Daylight Savings Day Massacre... Part II

from the not-so-bad... dept

Mon, Oct 29th 2007 3:02pm — Mike Masnick

Back in the spring time, we noted how there was as lot of hype coming in the press about how the change in when Daylight Saving Time started would be just like another Y2K. In the end, it turned out to be pretty much exactly like Y2K: a lot of hype, a few minor issues that were easily taken care of and no major problems. Given that, it appears the press didn't bother to whip everyone up into a frenzy for this past weekend, which is when the latest time shift would have happened if Congress hadn't changed the schedule. In fact, we hadn't heard anything at all, but it didn't seem to change the results. Joseph Beck writes in to let us know of assorted minor time change problems including screwed up parking meters. In other words, basically the same totally minor problems that happened in the spring... or in years past when people simply forgot to change their clocks. My cell phone was among those that got the time shift wrong, but it wasn't too difficult to figure out the problem and fix it Sunday morning when I noticed it had the wrong time. So, basically, hype or no hype, every time there's a time change, there are going to be a few minor problems, but it's no "aclockalypse now".

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Filed Under: daylight savings

25 Comments

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Stute, 29 Oct 2007 @ 3:20pm

OH TEH NOES!!!
The clocks! Seriously... The only inconvenience I experienced was the VCR in my living room is an hour off... But it's not worth fixing it since it'll be right in a week.
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The Man, 29 Oct 2007 @ 3:23pm

Time change was worse than Y2k
The time change had a much bigger effect on tech than Y2k that I saw. Some schools still have not recovered and their bell systems and room clocks are off by 1 hour. Of course they are probably all right back on time today. I had a pretty bad day the first time change, when cell phone PDA and some workstations were not updated. It was not that it was hard to fix or caused real problems. Just time consuming and forced me to have to talk to people, which I hate to do. Found a few hold out servers and workstatons today, but much better.
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The Man, 29 Oct 2007 @ 3:23pm

Time change was worse than Y2k
The time change had a much bigger effect on tech than Y2k that I saw. Some schools still have not recovered and their bell systems and room clocks are off by 1 hour. Of course they are probably all right back on time today. I had a pretty bad day the first time change, when cell phone PDA and some workstations were not updated. It was not that it was hard to fix or caused real problems. Just time consuming and forced me to have to talk to people, which I hate to do. Found a few hold out servers and workstatons today, but much better.
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drkkgt, 29 Oct 2007 @ 3:25pm

VCR?
You have a VCR?
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Oct 2007 @ 3:52pm

New Daylight Savings Time setup is just another idiotic congressional idea, the only real winners, once again, will be the manufacturers who get to sell a whole new set of gizmos to the pissed-off public with updated DST programming.

I swear, everything I buy from now on is going to be clock-free, if possible.
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no, 29 Oct 2007 @ 4:09pm

Hate it.
If you're going to keep shrinking the length of standard time, why bother having it at all?

I hate daylight savings time. I love the winter, when it gets dark by about 5pm or 6pm. There's just something that feels great about that. I hate it when it gets dark at 7, 8, 9pm. I look forward to returning the clocks to normal time every fall. It's too bad it can't be like that all year.
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- dink9, 29 Oct 2007 @ 4:56pm
  
  Re: Hate it.
  you know there are some states/places that tell the "congress" they can go jump a cliff...
  
  ...by not having daylight savings at all. Its the same freaking time year round. OMG what a novel concept. I'm not sure where they all are, but when i lived in arizona I was sure happy about not dealing with time changes.
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- inc, 29 Oct 2007 @ 8:45pm
  
  Re: Hate it.
  Yea, this time change sucks. Needing to go through all our servers to make sure the tzdata packages are updated; what a hassle.
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no, 29 Oct 2007 @ 4:13pm

Hate it.
Also, there are plenty of problems. Maybe not for some idiot and his PC, but for servers aplenty. Most applications and servers have patches that can be applied, but it's still a hassle for someone to apply. I suspect the time and money involved in writing fixes for a number of applications (it's not just an issue of changint the timezone file in your system) and then the time involved on the customer's end to be notified about the fix, downloading and applying the fix... not to mention corporations where every patch and change must be vetted internally before deployment... and I think you're looking at a LOT of energy and money spent that negates much of the supposed savings.
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R. H., 29 Oct 2007 @ 4:37pm

Thanks for the reminder ^_^
I had completely forgotten about this, and even though I remembered to set my 9 year old VCR correctly in March however, if I hadn't seen this post my set recordings this week would have been a bit off.

P.S. Yes I have a VCR. I don't want to buy a DVR and I haven't gotten around to buying a new TV Tuner Card for my computer since the old one died.
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- Evil Bastard, 29 Oct 2007 @ 6:15pm
  
  Re: Thanks for the reminder ^_^
  My VCR sets it self autmagically based on a signal on the cable. So when DST actually occurs, my VCR self adjusts. even with the new DST changes.
  
  One strange thing, my Cable Box for one hour jumped ahead in time Sunday night from 10:00pm to 11:00pm, but when 11:00pm came around it self adjusted. Weird?!
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curious, 29 Oct 2007 @ 5:11pm

Is there still a point to this?
It was a great idea back in the day, when manufacturing and energy use was impacted by it. Now as much more energy is being consumed by processes that run constantly does it have as much as an impact? Could someone point to any current documentation that says so? If not I hardly see a trend towards reverting away from DST since more countries are readily adopting it.
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carrie, 29 Oct 2007 @ 7:00pm

time change
My two cents, Indiana, I work in a university, due to group policy the time change wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Butttttt I am waiting to feel the effects in a week, "should" and I quote loudly should be nothing. But then again the issues with software being time dependant shouldn’t have happened either. Leave it all alone I have enough to do. Change it back and leave us alone, even Microsoft gave Indiana a special zone, we should have kept it I like our own zone, and we were special. :( not.
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carrie, 29 Oct 2007 @ 7:03pm

time change
My two cents, Indiana, I work in a university, due to group policy the time change wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Butttttt I am waiting to feel the effects in a week, "should" and I quote loudly should be nothing. But then again the issues with software being time dependant shouldn’t have happened either. Leave it all alone I have enough to do. Change it back and leave us alone, even Microsoft gave Indiana a special zone, we should have kept it I like our own zone, and we were special. :( not.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Oct 2007 @ 7:14pm

Let's clear up a Y2K myth.

Y2K wasn't a big problem because of the immense amount of work and money that went into changing the problematic software.

Do you really think it solved itself???
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- Anonymous Coward, 29 Oct 2007 @ 7:20pm
  
  Re:
  or maybe not, or maybe some of both. nobody will ever know
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- mike allen, 29 Oct 2007 @ 11:46pm
  
  Re:
  Dont you mean the amount of money CONNED out of a gullible public!!!!!!!!!
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Bryan Price, 29 Oct 2007 @ 8:03pm

Like Y2K?
I don't quite think so. A lot of man years (and I do mean a lot!) went into fixing the issues of Y2K. Where I was working at the time had already run into some of the problems from the first day they wanted to computerize. Unclaimed funds in Ohio went back to the 1800's. And it also provided quite the incentive to upgrade all those computers and servers (some of which that were supposed to be upgraded never did, and they still worked fine after).

I'd really wish they just kept the time change the way it was. IIRC, next year is the same crap, but then it falls back to the way it was.

Interestingly enough the laptop I'm typing this fell back evidently because MS didn't issue a patch for Windows 2000. My XP and 2003 boxes are still the correct time. And my VCR is now an hour behind. My atomic desk clock is current, but it didn't cut over in the spring, so I'll have to watch it next weekend. My cell phone goes by whatever AT&T tells it when I turn it on.
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Instructor (profile), 30 Oct 2007 @ 5:12am

Palm PDA
My Palm LifeDrive cheerfully informed me on Sunday morning that it had automatically adjusted for DST. Not that I'm all that happy about the LifeDrive in general (ok, it sucks), but this one wasn't Palm's fault...
DST is an idea whose time (pun intended) is long past. Leave the clocks one way or the other; I don't care which. The setting of the time is arbitrary anyway. But changing them twice a year is just plain stupid.
Here's an idea: Vote for legislators who promise to abolish DST.
--
Concealed Handgun License Courses in North Dallas area
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Robert, 30 Oct 2007 @ 6:46am

my only problem
E-MAIL TIME STAMPS!!!!
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Uncle Bob, 30 Oct 2007 @ 8:50am

The sillyness of changing by a few weeks the time of day was just another pain in the ass and really didn't accomplish anything of value. Just another "good idea" that wasn't!
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TJD, 30 Oct 2007 @ 10:37am

What's a VCR?
A blast from the past...no one could every get the time right?
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Scott Wilkins, 30 Oct 2007 @ 11:46am

Why do we continue the madness?
Why don't we just move the clock 30 mins between both times, and LEAVE IT THERE!!!! Too easy I guess.
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Max Powers at http://ConsumerFight.com, 30 Oct 2007 @ 2:51pm

Time Change Benefits Some More Than Othes
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Clueby4, 30 Oct 2007 @ 3:15pm

DST is this weekend (11/4)
DST change hasn't happened yet, this weekend.
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