New Daylight Savings To Cause Pointless Technology Worries

from the oh,-look,-nothing-to-worry-about dept

Mon, Aug 8th 2005 1:58am — Mike Masnick

A few weeks ago, when people first started talking about how the proposed new dates for Daylight Savings Time (which really is becoming less needed, rather than more), there was some mumbling about how it might impact the tech world in a sort of mini-Y2K frenzy. So, it isn't that big of a surprise, now that the change is about to become official, to see what appears to be an alarmist Associated Press piece announcing that "New Daylight Saving Time May Cause Tech Problems." Worrisome, yes? Well, if you only read the beginning of the article, sure. Because the rest of the article basically points out that this is a complete non-story. Almost all of the potential "problems" aren't problems at all, and will be easily fixed -- or, if not fixed, not cause any real difficulty at all. If anything the title should have said that the new daylight savings is unlikely to cause any problems -- but that wouldn't have received as much attention.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

13 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2005 @ 4:28am

No Subject Given
I'm in Canada but I imagine how this would be a problem in the States. My VCR can't synch to PBS. Its on DST. My thermostat definitely can't synch to PBS or my mobile phone company, and its on DST; making sure my house is warm or cold enough when I get home from work. My watch has DST.

All the DST functionality would have to be turned off and I'd set all these clocks manually.

In the future, if Canada does not adopt new DST, will electronics makers make sure that the Daylight Savings Time is configurable? I hope so.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Adam Szymczak, 8 Aug 2005 @ 5:52am

Get Rid of DST
Here is an idea: Let's eliminate Daylight Savings Time. It serves no purpose. The energy savings are minimal.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous of Course, 8 Aug 2005 @ 10:53am
  
  Re: Get Rid of DST
  The only purpose this change would serve is allowing politicians to claim they did something to reduce US energy consumption. Even though fiddling with DST is like throwing peas against a wall. Sadly, the bi-annual changing of the clocks is a ritual now and unlikely to be done away with. Sorting recyclables is a similar issue. The cartage companies could collect (and sort) the trash more efficiently as a mixed stream. But sorting it before setting it at the curb gives people a sense that they're doing something to save the environment. The result isn't important, what's important is how it makes you feel.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Director Mitch, 8 Aug 2005 @ 1:14pm
  
  Let's go to Permanent DST
  Here's and idea. Let's go on "permanent" Daylight Standard Time. Going back to normal serves no purpose. The energy wastage is minimal.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Steven, 28 Jan 2007 @ 7:06pm
    
    Re: Let's go to Permanent DST
    If you remember President Nixon tried that. The only thing it accomplished was going to work in the dark and working from artificial light for an extra hour in the morning.
    
    Personally I say forget the whole thing. It is dark when it gets dark and light when it is light. It is hard enough to do busiiness from west to east coast because of time differences. When some places reject the time change it becomes very confusing
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 27 Jan 2007 @ 8:00pm
  
  Re: Get Rid of DST
  I have another idea! Why do we have 4 time zones? Get rid of 1 zone and have just 3 zones across the country. What a positive impact on commerence that would have. China only has 1 time zone!!!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Dave Thewlis, 8 Aug 2005 @ 11:13am

DST Changes and potential problems
With respect to Calendaring and Scheduling Software (at least) I'd modify your assertion that there probably isn't a problem to say that there needn't be a problem given sufficient time to prepare for it. (Granted the same thing could have been and was said about Y2K -- and proved to be true.)

There would be problems in this area without time to prepare for it (on the part of vendors and users) - probably not life-threatening, but certainly confusion, missed meetings, bad schedules, blown trips, and whatever cost you want to assign to the waste of people's time. Take a look at the advisories at http://www.calconnect.org.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 27 Jan 2007 @ 8:09pm

DST
Daylight savings is ok but why the hell do we have four time zones across our country? Eliminate one time zone all together and increase the ease of commerce with just three time zones. China only has one time zone!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Murf, 27 Jan 2007 @ 11:12pm

ONE US Time Zone?
1. What a unique idea! And will the advocates denote how we get the Sun to rise and set in this one time zone in the one hour a time zone spans? How about getting those communities in the contiguous 48 that choose NOT to honor DST at all on board first. How about just straightening out the radical US time zone lines? They look like the Republican gerrymandering of Congressional representative's districts.
2. And there are those opposed to year round DST who attribute needing Standard time to children going to school in the dark. Anyone notice when the Elementary Schools start in most jurisdictions? Actually it gets the kids on the road before the parents have to go to work, but still leaves the kids in the dark some of the time.
3. But then it might be easier to alter the Sun's orbit than to get Congress to work for us - silly thought, Congress working for us.
4. As for Canada - simple - let Quebec have it all. The French influence will be too busy working on a 20 hour work week to worry about DST = working 4 hours a day (10 to 2, including lunch) they will still have lots of daylight at both ends of the day, regardless.
5. As for the US - our clocks will all be in Spanish (make that Mexican, a sort of derivative of Spanish) before the Congress gets the illegals situation fixed - so why worry about it at all?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
E, 29 Jan 2007 @ 11:51am

Media dependancy
Notice that this thread started (and ended) on August 8th, 2005 - and then started again a year and a half later. Makes one think of how powerful the media is on determining what to alarm people with, and how often to refresh their memories (since, "if it's not in the news anymore, it's probably not important") - Now many companies are scrambling to apply fixes to their servers (ones that run appplications and services that would be affected if not time synced with each other.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
graham, 31 Jan 2007 @ 5:46pm

DST changes
As an IT manager I think it is SAD that Congress would be so cavalier about this. This is creating a nightmare for us, wasting hundreds if not thousands of man-hours (per company) and achieving nothing. I can't believe I'm paying tax dollars for these morons to do this. This profound ignorance will cost us dearly for no good reason.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
graham, 31 Jan 2007 @ 5:46pm

DST changes
As an IT manager I think it is SAD that Congress would be so cavalier about this. This is creating a nightmare for us, wasting hundreds if not thousands of man-hours (per company) and achieving nothing. I can't believe I'm paying tax dollars for these morons to do this. This profound ignorance will cost us dearly for no good reason.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Feb 2007 @ 10:17am

why change clock? change schedule instead.
in summer, go to work at 8, in winter, 9.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]