Indiana is about to “spring ahead” for the first time in a good long while as they recently voted in daylight savings time. The switch has been a cause for worry and concern ever since it became law, and we approach the switch date (April 2) the hand wringing continues to escalate.
There have been numerous articles in the newspaper advising citizens how to deal with changing clocks, programming VCR’s etc. etc. Yesterday the local PBS station did a news feature on the problem of resetting the clocks on computers. Yes, using a pull down menu appears to be an enormous barrier in the Hoosier State. The feature ended with an “expert” fretting about whether TIVO programming will be all screwed up too.
Here’s a little suggestion Indiana: WHY NOT LOOK AND SEE HOW 49 OTHER STATES DO IT? It’s not like the rest of the country (save Arizona) hasn’t done this daylight savings “spring forward/fall back” thingee for decades and decades. I mean, if New Jersey can reset its VCR’s - surely Hoosiers can use their home grown, good old fashioned country common sense and muddle through as well.
Guys, this trail has been blazed. Then it was turned into a Conestoga Wagon path, then a gravel road, then an asphalt two way, and now it’s a 4 lane superhighway.
I used to work one week a month in Richmond, Indiana right on the Ohio line. The hotel I stayed in was literally right on the line. Talk about uber-confusing.
People there go around saying “Is that Eastern time or Indiana Time?” like it is the most natural response in the world to someone saying any sort of time. They have neighbors there on two different time systems.
Except that computer users everywhere else don’t have to worry about it. I’ve done more Linux installs than I care to remember, and when you tell the computer what time zone it will be operating in, there are specific options for Indiana. Set it once and never touch it again, until the state government changes the rules for keeping time.
It’s still a mountain out of a molehill, it’s just not a mountain out of nothing. And how much do you want to bet that some people still get it wrong?
Someone has to throw in an obligatory nitpick. Hawaii’s never bothered with Daylight Savings time. When you’ve that much daylight, who needs to save it?
I’m a little pissed off about the Indiana thing. They should have stuck to their guns. The rebel in 'em was about the only thing I liked about Indiana!
Bah! I don’t like the whole clock-changing game, and I’m not even from Indiana. I would say that I wish I were there, but no, not now, if they are going to do it too.
You wouldn’t want to be there even if they didn’t have daylight saving time. Now, if you’d said you wish you were in Hawaii because they don’t have daylight saving time…
I thought this was going to be a rant about DST, which I can totally get behind. I lived the first 26 or so years of my life without ever screwing around with the clocks, and the last 16 screwing around with them every six months, and let me assure you, not screwing around with them is infinitely better. I wish I could make this perfectly clear to the people who decide these things: there is NO BENEFIT to changing your clocks. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. There are MANY problems with changing your clocks twice a year. I wish they would just stop it.
NO BENEFIT to changing our clocks?! But our Governor assures us that we’ll have an extra hour of daylight every day, which means less crime. I never realized we could change the day length just by changing our clocks. And I guess we’re only worried about that late evening crime … :rolleyes:
I tried not to once. Went to work an hour late and not only got an admonishment from my boss, but was laughed at from my co-workers. No benefit my ass.
If everyone sleeps an hour later in the morning, as God intended us to do when we go to daylight saving time, that won’t be a problem
Those are scheduled for April 3, though we might let the EuroDopers get away with starting one on Monday when they go to Summer Time. I suppose the Kiwi Dopers can complain about Standard Time now, if they like. The Aussie Dopers will have to wait until April 3 to do that.
When W first announced the extended daylight savings (DST) planned for the U.S., CBC had a program discussing if Canada should follow suit. I particularly enjoyed an expert speaking on the radio (this was some time ago, and his name escapes me) who went on at great length that energy savings were absolutely minimal and that the only clearly quantifiable change was that retail sales would go up. He pointed out that every single time a jurisdiction has played with DST, retailers have profited and consequently business groups are always big supporters of implementing and expanding DST… but that there has been no measurable savings in energy consumption.
I could get behind that, too. Pick a time and stick with it, people. First we change it this way, then we change it back, so just when you thought you didn’t have to drive into the sun every morning, you get to do it all over again. Phaugh. And won’t someone think of the pets? Dogs and cats know when it’s time to get fed - they don’t care about no stinking clocks.
(Apr. 3, eh? I’ll pencil some free time then to rant more about this.)
Maybe you can’t make it perfectly clear because it’s not an empirical fact. Every spring, as switch day nears, I look forward to changing my clock. Otherwise the sun comes up too early and it interferes with my sleep schedule.
Hurrah. Someone I can agree with. Here in Minnesota, with DST, in June the sun rises at 5:30am and sets at 9pm. Who the heck want the sun coming up at 4:30am? I’ll take my long summer evenings, thanks.
It’s not about energy, it’s about usable daylight hours that I can enjoy.
This Hoosier is not one bit happy about it, and between this and so-called Gov. Daniels plan of having one high school per county (maybe two in some cases), I’m very, very sad I voted for him. I really wish I’d known about these plans before the election. I know I have nobody to blame but myself, but I will say that I never saw any of it in the Star.
