Why do we change time?

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Next week in the USA comes my “bleary eye week”.  It’s the week that the time changes and I lose an hour of sleep during a time of year that I’m alrea
[See the full post at: Why do we change time?]

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Alex5723, Seff

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All demanding jobs should be set by law for later in the year when we get an extra hour’s sleep!

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I never heard it call ‘bleary eye week’ here in EU, but it sounds pretty spot on!

There’s a real interesting video on timezones and it’s implications for a programmer on computerphile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY

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I once had an issue with Windows clock and I managed to repair it with the following command line as Admin:

w32tm /register

(Plus a reboot)

After that, none of the default time servers seemed to work. Was there too much traffic to the servers? Was I physically too far away from them? I don’t know. It could have been anything. So I decided to add new time servers to my system and I found this list:

http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/StratumTwoTimeServers

(Choose a server, click on the country code on the left column and then search for the “Hostname”)

I followed the steps from this page (in Spanish) to add the servers to the registry: https://lecciones.batiburrillo.net/anadir-mas-servidores-horarios/

After some trial and error, I found the ones that seemed to work best for my location, so now I can sync my Windows clock manually or automatically very quickly.

The last step I took was to save a .REG file with the new servers, so if I now need to configure a new machine or a new system, I just double click the .REG file and it overwrites the default time servers’ list with my new selection. As an example, this is how my .REG file (“[AddToRegistry]DateTimeServers.reg”) looks like in Notepad:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DateTime\Servers]
@=”8″
“1”=”time.windows.com”
“2”=”time.nist.gov”
“3”=”time-nw.nist.gov”
“4”=”time-a.nist.gov”
“5”=”time-b.nist.gov”
“6”=”ntp1.musurit.net”
“7”=”ntp.copayan.uy”
“8”=”ntp.cure.edu.uy”
“9”=”ntp2.cure.edu.uy”
“10”=”ntp.oalm.gub.uy”
“11”=”a.ntp.br”
“12”=”b.ntp.br”
“13”=”c.ntp.br”
“14”=”ntp.cais.rnp.br”
“15”=”ntp.pads.ufrj.br”
“16”=”ntp.pop-pr.rnp.br”
“17”=”ntp.spbrasil.com.br”

And, luckily, we don’t change the time zone in Winter/Summer here in my country.

César

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Just wanted to point out that the first link in this post will take you to a website with information for 2020, not 2022.

This year DST goes into effect on Sunday, March 13, 2022 at 2:00 A.M.

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If you are unhappy about the change from winter to summer time (in more international terms than using the US terminology), this goes to show that you live in an mostly industrialized nation and are not a farmer that has to work hours determined by the Sun.

Back when yours and other industrial nations were more agricultural than industrial, or even close to either side of 50 – 50, daylight saving was put and kept in place mostly to satisfy the needs of the farmers and cattle growers and dairy farmers, their families and the towns where they were an important part of the local economy. For example: cows don’t wake up and then give milk by the clock, on civil time, be it Daylight Saving or Standard, but the trains that were used to send milk to market did run by it. Now days the situation has not changed for farmers and many country people, but is less noticed, or outright ignored by those who live in large urban areas.

Whether Daylight Savings stays or goes is ultimately a political question.

Personally, I am only mildly bothered for maybe two days after a switch from one to the other. I have been jet-lagged a lot worse when flying to Australia or Japan from the USA, or coming back from there. The trick is to have breakfasts and meals at the usual time, but in the country’s current civilian time as marked by the clocks there, and then here to follow the change from one regime to the other in the same way, and whether here or there, going to bed earlier or later, accordingly.

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Steve

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On a tangentially related topic, perhaps the group might enjoy this odd screenshot.

A few months ago my daughter, a Marine Ecologist, was on a research expedition to the Southern Line Islands, a string of coral atolls in the Pacific between Hawaii and Tahiti. Here’s how Google Maps captured her location at the time:

Since she was between Hawaii to her north and Tahiti to her south, all three locations share the same time of day. But because of the International Date Line, she was actually a day ahead!

It was weird chatting with her (she had satellite internet access aboard ship) because the time of day was only two hours behind us here in California, but we were on different days of the week. The IDL has never felt this close to California before.

 

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Wish we could just stick with Daylight Savings Time year round.  Mainly because it’s depressing when driving back from work and it’s already dark.  Or running “early evening” errands in the dark.  It’s especially bad for those on the east end of a time zone like myself.  Failing that, I’ll happily take some brief sleep disruption to get back a less-depressing clock for > 50% of the year.

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Charlie

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Here, in the USA, this is how it has been for some 14 years now: from 2007, DST begins on the second Sunday of March and ends on the first Sunday of November: four months and some days of Standard time (ST), in Winter, and the rest of the year in Daylight Saving time, or Summer Time. Since then, several States here have approved the move to permanent Daylight Saving time — although that awaits confirmation by the US Congress — and there is also a national push in that direction.

To repeat and expand on what I wrote in my previous comment, further up, the maintenance or not of the present arrangement with DST and ST is a political matter: to find a workable policy in spite of the incompatible needs of elements of the population.

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I feel your pain, Susan. I’m a retired CPA and I know the feeling. Less sleep during tax season is no fun.

I would prefer to decide upon one time and stick to it without this needless back-and-forth every six months.

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Charlie, wavy

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What’s all the fuss? If you just stick to your normal routine, you’ll get up an hour earlier, go to bed an hour earlier and not lose any sleep. Unless it’s still daylight by the time you go to bed in which case you’d still have the problem. Here in Australia when Daylight Saving was introduced, old ladies would complain their carpets would fade faster with the extra sunlight. There is no extra sunlight. The sun does what the sun has always done. It’s just that our window into the sun (day/night) has shifted by a small amount. Oh, and if you think the sun will fade your carpet faster, draw the curtains.

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Charlie, OscarCP

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There are countries that decided to stay on standard time

History of day light saving

..The idea was first advocated seriously by London builder William Willett (1857-1915) in the pamphlet, “Waste of Daylight” (1907), that proposed advancing clocks 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in April, and retarding them by the same amount on four Sundays in September. As he was taking an early morning a ride through Petts Wood, near Croydon, Willett was struck by the fact that the blinds of nearby houses were closed, even though the sun was fully risen. When questioned as to why he didn’t simply get up an hour earlier, Willett replied with typical British humor, “What?” In his pamphlet “The Waste of Daylight” he wrote:

“Everyone appreciates the long, light evenings. Everyone laments their shortage as Autumn approaches; and everyone has given utterance to regret that the clear, bright light of an early morning during Spring and Summer months is so seldom seen or used.”..

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Daylight Saving (Summertime) means setting our clocks one hour later than the mean solar time and, more or less as a result, than the Sun itself. So, when the Sun sets around mid-summer, and the farther north or south of the equator, the more so, the hour is maybe 9 or 10 PM by the clock, making for long sunny evenings and maybe rides home from work in sunlight but not with the Sun so low as to get in one’s eyes.

The opposite happens in the morning, when driving home to work, or going to school, or driving one’s children to school.

Standard Time (Winter time) reverses this, so now one gets up later, relative to sunrise, that happens earlier by the clock, but leaves work earlier relative to sunset, that also happens earlier by the clock.

The switch from one time system to the other was intended to make things a bit more comfortable and, for rural people, more convenient year-round. But still people are unhappy about it, because they have to move the hands of the clock, or set the software-driven ones in their devices, back or forth the night before, and also don’t like the change in their routine schedule this brings about, or are physically afflicted by it, as Susan says she is. (And I am not, or maybe just a little bit the first two days, if that long.)

In olden days the time was local, the same in an area around a main settlement, marked by the bells of the local churches, calls to prayer, etc. The sunrise time was also from around six in the morning and daylight lasted until six in the evening and sunset — year round.

How was this possible? Simple: By making the length of the hours longer or shorter, as the seasons changed. Both priests, preachers, etc. kept candles of a standard thickness and composition divided at equal intervals, so it took one hour — by the candle — for it to burn from one mark to the other. As the length of the day changed, so did the length of the candles being used and the distance between the markings, maybe changing the candles to those of a different length once a week. These were used at night and when the day was clouded, with a different candle for day and night time. Sundials were used when there was enough sunshine during the day. Or else they used clepsydras, water clocks that emptied a tank at steady rate, day and night, and where the flow was changed from time to time to keep up with the Sun. These worked night and day.

The downside was that, in winter, the daylight hours were shorter and things had to be done in a hurry (9 to 5 then being shorter in winter (joke)), while in summer they were longer, and everything had to be done at a more leisurely pace, or with longer inactive periods in between one thing and the next. Some people did not like the one and others did not like the other, as it is still the case today with whatever time system we have to live with.

My one and only experience of a potentially real problem caused by the change in the hour happened at a time when I was living in Germany, visiting for a year and a half at the Technical University of Stuttgart. Earlier during my visit, with the professor that was my host and his post-graduate students we had all agreed to meet at 6 AM the next morning to go on a trip to a place he wanted to show us, as being of special interest. I forget what the place was, but not what happened that morning.

I got up an hour earlier that the agreed time for us all to meet, to be ready: washed, dressed and having had breakfast, before I went out to meet them. We had agreed the meeting was going to be at an intersection near the place where I was staying. Half hour before 6 AM someone came knocking at my door to inform me they had been waiting already for half an hour, and what was the matter with me? I answered: what was the matter with them?, as it was half an hour too early. And the answer was that no, it was half an hour too late.

Later this got sorted out and all ended well: that morning was the beginning of Summer Time in Germany and the rest of Western Europe. It was also, if memory serves, the 1st of April. But I cannot be sure of that anymore.

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Tom

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” Sundials were used when there was enough sunshine during the day.”

Just be thankful that you don’t jet back and forth to Australia.

In the southern hemisphere, sundials work the wrong-way-around – anticlockwise rather than clockwise.

Cheers

Chris

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.

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Recall please, that in the mid-1970s we tried year-round DST to save energy during the “oil shock.”  It was hated by many people for various reasons.  One in particular was that children were walking to school, or waiting for the bus, in full night in some places.  It also did not save energy in any significant amount.  As a result, they let the law lapse.  It might make more sense to keep Standard Time.

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Tregonsee wrote: “ It might make more sense to keep Standard Time.”

Maybe. But on one thing there is no “maybe” about: Some significant number of people will hate it, as probably different, but still numerous people will complain about any time system, because none will be perfectly convenient, or to everyone’s taste or fancy.

And I would go as far as to end here by stating that the above is a historically proven fact. And to bet that we are going to see the subject come up again at AskWoody every time there is a switch from STD to DST and back. (But betting only with peanuts, not with real money.)

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We are now retired and we keep to summer time all year round and never set our clocks back. In winter we have more time because that 10am appointment with the Geriatrician is easy to keep, no need to hurry. And the late night garbage on TV just disappears because we’re already in bed.

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” … (But betting only with peanuts, not with real money.)”

Peanuts are real money to a peanut farmer.

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OscarCP

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True story, my Sister went to a High School that had to double up and shift to morning only classes while another High School across town used the same campus in the afternoon as they had to Earthquake proof the buildings on the other campus.  Because of the forced daylight savings, and because the lights couldn’t be re-programed the inside corridors were very dark. The lockers were in the middle of the corridors inside the building where at 6 something in the morning it was way too dark to see the lock. Since this was in the days before iphones, those that were smokers got out their bic lighters and gave themselves light to open the lock. Anyone who didn’t smoke fumbled around the combination lock or waited until a smoker came around to light the lock.

Ah what memories….

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Smokers? In high school? When we were 18 and in the last year of high school, we were given a good clout on the back of the head if we were caught smoking. And the teachers confiscated the cigarettes. Ah, the wonderful memories of an Australian (based on the British model) senior high school. We could park our cars in the school car park, senior boys were permitted to date female intern teachers and we were permitted to drink wine. But light a cigarette? The world fell on your head if you did that.

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Bottom line, get extra sleep this week as you’ll be losing an hour next week.

Nah, we don’t engage in such silliness here. <g>

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Actually, the way to deal with a change of hour is to live by the clock: if the hour changes by one or more hours (i.e., when traveling to a distant place in a different time zone), eat when the clock where you are now says is about your usual hour to do so, no when you feel like it. Go to bed accordingly. The first two nights, if you have difficulty changing sleep time, take a mild sedative before turning in.

Jeez, one would think that some people here never left the village where they were born and, or traveled to places in different time zones from their village’s. That going to Hawaii from the Continental USA could be injurious to one’s health: If you live in California, not to mention further East, don’t you even even think of ever going to Hawaii!

Well, I have been to Hawaii, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia, there and back, spending weeks in each (and earlier on, ten years in Oz), and have similarly crossed the Atlantic numerous times to Holland, the UK, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greenland and Greece with long stays in those other places, and yet here I am. And in reasonably good shape.

What is wrong with me?

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Oscar – you say that you have been to all sorts of places that involve time changes, and here you are “in reasonably good shape”.  I have done some of the same travelling that you describe, and am myself still “in reasonably good shape” in the second half of my seventies.

However, it put me in mind of a medical study on professional aircrew of which I heard reports.  It compared one cohort that flew regularly from east-to-west with another that flew from north-to-south.  Of course, aircrew work on quite short turnrounds, perhaps only two or so nights before returning.  The differences were observed and reported, and it was the north-to-south cohort whose long-term health suffered less.

I have no idea how to track down the original paper, so you may have to take this on trust from me.

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ScotchJohn: I remember that study. I also don’t know where to find it now, but using the magic of Web search engines …

https://www.quora.com/Which-way-is-jet-lag-more-severe-flying-in-east-to-west-direction-or-otherwise

https://www.cntraveler.com/story/how-the-direction-of-your-flight-affects-jet-lag

https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/east-west-jet-lag

And flying north-to south (or south to north) keeps you in the same time zone, and free from hour changes — but not of changes in hours of daylight with latitude, if you go far enough. (And except for the effect of the zone’s zigs and zags and changes in width, out of respect for the hour choices of countries along it, if your destination is in a place where the zone you started from has bent or thinned way too much and is now elsewhere to your east or west).

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Oscar – thanks, I’m glad that I was not imagining having heard of that study.

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Yesterday, March 15th 2022, the US Congress has approved to have the country in the eternal sunshine of the Daylight Saving to make life better … in the evenings, that is.
Yay!

https://apnews.com/article/biden-united-states-congress-749d458d09882c6e6479559bc0327bde

(The President’s signature is still needed.)

Excerpt:

“ “Changing the clock twice a year is outdated and unnecessary,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Americans want more sunshine and less depression — people in this country, all the way from Seattle to Miami, want the Sunshine Protection Act,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington added. ”

But maybe he shouldn’t have said it even once, because in the mornings, particularly in winter, it is a different story:

https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/03/15/the-us-tried-permanent-daylight-saving-time-in-the-70s-people-hated-it/

Excerpts:

“The sun rose at 8:27 AM on January 7, 1974. Children in the Washington area had left for school in the dark that morning, thanks to a new national experiment during a wrenching energy crisis: most of the US went to year-round daylight saving time beginning on January 6. “It was jet black” outside when her daughter was supposed to leave for school, Florence Bauer of Springfield told the Washington Post. “Some of the children took flashlights with them.” ”

….

“And yet the early-morning darkness quickly proved dangerous for children: A 6-year-old Alexandria girl was struck by a car on her way to Polk Elementary School on January 7; the accident broke her leg. Two Prince George’s County students were hurt in February. In the weeks after the change, eight Florida kids were killed in traffic accidents. Florida’s governor, Reubin Askew, asked for Congress to repeal the measure. “It’s time to recognize that we may well have made a mistake,” US Senator Dick Clark of Iowa said during a speech in Congress on January 28, 1974. In the Washington area, some schools delayed their start times until the sun caught up with the clock.

….

” In late September, the full Congress passed a bill that would restore standard time on October 27. President Ford signed it on October 5. Energy savings, a House panel noted, “must be balanced against a majority of the public’s distaste for the observance of Daylight Saving Time. ”

You were unhappy with the twice-a-year change of the hour and wanted that to stop?

Welcome to what you have wished for!

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Steve, LHiggins, Alex5723

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Umph … Actually this was only approved by the US Senate. Unanimously. So it is, so far, the Senators’ maybe not greatest idea. Now it still has to go through the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament here. It this bit of disruptive innovation passes there as well, then it will be up to Biden to decide its fate: sign the new law, or veto it. So we are not there yet, but these days anything is possible.

And Patty Murray, the one who said it again, is a she. Also the Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. So, if you didn’t, now you know.

Now, some people like me, that do not have to go to work in the morning, because they either do not work, or (my own case) can make their own working schedules, might like this new eternal summer time even in winter. But most people who have regular jobs and particularly those with children of school age (and who, in either case, also vote) might not like it that much. As history shows (see my original comment at the top).

So I wonder how long it will take for this retro law, if passed also in the House and then signed by Biden, to be repealed. Last time, fifty years ago, give or take, it was some eight months, but this time, as it only starts to be applicable next year, it might be considerably longer, I guess. When that happens, at the airlines they might not be very pleased, having to change all their schedules back again, as making those changes cost them $$$$ and also doing lost and lots of paperwork, I imagine.

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While I can see the arguments against changing to year-round Daylight Savings, the arguments in favor of it are also valid — even more so, IMO.  I’m really pleased to see legislation, and I personally hope — a lot — that it passes the U.S. House and Biden signs it.  It’s been so nice (as usual) to have the sun set about an hour later this week.

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Hmmm …  wait until it is deep winter again, see what you think then.

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Susan Bradley wrote:

Why do we change time?

Some of us don’t change time.

Some of us remove the batteries from all the clocks and turn the hands to 10:50 so that it is “always time for elevenses“.

Some of us glance at the stove to see if there has been a power-outage while we were asleep.

But all of us bemoan the fact that we feel obliged to manually change our programmed thermostats twice a year.

(signed) “Gloomy” of Bonavista

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Concerning the “perpetual (evenings only) sunshine” new legislation, its “unanimous consent” approval by the US Senate looks like it was in part the result of some confusion there:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60787377

Excerpts”

“The legislation, called the Sunshine Protection Act, is the pet project of Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida (whose nickname, perhaps not coincidentally, is “the Sunshine State”). He has been pitching legislation to make Daylight Savings Time permanent for four years, but this is the first time he’s found some success.

The Senate measure was approved by unanimous consent – a process usually reserved for non-controversial legislation like naming post offices, designating disease-awareness days and celebrating sports league champions – just a few days after the US implemented its annual “spring forward” time change.”

“Pardon the pun,” Mr Rubio said after the bill was approved, “but this is an idea whose time has come.” ”

….

“Education is a concern for opponents of the legislation, however, who note that more children will end up going to school in the dark – which could be dangerous – under the new system.

Any one senator could have objected and prevented passage of Mr Rubio’s proposal, but the speed at which it came up for consideration may have caught opponents off-guard. According to Buzzfeed News [an online political commentary outfit], Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton would have blocked the bill but his staff didn’t inform him the legislation was being brought to the floor. Confusion seemed to be the order of the day for all but a handful of the Senate’s daylight time enthusiasts. ”

I expect this will be approved also in the House, as no dissenting voices have been raised there and some of support have been heard, including from the Speaker of the House none the less, if just as a passing comment.

But the legislators in the House have their hands full with the events of January of last year, many measures concerning the environment, CO2 reduction, continued funding for covid prevention and treatment, some sent to the Senate and failing to be approved there, so some of this work in on their re-submission. And in particular Ukraine just now

So maybe the lessons of history are going to be learned once more, not that given the average age of the US legislators there is much reason why these should not have been learned by them 50 years ago, in the first place … Memory loss?
Quite possible. So sad.

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In today’s Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/03/17/daylight-saving-time-sunrise-sunset/

Excerpt:

“How permanent daylight saving time would change sunrise and sunset times
Brighter winter evenings would come at the expense of darker mornings”

“While millions of Americans would no longer complain about switching the clocks — and no doubt many would enjoy more evening daylight in the winter — permanent daylight saving time might end up being a dark wake-up call during the winter months, especially in some parts of the country where the sun already tends to rise late.

No matter where you live in the United States, year-round daylight saving time means the sun would rise and set an hour later than we’re used to from November to March. With daylight shifted toward the evening, most of the nation would see sunset after 5 p.m. around the winter solstice in December. D.C., for example, would see its earliest sunset at 5:45 p.m. (instead of 4:45 p.m.), and the latest sunrise would shift to 8:27 a.m. (from 7:27 a.m.) in early January, according to timeanddate.com.:

Latest sunrise and earliest sunset with year-round daylight saving time:

Table with 3 columns and 14 rows. Currently displaying rows 1 to 14.
LOCATION SUNRISE SUNSET
Atlanta 8:43 a.m. 6:28 p.m.
Boston 8:13 a.m. 5:11 p.m.
Chicago 8:18 a.m. 5:19 p.m.
Denver 8:21 a.m. 5:35 p.m.
Houston 8:17 a.m. 6:21 p.m.
Indianapolis 9:06 a.m. 6:19 p.m.
Los Angeles 7:59 a.m. 5:43 p.m.
Miami 8:09 a.m. 6:29 p.m.
Minneapolis 8:51 a.m. 5:31 p.m.
New York 8:20 a.m. 5:28 p.m.
San Francisco 8:25 a.m. 5:50 p.m.
Seattle 8:57 a.m. 5:17 p.m.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Steve

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