Comments on: The return to Standard Time: hate it hate it hate it

By: Micha Elyi

Micha Elyi — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 02:58:08 +0000

I’m miffed that this year’s change to Darkness Savings Time didn’t come in time to give us an extra hour on Halloween!

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:59:31 +0000

I was in Ensenada over the weekend where they do not tinker with the time so I almost missed my appointement at Hussong’s. Very confusing but I did prevail and was able to enjoy my yearly Dos Equis and few shooters of Patron tequilla.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:35:32 +0000

I just about live for the week after the “fall back.” If someone ran on a platform of moving 8am back an hour every month, I’d vote for him for whatever position he was running for. Mr. Obama, it’s not too late for you to get my vote.

The dairies hated DST when it first came out, because housewives wanted their bottled milk at the same time they had it before, and the cows didn’t understand that humans think clocks mean something. Farmers get up really early and work around the daylight; in my experience, they don’t care much about times of day. This was one of the reasons for public schools, incidentally — teaching those sloppy farming kids how to behave in a manner conducive to factories running on a schedule.

I say we all go by some single standard time (say, whatever time it is in Kansas City, defining noon as the sun’s highest position on the longest day of the year) and convince ourselves that times aren’t important, because they are totally arbitrary. The only issue would be scheduling live events such as football, and the considerations would just sound different (instead of “it’ll only be 4pm in LA” it’s “it’ll be four hours before sunset and most people would be at work, in LA.”)

Seriously – what benefits come from having New York be exactly four hours ahead of LA? Why should Ohio go with the same time as NY instead of, say, Chicago? Why call a time 6am, when 6am means nothing except “six hours after that other arbitrary time that means nothing”?

Plus future generations can say stuff like “when I was your age, I had to get up at six in the morning to get to school, and spend an hour in traffic EACH WAY” while their children are taught at home in a vague mostly-time-ambivalent utopia and can get up whenever it feels right to them, woot. Who’s with me?

By: Jaybird

Jaybird — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:34:53 +0000

Maybe, when Obama is elected, the sun will shine all the time.

Finally!

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:37:20 +0000

How about in the spring, we move our clocks forward 30 minutes and never bother with this time switching again.

(PS. There is a huge hidden cost in changing times. It affects payroll, record keeping in the transportation industry and other places where how to handle the change is logically unclear.)

By: tcblute

tcblute — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:23:37 +0000

brilliant! — have the schools change start times. that would really help parents who need to drive their children to school.
oh and why don’t those darn farmers just milk their cows whenever — who cares that the cows need a regular routine.
and remembering to change the clocks — oh so difficult.
i also have a bridge to sell to the folks who believe that terrorists blew themselves up when they didn’t remember the switch in time — what, did the israelis change their timers for them and forget to tell them?
more neocon brilliance displayed all over this board

By: Gene Dillenburg

Gene Dillenburg — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:15:00 +0000

The reason we don’t have Daylight Saving Time in the winter is because there is no daylight to save. In the summer, you get 16 to 17 hours of daylight — the Sun rises around 4 and sets around 8. But precious few people are awake at 4, so we just move our clocks so the Sun rises at 5 and sets at 9. Pretty much everybody can enjoy sunshine from 8 to 9.

In the winter, you get only 8 or 9 hours of sunlight — rises around 8, sets around 4. Sure, we could move our clocks so the Sun didn’t set until 9. But then it would’nt rise until Noon or later.

Can’t save something that doesn’t exist in the first place.

By: Emmster

Emmster — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:52:51 +0000

Totally agree with you. I hate winter time. I’m all about not changing our clocks, as long as we stick with summer time all year long.

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:51:55 +0000

I’ve been in favor of double-daylight time. When Haloween comes, set the clocks ahead *another* hour.

As to why do it at all — I’ve heard the theory that if Congress said everybody will get up an hour earlier there would be revolution, but for some reason fooling with the clock itself is ok (though my farming Aunt always refused to change her clocks from “God’s time”).

By: Mark L

Mark L — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:28:59 +0000

Everyone is forgetting the real reason for Daylight Savings Times, and the constant tinkering with them — it allows the legislature to Do Something.

Doing Something is much more important to an elected official than doing the right thing, especially when doing the right thing means doing nothing, and leaving things alone. Better to pass laws that show you are Doing Something, so that your constituents can admire your legislation.

If Doing Something causes problems, better still. That is a feature, not a bug. It gives you an opportunity to Do Something the next legislative session to fix the something you did this time around.

After all, when the only tool you have is a shovel, the only way to get out of a hole with it is to keep digging.