Daylight Savings: What Are We Saving?

Well, I would rather it be light when I get off work. I don't mind if it is dark when I go to work. Away with the annoying thing!

Welllll....you got it backwards. DST means it is light after work, on a normal daytime job. Dark after work is without DST. Not away with the annoying thing - you want permanent DST. But, I agree with that idea as well.

I believe DST started with getting up at the same time the sun came up..... way back when.

I'm with you. I'm retired now so it doesn't affect me that badly. When I was working, that extra hour of daylight in the afternoon made a lot of difference.

Shouldn't you have been early to the train if you didn't get all the clocks? In the spring, you will be late.

I'm ready for clocks to be set it and forget it. I don't care whether it's EST or EDT, just pick one. If you want to see daylight when you get out of work, go into work earlier if that is an option. What this means is that the sun will rise very early in the morning in the summer.

DST is a dumb idea in this day and age.

It doesn't "save" anything.

Like the old Indian says, cutting a foot of the bottom of the blanket and sewing it to the top doesn't make the blanket any longer.

In Arizona, we thumb our nose at DST. DST? We don't need no stinking DST!!!!!

you have to look at the history of DST. and now it just nothing more than a foolish traditions.

Like other posts, I don't mind going into work when its dark, but I would like a little daylight when I go home... unfortunately as of late... going into work and leaving work, its dark all the time.

The important concerns are more for children, especially the newer inexperienced younger ones, having to go to school in the dark in winter, maybe for the first time!!

Luckily, for most of them, it is still light when they get out to go home.

For any adult, its really unimportant, unless you belong to the "ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME" Brigade......

Think about the children, you opinion suggests to me that you have none of school age, or it is no concern for any child in your mind......

I don't have any school children anymore, but they are still a concern of mine. Especially when my grand children eventually start school....

I like light mornings, for the children, all the year round, DST off when needed to achieve that and long summer evenings in the DST time....

We live in a rural area, even when I was growing up, bus pick us up at the farms driveway and it was light out,

When your schedule is controlled by your employer, that extra hour is precious.

Another brilliant, well thought out and researched solution from the Federal Givumint to solve a non-problem with a non-solution. That's what happens when you let lawyers run things.

Amen, Andy......

"I would not personally object if Summer time stayed the whole year round...

But surely, in the USA, there are States where there is no DST, so people COULD move house if it really is that important to them, instead of just moaning."

That's the dilemma, Andy. Florida is where summer never ends and the girls always dress... well you you know... but we still observe DST.

That just leaves Arizona and Indiana.

Don't come here unless you are white and have a lot of money.

But, it is true you will never have to adjust your clocks.

The guys who work for me change their work hours with the seasons. They don't seem to suffer any long term ill effects from the adjustment of their schedules and not their watches.

Yes, DST should be scrapped.

I'd go further and put everything on GMT to eliminate the confusion of all the time zones, too!

I'd go further and put everything on GMT to eliminate the confusion of all the time zones, too!

now you went too far, no matter how much sense it makes.

That's how the military does it. You get used to it after a while. We called it Zulu time.

Yes, it's just a thought, but it stands about as much as a chance as the metric system does.

However, the holdup for the metric system appears to be the American inch-worm.

Yeah, they can't change the birth certificate to the 2.54 cm worm.

Before you know it, dogs and cats would be living in peace and harmony, total chaos I tell you.

I used to say we were saving the jobs of the people who work in the golf industry, since DST gives golfers an extra hour after work to hit the links. Likewise the lawn care industry, for folks to spend time after work taking care of their lawns and landscaping.

But with the average worker (here in the US) working fewer hours now, and with the widespread use of flex time, the need for the clock change to gain that extra hour is fading away.

I liked AH's suggestion when this was discussed before, to set the clocks to Standard Time plus 1/2 hour - then leave them fixed. That gives people an extra bit of daylight hours after work, without making the schoolkids stand at the bus stop in the pre-dawn darkness every morning for the whole school year.

And it eliminates this insane and danerous fiddling with the clocks.

20-30 years ago, when I was working at a large international company.

At CST, I use to love working with people on the west coast or Hawaii was great..... I could tell them I'll email (or fedex) the work by 5:00, that bought me a whole day, in the same day. They were overjoyed......... of course that was when I loved working 14-18 hour days.

Of course Working with people on the east coast, I disappointed them with I'll sent it there tomorrow.

It does take some adjustment indeed, but I do not really see the need for adjusting clocks back and forward every year. It is, supposedly, geared to the urban population who have regular working hours every day. On the other hand, take a look at the rural population where the only reason to have a "time" is to be able to go to businesses during "business" hours to get the things you do not make yourself or to remind you to have something to eat (if your stomach doesn't tell you).

I haven't worked on a farm/ranch for many years, but the clock was the sun. Up a sunrise, stop work at sundown except of course, during planting and harvesting and then only the weather is your clock.

There are farming people who have complained that in summer, their fields get too much sunlight with DST!!

I prefer the lighter evenings and would like to see DST permanent.

And also on a purely practical note, because I have dozens of clocks jotted about the house (for no other reasons than liking clocks) putting them back an hour is a pain in the neck, largely because they are all modern(ish) - you can't rewind them - they have to be wound forward 11 or 23 hours.

It saves me from doing yard work after work. It's getting dark by then.

Where I grew up in Indiana, we never changed our clocks. They were always on the slow time. As of a few years ago, or so, they now have DST there. But back then when they didn't, if you drove an hour south-east from where I lived, to the Cincinnati area, they had DST. In the summer, it wouldn't get dark here until about 9:30 or so.

I have since move to Florida, where we have DST months. This article claims that Florida has longer daylight hours than some states further north, but that isn't so. During the DST summer months here in Florida it gets dark around 8:30, or so. About an hour earlier than some of the northern states, like SE Indiana, and around Cincinnati, OH where it stays daylight longer during this time of year.

Personally, I like the faster time, and wish we would stay on that. I hate the fact that during winter months here in Florida it starts to get dark around 5:30 on the slow time.

A friend of mine who was an Iroquois (Oneida Indian) told me that they always ran on Indian Time, which is about 25 minutes late.

Sounds like being on Wizard Time:

"A wizard is never late, a wizard is never early. A wizard arrives .. PRECISELY when he means to." -Gandalf the Grey

Well he was a story telling.....

One story,

He was Deer hunting with another friend.... also a indian.... and they shot a buck and only wounded it,.... they followed the blood trail for a few hours.... and the blood trial got larger and larger..... thinking they'll soon come upon the deer, his friend sat down and took out his flask (whiskey) and they took a break....

After a few minutes they continued tracking the wounded deer, with the blood trail getting heavier and heavier thinking it wouldn't be long now....

Then he says, All of a sudden they came to a gut pile... I laugh pretty hard and asked if he knew the morale of the story.... he said no.... so I told him.

"That is one tough deer"

Heh, heh, good one.

...

Wait a minute...

The story says 'gut pile.' Not 'body,' not 'body with guts spilled out.' 'Gut pile.'

That would mean no body, just the guts...

THAT DEER'S STILL RUNNING! Even after 'field dressing' itself from exertion.

"One tough deer" indeed.

*laughs so hard he falls out of his office chair*

Since I'm 72 years old, I have seen this discussion 144 times? - JHF

"...as more sunlight meant people needed less electricity for lighting. "

This is one of the fallacies of DST. There isn't more sunlight!!!! There is exactly the same amount of daylight on a given day no matter what time the clock indicates the sun is rising (or setting).

DST just changes when people use the sunlight. If societies really want to save money, then why can't they just change when they get up and leave the clocks alone? Why play this psychological game of fooling themselves that they are still get up at the same time and saving daylight.

There is exactly the same amount of daylight on a given day no matter what time the clock indicates the sun is rising (or setting).

not quite

Yes, quite....no matter what time you set your clock to even in Antarctica, you will not change how much sunlight that location gets on that particular day.

I see,.... any given 'day'.

quite

Yes, on a given day meaning for that particular day. Not the same amount of sunlight on a given day compared to some other day.

re JBTardis#24.

You have touched on an interesting point that takes me back to the postwar years. Here in the UK we had a period of DST, not the current Daylight Saving Time, but back then it was Double Summer Time - as we new it as kids - and we loved it.

But we felt cheated when the clocks went back - we lost a couple of hours of valuable playtime in the evening. As kids in those days we had no watches or clocks when out playing and replied on guesswork to know what time it was to go home - which was usually left until the last minute as it got dark.

And worse, we didn't have 'Double Summer' as the name suggests - the weather was was exactly the same as ordinary summer time.

Then all of a sudden the clocks went back and it was dark as soon as we got home from school......the memory lingers - and I could never understand why we could not have DST on a permanent basis.

The general impression I get is that the anti DST brigade say cows up north do not like to be milked during unsociable hours.

"If societies really want to save money"

DST doesn't save money. It just changes the daily energy use profile.

"DST doesn't save money. It just changes the daily energy use profile."

That's sort of my point.

• If it saves money, why do we need to change clocks? The savings come from changing the energy use profile.
• If it doesn't save money....then it really doesn't matter and people can still change when they want to do things....without being a slave to the clock (although they may still be a slave to their employer and his/her clock).

But, according to Andy, we're supposed to just "suck it up" because he knows best.

Engineers like to solve problems...so what good is an engineer who sits back and doesn't speak up for things that make no sense?

Well, not to disagree, but most managers do have their use, it's just that no one has really figured that out yet. I really shouldn't be dissing managers, as there are some out there that know what they are supposed to be doing. For a lot of engineers that sit back and don't speak up, they are probably just trying to hold onto the jobs.

Plan B is definitely required. I too tend to speak up. It has cost be a couple of jobs but,, those losses enabled me to be where I am today, an owner/manager. But, I encourage those who work for me to speak up.

It's difficult to get to "honesty is the best policy" anywhere. I don't think I have ever succeeded totally in getting there, but I think I am close. It's still a CYA world out there.

Again, you didn't understand something fully.

Let me try and help you:-

World wide, aprox 50% like DST, which strongly implies 50% don't. Got that?

Its about an equal split.

In the USA (one country only!) its around 37:45 % against DST. When individual states COULD opt out, but don't.....or the whole country could but doesn't....So someone there thinks its still a good idea....

I wonder if the USA WILL change?

Changing it will cost millions in every country/State making the change, so from my personal point of view (I am not alone!) unless all you "haters" are willing to pick up the complete tab, "SUCK IT UP!"

I won't willingly pay one red cent to make such a change....there are FAR more important things to spend such money on.....

Got that now?

DAMN:-

I though we'd escaped this annual thread

Del

Didn't you say the same thing last year?

The exchange of posts by Kevin and Phoenix are interesting but seem nearly OT - unless the use of DST helps keep the truth in the dark ----- or should it be FST - Face Saving Time! or even JSB - Job Saving Time...

feel better?

Yup, we are getting there. No more from me then.

I have to agree with you.

But, who among us has not taken a segue into off-topic land on occasion?

Re Lyn, Kevin and Phoenix.

Personally I like the OT comments. It triggers a bit of lateral thinking. Keep them coming.

Although sometimes I wonder how some posts get rated as OT, when to my mind they are bang on target. Some deserve GA's.

PS: Previous discussions and suggestions to Savvy on how OT's and GA's (etc?) should be awarded seem to have gone into hiding.

Sometimes a post is labeled OT simply because there is no BA (Bad Answer) alternative.

That's the point of my PS. We don't have a BA box to tick.

...and this reply is OT in the strict sense because it has nothing to do with DST - nevertheless a valid contribution IMO to help focus on the OP.

Yes but, if I label a post of yours as OT, it only talleys 1 OT against the post.

If you, as the originator of the post, or Admin. votes it OT the talley is 5 OTs, and if you respond to an OT post you are assessed 5 OTs as well.

It's an imperfect world, Lyn.

And I'm getting damn sick of it.

If I were Emperor of the World I'd fix that!

"Do I be God--" From musical "Inner City"