h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wouldn't it be easier simply to change the time that we do stuff?

Like go to work an hour later (or earlier whichever it is) for 6 months of the year?

I still don't know whether I'v altered all of the clocks in my house.

And in my car.

And at work.

PP.

Why change clocks or timetables at all? Most things can cope with taking place a little darker in winter. I’d rather stay on BST all year, as we do most of our trade with Europe.

It started during the Great War, but why is it still going? They always used to say it was because of the Scottish Farmers, but I would have thought that farmers could adopt their own timetables regardless of what the clocks say.

<BB<

Did not realise there were that many scottish farmers in the rest of Europe

I once read that the whole time-change thing was of German origin - - - and spread.

As to following trade partners, that is why Canada is also out of synch with everyone east of the Atlantic Sea. GW Shrubbery decided to go earlier in spring, and later in autumn, than those far away people. And we followed suit . . .

Oh... don't get me started.


There's now a lot of talk here in the States to going permanently on DST.


This is beyond asinine. I hate Daylight Saving Time and now that it's a month longer, I hate it even more. It does nothing that people attribute to it. It doesn't save energy significantly. Farmers are against it. (It gives them less time to get to market and farm animals never follow the time change.) And it's actually deadly. There are more car crashes and heart attacks around the time shifts.

But the idea of making it permanent will mean that noon will never be mid day again. There should be just as many daylight hours (withing time zone variance) before noon as after.



And there is much less reason to shift everyone's clocks. Many people work with flexible hours now anyway. If you want an extra hour of daylight after work, then set your alarm one hour earlier and go to work earlier.

Well, I was glad of the extra hour's sleep. Sunday was a fairly strenuous day for me.

At work however, it wasn't till 3 pm that I realised that the time on the phone (which is where I usually look for the time, the corner of the PC monitor being a bit smaller and harder to focus on) had not been changed! I had had my lunch at 11:15! If I'd looked at my mobile or at the PC screen I would have seen the right time, but old habits die hard!

I agree with Bluebottle's suggestion, though, being one of those who remembers the time when they decided to have BST - or was it GMT? - and we were going to school in the middle of the night. According to Wiki this was between 27 October 1968 and 31 October 1971, and also in 1960 if I understand the Wiki entry right. A whole lot of mucking about. Why not just start schools an hour later/earlier and leave the clock as it is?

I also remember the time (apparently up to 1997) when the European and British clocks changed at different times. Even dafter!

Look away now if you're not interested in reading a wiki quote:

>>Campaigners, ... have made recommendations that British Summer Time be maintained during the winter months, and that a "double summertime" be applied to the current British Summer Time period, putting the UK one hour ahead of GMT during winter, and two hours ahead during summer. This proposal is referred to as "Single/Double Summer Time" (SDST), and would effectively mean the UK adopting the same time zone as European countries such as France, Germany, and mainland Spain (Central European Time and Central European Summer Time).

... While [environmentalists] generally agree with the safety benefits, their "Lighter Later" campaign focuses on the potential energy benefits of Single/Double Summer Time, arguing that the change could "save almost 500,000 tonnes of CO2 each year, equivalent to taking 185,000 cars off the road permanently".[17]

....

Others ... have proposed the abolition of BST entirely, favouring GMT all year round. Advocates of this cite in their support a lack of practical gains from the adjustment of time, arguing instead that changes in school and/or business hours would achieve similar results without disrupting a scientific standard<<

Or, as I have suggested before, why not ALL use the same clock, and just get used to going to school or out to dinner at 3 am, having a lunch break at 8 pm. In this globalised, linked-up world, it would save so many misunderstandings - not to mention simplifying flight timetables. And just imagine New Year's eve from outer space!

{I also remember the time (apparently up to 1997) when the European and British clocks changed at different times. Even dafter}

Dafter still if you do business with people in the other hemisphere. Their daylight saving goes in the opposite direction, so it's a 2-hour difference each time.

How is This Still a Thing?

http://youtu.be/br0NW9ufUUw

On daylight savings time, it was invented by Benjamin Franklin during one of his youthful journeys to England, Franklin having noted that while the Americans regulated their working hours by the sun, the English regulated theirs by the clock, wasting a potential hour of daylight during the summer.

DST was then promoted by Franklin's friends from The Hellfire Club (Franklin was a member) on the same principle as the Grand Nagus' endorsement of women's suffrage, Star Trek, DS9, "Twice the work for half the pay!".

Yes, Benjamin Franklin invented Daylight Saving* Time... As satire.

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/05/ben-franklins-proposal-of-something-like-daylight-saving-time-was-written-as-a-joke/

(I just learned that Franklin's well respected talent for subtle humor kept him from authoring the Declaration of Independence as the US Founding Fathers were worried he might sneak in some humor that might not be recognized until it was too late.)





*Saving is properly singular.

....a fell truth on humor, though most will recognize it as polite and understated way of saying, "Please don't do that.", "Please don't be that way.", or "Please don't let this happen to you!", there's always some idiot out there incapable of understanding this, who's going to run right out and do the dastardly thing, whatever their excuse may be.

Same hazard obtains with 'negative psychology' and propaganda generally.