Daylight Saving, Universal Coordinated, Tea, Eastern Not-so-Standard. Why do we care? Why does the United States government feel the need to control time? Here is a thought, why don’t we all just make the plunge and convert to UTC? Time is a reference method for common understanding, at its most dramatic meaning. Moving times around just confuses everyone, and if interacting with people in different time zones, things become even more complicated, especially on days of daylight saving implementation/demise. Time would be much simpler if everyone could just agree to adjust their schedules forward or back an hour at the appropriate times of the year, still allowing for adjustments for the agricultural community, as well as reducing energy consumption based on the sun’s schedule. With so many wireless, radio, and Internet communications not being physically able to respect the political boundaries of the time zones, there is no logical reason to continue operating on diverse time zones. Also, the practice of time keeping in exacts is ridiculous, time is a natural concept, which relies on the Earth’s rotation, which is always constantly changing speeds as it reverses its rotation (currently it is slowing down). The biggest reason to kill off daylight saving time is that it isn’t natural, and the human body reacts badly to it. The human brain can be trained to accept any sleep pattern as normal, but sticking to one pattern has been proven to prevent abnormal weight gain, and also increase “happy hormones”, lowering the chances of slipping into a depression (DST is sometimes a factor in seasonal affective disorder).
Also, while we are adjusting times, what the fuck is wrong with you people who are hanging on to your precious 12hr time format? It is insane! How do you ever know what time it really is? When I am in the ceramic studio, I get so annoyed when I have to turn up a kiln, there is a problem and I check the log, only to find that someone last checked the kiln at “9”, 9 what? 9 when the sun was up? 9 when it was dark? 9 and 21 are much more distinct numbers. 24hr time is far more logical in the long run. Also, it doesn’t take very long to adjust to 24 hr time. According to military performance reports, it takes a new US Marine about 3 days to become fully acclimate to 24 hour time. Shouldn’t civilians be able to adapt in less than a week?
I never give the time changes much thought, but this year, I have had to give a little consideration to the event to ensure that things are consistent.
- Computers – updates have been applied (but I am a little worried about my Linux server)
- PDA – applied patch and new version of ActiveSync
- Media Player – doesn’t give a flying fuck about time (seriously, watch it not know how long a song is)
- Weather alert station – gets updates locally from radio, will update normally.
- Projection Clock – gets radio updates from a Denver, CO (via a repeater), little nervous, not sure if the adjustment will take
- Digital Camera – not too worried, always needs a manual update anyway
- Cell Phone – will be updated by its tower
- Router/Switches – My router and managed switch update themselves via NTP, but require end-user checking and unchecking of the Daylight Savings Time box.
- VCR – PBS will update it for me 🙂
- Network Printer – uses UTC via NTP, doesn’t care about DST
So, did I miss anything?
If you are attached to DST practices or the 12hr clock, please comment, I want to know what everyone finds so enjoyable about either of these topics.