Daylight savings

Our culture (root word being “cult”) is insane. Our government types apparently believe it is in their power to re-order the very rising and setting of the sun. They’re gods, and we’re insane enough to go along with it.

My brother sent me a text from Kalifornia on Sunday, asking me if I was saving any daylight at that very moment. I told him that it was beyond my power to do so, that I had called the bank asking to open a daylight savings account and they just laughed at me. That sparked quite the conversation.

I eventually told him that I could in fact save daylight using PV panels and storage batteries. He then told me that that wouldn’t do, because using stored electricity to make artificial light wasn’t saving “actual daylight”. I then said that we could, in theory, with the right technology, reproduce the same spectral content of the sunlight that reaches the Earth’s surface, that energy, like currency, is fungible, that conversion to stored energy in batteries and subsequent re-conversion to artificial sunlight is in fact “saving daylight”, and that since this is daylight savings time, this then is officially the time to be working on such technology.

Regardless; if you want to get up and go to work or school at a particular time, that’s entirely between you and your associates. Government certainly has no business getting involved.

As it is, when a business says its hours are such and such, you don’t know what that means until you have their address, get out your time zone map, and then call the governor’s office in their state to see of they participate in “daylight savings time”.

We’d all be better off it it was the same “time” everywhere. You already know when the sun rises and sets during certain times of the year where you live, and that isn’t going to change significantly in your lifetime. If you’re unsure, look out of a freaking window.

Maybe I should start posting my business hours in UTC and leave it at that, but how many people even know what that means? As often as not, when I tell someone during a phone conversation that we’re on Pacific Time, their reaction is one of incredulity; “Oh…Really?!” (surely I must be mistaken). I’ve only lived here my whole life, but then the particular time zone I’m in is purely a matter of legislation and as I said; we’re all batshit insane, so my time zone status could have been changed without my noticing.

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13 thoughts on “Daylight savings

  1. All my networks run on UTC so I’m more comfortable there anyway. As globalization proceeds, keeping up with what time zone(s) you’re dealing with will be even more of a problem.

    One planet, one time.

  2. I only hate Daylight Saving Time because it brings out all the crybabies who bitch about the time change. The only people who think Teh Government are trying to “save” daylight, by, as the stupid Indian meme says, cutting an hour off the front and tacking it on the back are non-logical tin-foil hatters. All that’s happening is a one-hour shift in the starting time for things. The sun will rise and set at it’s own good time and pace; we’re just adjusting what we call “noon.”

    Are all the other pressing matters of our time solved to the point where we can bitch about GOVERNMENT INTRUSION ON OUR SUNRISES!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

  3. Well, I came up with the idea way back in 1988 of running federal election days as a 24 hour cycle, starting at a specific time UTC and running 24 hours. That way, all polls open and close at the same time, and early returns on teh East Coast don’t have a real chance of influencing late voters on the West Coast or in Hawaii (especially if combined with a moratorium on exit poll data for national races until polls close).

    Sure, the 1800hrs – 0600hrs (local) polls might have to be consolidated in more populated regions (say, no less than one per county or city — stick it in the courthouse or central cop shop) because third shift poll workers will be harder to find, but with a continuous 24 hour period blocked out that is identical nationwide, claiming you didn’t vote becuase “you couldn’t find the time” rings a little hollow.

    I do wish we’d dump the twice annual time zone shift, though. I really don’t care if we go to “straight” time zone time, or simply stay on Daylight Savings 365.

    • Wouldn’t putting the polling place in police stations be raaaaacist?

      • Asking that question makes you a racist.

        Crap; now I’m now a racist for saying anything about it.

  4. I’ve gotten that same reaction when giving Pacific Time hours. As if we’re mistaken about what time it is where we live, or they’re amazed that something worth their attention happens on the west coast.

    Additionally, I’ve found that for most people, if I don’t immediately translate what that means for their time zone (a la, “We’re open from 5 am to 7 pm Pacific Time, which is 8 am to 10 pm by your clocks”), they have trouble making that conversion themselves.

    Heaven forbid someone from Back East should call a company based in Arizona, which is effectively on Mountain Time five months of the year and Pacific Time the other seven.

    • I deal with that on a regular basis, trying to schedule telecons between the East Coast and West Coast. The same thing happens when dealing with West Coast types when you try to schedule something from the East Coast — if we don’t translate the time for them, half the Pacific crew will miss the telecon.

  5. If I figure out who the bastard responsible for the constant time changes is, I am going to beat him with a clock for an hour.

  6. Don’t look at me! I live in Indiana, where it’s effectively daylight-savings time all winter and double-daylight-savings time all summer. This was supposed to be an “improvement” on our previous year round too far West EST.

  7. Remember that one can use the Obama administration metric of “saved or created” for jobs benefiting from the federal stimulus about 5 years ago.

    So measure daylight “saved or created” to increase your apparent success!

  8. Split the difference by 1/2 hour, and then leave it alone forever!

    Too simple?

    And, please allow me to 2nd the motion on voting being a concurrent, 24 hour cycle, nationwide. I mean, all 57 states. Makes sense to me!

    Jim
    Sunk New Dawn
    Galveston, TX

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