, but then again, up until now, I've lived in Arizona all my life and quite happily ignored it. Windows was nice enough to include an Arizona time zone that doesn't switch for DST, my VCR had a configuration option to ignore it, my current Palm Pilot ignores it all together, the only things that I had to do was to shift my atomic clock one zone twice a year and to remember to shift for Russet's work schedule. Now I don't have to shift my atomic clock nor remember Russet's work schedule as when she's not at home, she's at work, but I do have to remember where ALL my friends are and accomodate that. At least I'm one hour closer to my Eastern friends.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050807/ap_on_hi_te/daylight_saving_tech

Comments

[kylejcrb.livejournal.com]

I still don't understand the whole thing. What exactly does moving the clock do? There's still the same amount of daylight in the day, so it doesn't "save" anything. Probably just because I'm from Arizona too, so I've never had to worry about it. :P

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

'Tis a mystery to me, perhaps our ignorance is a Zonie thing. Wikipedia describes the history of DST (first implemented by Germany around World War I) here that also describes the rational of changing it right now, and wouldn't you know, the number cited is based on outdated Department of Energy statistics that DoE doesn't stand by any more.

Myself, I've often considered that if I had a brick & mortar store in a state that observed DST, that I would change the store hours when DST changed and keep to my own prefered schedule. Who knows if I'll ever do that, but that's my opinion.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

The idea, as it has been explained to me, is that people will use sunlight instead of lamp light if they can. Soooo (stay with me on this) they move the time around so that there will be more sun when people would be apt to use it.

...

No matter how many times I repete this it never sounds any less daft.

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

Another Zonie who is reluctant to live places where they fool around with the time zone like they can make the sun come up differently, as opposed to just living with what they get. God forbid Arizona ever changes its mind about this.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I received a long email from a friend re: this post (I wish he'd post his replies anonymously, TERRY ). He moved from Phoenix to Omaha and he absolutely loves DST, though I think that's the main thing that he loves about Omaha. :-) I think they should slice the country in half from east to west, say along the AZ/UT border, and north of that line you observe (and benefit from) DST, south of it you ignore it. I mean, if we're going to screw up the rest of the world with not knowing what time a particular place in the US is, why not screw up the country internally?