Daylight savings time, love it or hate it?

[SpectBrain]

I hate it! Living here in the south, with the daytime temperature in the high 90's, you have to wait until dusk to do anything outside. During the work week, I have to get up at 6 AM and it's much easier to wake up with the sun streaming in the windows, which it would be if we did not shift the clocks.

BTW a factiod that I read recently, daylight savings time killed the drive in movie theaters.

So, what do y'all think?

[vanilla]

Love it

Although I wish that they would make it light at 6 a.m. all year round and dark at 9 p.m. all year round.

[partly_warmer]

It should be abolished. Effectively, it puts every man, woman, and child into jet lag twice a year. The amount of lost work, the number of accidents caused must be extraordinary.

[HeyHomie]

Love it.

'Round here the sun sets around 4:30 in the winter. Therefore, the 9:30 summer sunsets make a nice contrast.

[de trop]

Did you know it was invented by Benjamine Franklin? It's in one of his books.

The original early to riser was confounded by his city "burning the candle at both ends of the day", both morning and evening, instead of rising with the sun throughout the year.

[kniz]

I hate it in the spring when it changes. I love it in the summer when it gets dark later and in the fall when there's an extra hour to sleep. During the winter, I wish there was some other system we could use that would allow it to be light longer. Oh, well can't have everything. ;)

[Fretful Porpentine]

I like it. I, too, wish it could be year-round, but not until we have a civilized society where nobody has to be at work or school before 9 a.m.

Jet lag? Who on earth experiences jet lag from a difference of one hour?

[El Cheapo]

It's Daylight Saving Time, not Savings

[Johnny L.A.]

You beat me to it, El Cheapo. No "s".

[pldennison]

BTW a factiod that I read recently, daylight savings time killed the drive in movie theaters

I highly, highly doubt this. Drive-ins were already decreasing in popularity by the late 1960s (in fact, the number of screens began decreasing in 1958) and were well past their peak by the time Nixon signed the Federal DST law in 1974. Changing demographics, shifting move business economics, and the rise of multiplexes were responsible for the death of the drive-in.

Effectively, it puts every man, woman, and child into jet lag twice a year. The amount of lost work, the number of accidents caused must be extraordinary.


Well, except for the men, women and children in NW Indiana, Hawaii and Arizona, or course. But in any case, if it must be so extraordinary, surely you have a cite?

[SpectBrain]

Originally posted by El Cheapo
It's Daylight Saving Time, not Savings

Oh my gawd, I've run afoul of the grammar police.

Harrumph...may it please the court: and what follows is a quote from

http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/b.html

"Spelling & grammar

"The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight SavingS Time.

"Saving is used here as a verbal adjective (a participle). It modifies time and tells us more about its nature; namely, that it is characterized by the activity of saving daylight. It is a saving daylight kind of time. Similar examples would be dog walking time or book reading time. Since saving is a verb describing a single type of activity, the form is singular.

"Nevertheless, many people feel the word savings (with an 's') flows more mellifluously off the tongue, and Daylight Savings Time is also in common usage, and can be found in dictionaries.

"Part of the confusion is because the phrase Daylight Saving Time is inaccurate, since no daylight is actually saved. Daylight Shifting Time would be better, but it is not as politically desirable. In fact, scientifically misguided politicians sometimes misunderstand. In 1995, the British Time (Extra Daylight) Bill was introduced by John Butterfill, attempting the impossible -- to legislate extra daylight. The bill did not pass."

Savings shmavings.....I still have to get up too damned early!

[kanicbird]

I don't care but hate the change. Just decide what tiime it is once and for all and leave the F'n clock alone

[Honey]

Love it, live for it.

Up here, we suffer through 6 months of hell. Daylight savings time tells me that I am about to be rewarded for putting up with another goddess-awful winter.

[Skeezix]

Man does this thread feel Pit-Bound(TM). Or is it just me?

As for m'self, I just think it's a pointless exercise in over controlling everything around us. Are we as a people so anal-retentive that we can't handle the idea that at different times of the year, the sun rises and sets at slightly different times of the day? Must we have such control of our environment that dealing with something as natural as the seasons of the year is just so bloody mind-boggling?

Think a minute about what DST could lead to, in a (silly and exaggerated) worst case scenario:
[list=1] The sun must always rise and/or set within a certain 1 hour window, everywhere, implement DST.
The average temperature must never vary more than 10 degrees F, activate the Big-Honking-Snow-Melting-Heaters, and Mondo-Gargantua-Air-Cooling-Systems, as needed, stat!
No man made structure shall be more than 5 shades (on the Big Brother Handy Color Chart) away from the universally-agreed-upon median color of Beige. Put 'Operation Paint Every Damned Thing' into effect at once, sub-commander!
No mammalian life form shall have hair longer than 6 inches, or shorter than 1 inch in length. Order the Unified-Cut-And-Paste-Hairstylists-Union into active duty immediately, Proctor!
Furthermore, no...
[/list=1]

<Dragged kicking and screaming off to the Pit.>


Guess it was just me, after all.

[partly_warmer]

I heard Fretful, it takes one day to recover completely from every hour change in time. I have nothing in the way of a cite, but it seems reasonable. Going across country is pretty easy to recover from. Travelling to Europe from California, isn't.

Regardless, the implemenation of Daylight Saving Time is arbitrary. Some group of modern Victorians wants the sun to rise at a particular time, dictated by the perfect angle of the sun on Sugar Frosted Flakes, or whatever. Their solution? Change the time twice a year. Whoa. Doesn't that mean that time is only "perfect" twice a year? And the rest of the year we're suffering, terribly suffering over time that's out of adjustment, but not so much the government wants to make a ruling about it?

Why not have clocks that change continually so that 6:00 A.M. was sunrise everywhere? Wouldn't that make the world a better place?

[interface2x]

I like it. It's a nice change of pace. Keeps me on my toes twice a year.

[erin uh oh]

my sleep schedule is terrible anyway, so daylight saving (i desperately want to add an "s," please can i??)...s time never throws me off much. when i was little, i asked my dad how come people changing their clock made the day end later...i imagined that clocks were in control of the sun, and that if everyone changed their clock, they could make the sun come out and go away at will. my dad didn't understand what i was asking and tried explaining it to me, which was useless because i didn't get it at all, and he wound up yelling at me and i cried.

nevertheless, i still love daylight savings (!) time. (the no-s pronunciation is so unnatural, like when they try to get me to say "driver license" instead of driverS license". let my people go!)

[Fern Forest]

I never liked it. I dislike the concept. It's so unnatural. I would rather they move work and school times then move the actual time. Actually I would rather the entire world choose 1 specific time and if you're in a place where you get up at 4pm, with the sunrise and work from 6pm to 2am then so be it. And I'd go even further too. Split the day into 10 hours made up of 100 minutes each containing 100 seconds. Sigh, if only. That would be so cool. Really something to bore the grandkids with. "Why in my day ..."


Thankfully I've only had DST 2 years in Texas. Good thing I was only 11 and didn't have to worry about setting the clocks.

[Bryan Ekers]

I think skeezix and partly_warmer have been out in the sun too long.

In the tropics, I'll admit DST may seem of little use, but get far from the equator and the benefit of not driving around in darkness at 4 p.m. becomes apparant.

[pldennison]

nd the rest of the year we're suffering, terribly suffering over time that's out of adjustment, but not so much the government wants to make a ruling about it?

Where is this suffering? I have never met a person who was even a little but put out by having to change the clocks, except maybe being late to work on the day the clocks get moved ahead. Good grief. "Terribly suffering?" I think you're exaggerating more than a little here.

The whole bloody point of the 1974 law, and the adoption of DST during the two World Wars, was to save energy. If we change the clocks twice a year so that it's daylight during the hours when most people are awake, we don't have to turn lights on all over the house, and thus we save electricity and put less burden on electrical generating plants. In these days when we're being told how important it is to decrease our reliance on fossil fuels, this should be an obviously good thing.

Split the day into 10 hours made up of 100 minutes each containing 100 seconds.

You realize this would change not only the day, but the calendar? The year would begin on a different day every year.

[Khadaji]

HATE IT. Well, I hate the change, especially in the spring. Pick one, go with it, stop this infernal changing.

[Duckster]

Originally posted by rastahomie
Love it.

'Round here the sun sets around 4:30 in the winter. Therefore, the 9:30 summer sunsets make a nice contrast.

<nitpick=on>
rastahomie if you really are in Springfield, IL, the latest the sun sets there is 8:31 pm (local time) in summer, and will set at 4:37pm (local time) in winter. :D

Source: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.html
<nitpick=off>

[Ruby]

In Indiana, we don't observe Daylight Saving Time. Don't ask me why.....

But, we seem to be doing just fine without it. We don't have to remember when to Spring Forward and Fall Back, we don't have terrible trouble driving home from work in the dark.

Life just seems to work without all of the hullaballoo.

[Duckster]

Originally posted by Ruby
In Indiana, we don't observe Daylight Saving Time. Don't ask me why.....

Actually, depending upon where you live in Indiana, you do ...

Indiana is one of three U.S. states which do not Spring ahead from "standard" to "daylight saving" time or Fall back from daylight to standard six months later. Arizona and Hawaii are the others. By State Law, most of Indiana is on Eastern Standard Time (EST) all year long.

The statute creates three different time arrangements in the Hoosier State:

* 77 counties (including state capital Indianapolis) are in the Eastern Time Zone but do not change to Daylight time in April; instead they remain on Standard Time all year long;

* 10 counties -- five near Chicago, IL, and five near Evansville, IN, are in the Central Time Zone and use both Central Standard and Central Daylight;

* five other counties -- two near Cincinnati, OH, and three near Louisville, KY -- are in the Eastern Time Zone but use both Eastern Standard and Eastern Daylight.


Source: http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/f.html

[DKW]

DST is one of those weird relics of a bygone day that no one has ever come up with a reason for that satisfies me. (The fact that I live in Hawaii may have something to do with it.)

"So no one has to drive on a dark road at 4:30." Some drivers can handle the darkness, some can't (I've never had any trouble). Regardless, I don't see how a dark road at 4:30 is any more dangerous than a dark road at 8:30 or 9:30. I have driven during those times on numerous occasions. And there always have been pedestrians, many of whom were not wearing bright reflective clothing. Just be careful out there; that should be good enough for most nighttime conditions.

"So you don't have to turn on lights in the morning; this saves a lot of energy." Well, what about after sunset? Don't tell me that everyone's supposed to go to sleep at 4:30?

"So kids don't have to walk home in the dark." Oh, come on. How many schoolchildren do you know who actually walk to and from school? And if they do, they should be instructed on what to wear, where to walk, how to avoid trouble, etc.; adding something like low light conditions should be a snap.

The dumbest part of this, IMHO, is the idea that anyone's "saving" anything. You take an hour here, you have to give up an hour there. Unless you're away from home from morning to night every day of the week, I just don't see how this is practical.

[partly_warmer]

Originally posted by pldennison
...I have never met a person who was even a little but put out by having to change the clocks, except maybe being late to work on the day the clocks get moved ahead. Good grief. "Terribly suffering?" I think you're exaggerating more than a little here.... Sorry, that was a point and a joke at the same time.

To rephrase, if it's really that important that the sun should be up for the kids to go/come from school, or farmers to tend their crops, then the clocks should be regularly changed. I don't think it is at all important, so I vote for no change at all. But for those of you who do think it's critical, why wait so long? Why not change every month, to get the "full benefit" of the sun rising at the right time? Wait, you're saying that's ridiculous. Exactly my point. If it's ridiculous to change the clock 12 times a year, it's ridiculous to change it twice.

[partly_warmer]

...ok "probably ridiculous"... anyway, I still like the idea of clocks changing continuously...no jet lag effect, whatever.

[vanilla]

Remember back in 1973-4 when they didn't change the clocks?
When I was sitting in homeroom, it was black outside So cool..and freaky..