Ending Daylight Savings Time

It is that time again.  Yep, time for me to bitch about Daylight Savings Time.  If you are in the UK and (I would guess) most of Europe, you need to "fall back" tonight.

But, if you are in North America (or other places) this stupid ritual does not take into effect until next week.  Good luck to all those international business meetings on Monday.  Better luck to drivers on the road.

It is time to end this practice.  There are two options:

1. Leave the time at Standard Time.  Uh...because that should be the STANDARD
2. My crazy idea that I have said this for decades:  just set the time (in all time zones) a half and hour off and leave it.  We do it once, and that is it.

I will give you a year on Option 2.  All we have to do is lose thirty minutes on 31 December 2019.  Some time before the clocks strike midnight, say at 23:00, we set the clocks ahead to 23:30...making New Years Day 1 January 2020 at 00:00 (wherever you are in the world) the new time.  From then on, we leave time alone.  Remember Y2K?  Well, this is Y2K2X!

Time Change

Well, it is that time...again.  Welcome to my bi-annual rant about setting watches and clocks.

Every six months or so, we have to go through this unneeded, useless ritual of springing back and falling forward...or is it fall back and spring forward.

Whatever.  My point is, there is no need to do this.  The planet tilts and orbits closer to the sun, giving us more daylight hours in a twenty four hour period.  Why do we need to adjust our time telling instruments every March and October?

Side note*.  Did you know that not everyone observes this dated ritual.  You have heard this before.  I am not just talking about some countries.  Some states do not even deal with this crap, while other states are looking into banishing this ridiculous observance.  Furthermore, other countries do not change their time on the same day.  The UK (and I am guessing some of Europe) does their time changes over a different weekend as their North American friends.  I do not even know when or if Asia or Oceania and other areas of the word changes  their clocks.  Argh!

Here is another interesting fact.  It takes about three days for the average person to acclimate to this, what is essentially, jet lag.  So everyone on Monday morning is driving with jet lag, causing an increase of 17% of accidents the Monday morning following a spring forward.

For the states and countries that are already not following this dark age convention, good.  You keep doing what you are doing.  For the governing bodies that are fighting for the elimination of this archaic practice, keep up the good fight.

Obviously, we cannot agree on one thing.  Heck, there are some countries (well, two) that are still stuck on the Imperial system.  Anyway, here again, is my proposal:

We not only stop this nonsense.  But to please everyone, we meet half way.  She want one hour ahead, he wants one hour behind.  #TimesUp  We set the clocks a half an hour off and leave it.  That is it.

We pick a day, the Winter Solstice seems like a good one, with the sun and the daylight and all that. Since we would be on Standard time during the Winter, everyone follows according to their originally assigned time zone and set their clocks forward a half an hour.

All the atomic clocks will follow this change.  That way, all our computers, globally and in orbit, will be all set.

Tangent:  Of course, I am writing this before we are supposed to set our clocks.  At 2 AM, the clocks magically jump to 3 AM.  So, I am trying to set this to post at 2:XX AM and it defaults to 3:XX AM.  Wow, we literally really lost that hour.  Anyway, I set this to post at 1:59 AM.

We will all sleep better and function better the next day...and forever...knowing that there will never be any unnecessary setting of clocks and watches.

World leaders, get on this.

...or, we can just all go by Swatch Internet Time (or beat time).

*Update:  Today in the UK, they are celebrating Mother's Day.  No time change for them.  Good luck telling mum her special day is an hour short.

Spring Back, Fall Foward

Spring back, Fall forward

Time change.  I bitch about this twice a year.  Well, it is that time again to set the clocks ahead one hour...just so we can set it back one hour in about six months.  Fall back, Spring forward.  Or is it Spring back, Fall forward?  What if I am walking down a path and I trip?  I fall forward.  What happens when you compress a spring, then let go?  It springs back.  Just that stupid saying along is damn confusing.

Why do we still do this?

During most of the week on the news on television and radio, we are being reminded to set our clocks ahead one hour on Sunday morning, from 2AM to 3AM.

As I listen to these broadcasts, I learned that Arizona and Hawaii are the only states that do not observe Daylight Savings Times.  California is considering the change.  This would be awesome news, as it can lead other states and eventually the entire world to rid ourselves of this useless act.

Pink areas like to waste time.

I find out that most of the world, at least by population do not observe the DST.  Last night, I was watching a show...it does not matter which show, as I am sure it will get cancelled soon...where the US and Russia worked on a program to launch a rocket to save the world.  It was not until ninety minutes until launch time that they realized that the Russians do not use DST, there fore the timing of the rockets would be off by one hour.  They US team needed to rewrite the code to adjust for this time change.  One stupid thing like this time change would have prevented the rocket from saving the world.  The rocket launched, not sure if it will save the world.   I will have to tune in next week to find out...if the show does not get cancelled.

One of the thing stats they threw out this morning regarding the issues time changes cause was a 24% hike in heart attacks, and an increase in traffic accidents.    I am not going to verify these stats, because they work in my favour.

We lose and hour this weekend.  But really, we lose two hours, as it will take about an hour to set all the clocks and watches the average person has in their house and car.  Yeah, do not forget about the clocks in your car.

Bi-annual dance we do

Since time is set to Greenwich, I realize that we need to convince the UK to abandon the Daylight Savings Time system in order for the rest of the world to adapt.

Again, here is my genius idea to end this crap.  Instead of setting the clocks ahead one hour, then back one hour every six months...we meet half way.  All we do is get Greenwich to set the clocks half an hour off and leave it.  Then, everyone will just need to worry about Time Zones  Those are usually based on longitude and borders, which only effects those who travel.

Oh wait,  I thought I was done.  I may have mentioned this before...but not everyone who observes DST changes their clocks at the same time.  What?!?  I will try to keep this short since we are losing an hour and you need to be setting your clocks.  Anyway...

I traveled to London in October.  When I got there I obviously had to set my watch to local time.  Well, the next day, I had to set it back one hour because it was the end of DST.   A week later, I am back in the states...setting my watch back to DST...then the next day fall back an hour because it was the end for DST in North America.  This is what drove Doc Brown crazy.

Time change!

UPDATE - 14 March 2016

As heard on the news this Monday morning.  Traffic accidents increase by 5% as EVERYONE is essentially 'jet lagged' from losing that hour.  In California, there was over 5000 traffic accidents on the Monday following the time change, last year.  It takes about 3-4 days for the average person to adjust to time change.