Spring ahead, fall back, bah...

[altivo]

I think daylight saving is ridiculous. If you want an extra hour of daylight in the evening, start your day an hour earlier. Don't mess with the clock, that's absurd.

I kinda collect clocks. The weight-driven and spring wound kind. Going forward an hour in the spring is simple with these, but setting them back is a royal pain. You can't turn them backwards, it risks damaging the mechanism or messing up the chimes. So you can either turn them forward eleven hours, waiting each quarter or half for the chime to run, or just stop them all, wait an hour, and restart. Stopping is easiest, and I set a timer to remind me to restart. Except for the carriage clock, which was designed to keep running under rugged conditions. It really does so. You stop it, it restarts itself. Pendulum clocks stop and start easily, but a carriage clock uses a balance wheel escapement similar to those found in watches only about ten times larger. Remove clock from shelf, open back, remove dust cover from the balance wheel, and try to stop it without damaging it. That usually takes several tries. Then don't jiggle the table you set it on, because the least nudge will restart it. Simply picking the clock up off the table is usually enough to do the job.

Come right down to it, though, and the ones I hate to reset are the "modern" digital ones. You know, the ones built into the VCR, the kitchen range, the microwave... Each one has a ridiculously complex sequence of button presses required in order to set it, and if you only do it twice a year, remembering the right sequence is always an irritating nuisance. The analog clocks in the house are all reset. So far, the digital clocks are not, nor are the wall clocks in the barns. At least the digital clock in my current vehicle is easy. Instead of some arcane sequence of eight key presses on the radio, it has two tiny buttons for "hour" and "minute" that make it skip forward when pressed. The only problem? They are so small and recessed that you need a stylus or bent paper clip to activate them. Grrr. That one often stays uncorrected for weeks until I remember to take the right tool out and do it.

Comments

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

All true. And you'd figure that you'd want to extend daylight in
the winter instead of making it dark at four p.m. and forcing
everyone to turn on lights and waste energy. Feh. Feh I say!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Winter is when we need extra daylight. In the summer, there's already plenty of it.

[hrrunka]

Yep, the business of changing the clocks twice a year is most definitely one of the modern world's stupidest inconsequential ideas.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, right up there with the bottle of olive oil I recently saw that had a screaming label on it: "Now contains ZERO carbs." As if it ever had any significant carbohydrates.

Or the container of salsa that proudly proclaims "NO FAT", neglecting to mention that the chips, cheese, and sour cream it will be served with undoubtedly have plenty of fat.

So we got a 25 hour day today. Whoopee. They owed us one after they stole that hour last spring, but everyone's forgotten. And I don't see any interest payment for the loan, either.

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

I was pleasantly surprised when I gained one more hour today, (slept a bit too late and there's a ton of stuff to read and answer), but then I remembered the digital clocks sprinkled all around this place, in the need of poking one hour backwards. Meaning, having to push a set of buttons eleven times to set them in time. Or 21 times, if the clock logic interprets the last keypress as two presses, as my clock radio always does. And that multiplied by ten, for each clock. Except those that have only adjustments for minutes forward/backward...
It's the international "Poke your Clock" day. And it's not even a holiday.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yep. You end up wasting the hour saved by having to reset all those clocks that were never designed to make it easy.

In the spring you lose not one but two hours, for the same reason. ;P

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Your right. Thats it! I'm buying all atomic clocks.

XD

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is absurd. Luckily my social plans fell through last night. I spent it resetting clocks. Which is just fine for me, fiddling with clocks is just more quality time with machines. I always understood animals and machinery more than people anyway.

[doc-moreau.livejournal.com]

Daylight savings time is one of the most rediculous things, yes.

I have in the past gone through it without changing my clock (i only have one clock) but it's still annoying because i have to then always remember that everyone else has done it, so i have to remember to go to appointments and such an hour earlier than when they're scheduled.
But that's just being stubborn, and it's a pain, so i didn't do it this time.
I guess Arizona doesn't have DST. ...probably other states too. How forward-thinking of them. :)

[corelog.livejournal.com]

And did you hear about the new proposal to lengthen daylight savings by another two weeks on each end? I think it's ridiculous--all the politicians say it'll save energy, but I think that's a crock of shit. You're just rotating in place, not actually lengthening the days, dummies!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that proposal is pure BS of the political sort. People have had it pounded into their heads for two generations now that DST somehow saves energy. There is no evidence that it does so. But they automatically buy into that without thinking about it critically. The Bush Administration's proposal is an intentional red herring to draw attention away from their many failures and shortcomings that are becoming more and more visible in this second term.

It does of course give an extra hour of snuggle time in the fall, but that hour was stolen in the spring. And I spent the extra hour...writing my podcast. ;P

[deffox]

I didn't think much about daylight savings until the bill to extend it.

Now I'm thinking of all the electronics that automatically set themselves being wrong.

I would rather get rid of DST.

Not counting the computers, six of the eight clocks here have been set. Just the VCR and DVD burner left. Oh yeah, the car too (almost easier to pull the battery cable to set that one).

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I thought I'd got everything reset now, but I missed the VCR. Not that it matters, since it never records anything.

Only now I have to go to work and deal with 30 computers all wanting confirmation that they changed the time write. Windows...grrr.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

Not having to fiddle with the clocks twice a year was one of the really surprising benefits of moving to Saskatchewan. I didn't think it was a big deal until I didn't have to do it anymore.

Also, its a laugh that they still call Standard Time "standard" - daylight savings time already lasts 35% longer, and they are planning to make it longer still. It's DST that's the real standard, and its out of sync with the Earth's rotation.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

and its out of sync with the Earth's rotation

Trust an astronomer to put it that way. ;)

All I know is that it's out of sync with reality. And the notion that it somehow "saves energy" is just absurd. It moves the energy usage around, perhaps, or shifts some of it from one source to another.

[pokeypony.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh,sweet arizona in which I call home.

No stupid DLS here,and I am just free to frolic with the cacti and scorpions in peace.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, we do get one thing out of it: once a year we have a 25 hour day. Of course, if we're still trying to catch up from when we got behind in that 23 hour day last spring, it doesn't do that much good.