29 Aug 2010
Time zone battle back in spotlight

Backwards Clock

O Tempora! The problem here isn't Eastern vs. Central, the problem is daylights savings time. If we switched to Central Time (and kept DST) the problem would simply shift around the calendar. It might not be quite as obnoxious, but the net effect would be the same. It's simply an accident of geography that Indiana happens to fit in one of those places where fiddling with the clock is going to have weird side effects, which is precisely why we've been wrestling with time zones since the railroads forced them on the country over a century ago.

Eastern or Central - take your pick, it's almost irrelevant. Just stop springing forward and falling back before more fecal matter hits the whirling blades!

The Central Time Coalition favors having Central Standard Time in the winter and Central Daylight Time in the summer. That would put the state on the same time as Chicago.

(link) [Indianapolis Star]

18:49 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

13 Mar 2010
Wait! Daylight Saving Time will cost me money?

Backwards Clock

Hey, Mitch! I want my $10 back (for three years of this idiocy). Somehow, the state doesn't seem to be giving out rebates for this... wonder why? Of all the moronic things our current governor has done, and he's got a whopper of a list going, daylight savings time has to be the one that galls me the most. This seemingly trivial thing has huge implications well beyond energy waste. Look up accident statistics for the week after "springing forward" to see exactly what I'm talking about.

The move to Daylight Saving actually used 1 percent more electricity than if people stuck to Standard Time, according to a 2008 study of residents in Indiana. In other areas of the United States, the time change could cost people even more.

(link) [Christian Science Monitor]

Update:I forget to mention heart attacks...
via Masson's Blog

17:26 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

22 Nov 2008
Eliminate DST Nationwide

Backwards ClockI mentioned this study back when it was released, but the authors now have an op-ed in the Grey Lady using it as a basis for recommending elimination of daylight savings time nationwide. Why?

"Daylight time costs Indiana households an average of $3.29 a year in higher electricity bills, or about $9 million for the whole state. We also calculated the health and other social costs of increased pollution emissions at $1.7 million to $5.5 million per year."

Note to Obama: wanna save energy? You know what to do!

Why do we — along with 75 other countries — alternate between standard time and daylight time? Although many people believe it has an agricultural provenance, daylight time has always been a policy meant to save energy. As Benjamin Franklin argued, if people moved up their summer schedules by an hour, they could live by “sunshine rather than candles” in the evenings.

(link) [New York Times]

09:24 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

10 Nov 2008
Daylight Savings Time Increases Energy Use in Indiana

Backwards ClockThis is the second study using Indiana as a model that's confirmed this. If Obama is really serious about cutting energy use, he could immediately save us 1% by repealing DST nationwide.

But I'm not holding my breath.

The Freakonomics Blog reports on a study of Indiana energy use for daylight savings time showing an increase in energy use of 1%. 'The dataset consists of more than 7 million observations on monthly billing data for the vast majority of households in southern Indiana for three years. Our main finding is that — contrary to the policy's intent — D.S.T. increases residential electricity demand.' Maybe that's just from millions of coffee makers being pressed into extra duty.

(link) [Slashdot]

07:28 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

30 Oct 2008
The Daylight Saving Loss

Why do we insist on doing this to ourselves?

The concept of "Fall back" changes when you become a parent.

(link) [New York Times]

06:41 /Politics | 4 comments | permanent link

14 Jun 2007
Research finds that circadian rhythms dominate all life functions

Something for the idiots behind Daylight Savings Time to consider ... it's 10:07 pm EDT here, and it just now got dark. On June 14th. Ridiculous.

New research from Colorado State University shows that the function of all genes in mammals is based on circadian -- or daily -- rhythms. The study refutes the current theory that only 10 percent to 15 percent of all genes were affected by nature's clock.

(link) [EurekAlert! - Breaking News]

21:10 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

10 Nov 2006
Indiana Chamber Disappointed With Election Results

Poor babies. After their support for the toll road sell off and the imposition of daylight savings time they should be glad that there are any "pro-business legislators" (that is, toadies who slavishly follow the lobbyist money rather than the interests and views of their own constituents) left. I must say that I'm particularly gratified by the loss of Troy "I'll Never Vote for Daylight Time" Woodruff, who ended up casting the deciding vote in favor of it's passage in the Indiana House.

Despite what the pundits pontificate, voters do remember. And we act on those memories.

Indiana Chamber of Commerce President Kevin Brinegar says the state's largest business organization is disappointed that it lost four strongly pro-business legislators in the Indiana House.

(link) [Inside Indiana Business]

Update:Even the former Republican Speaker of the Indiana House recognizes that DST cost them the election.

09:51 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

18 May 2006
State’s waists wider, lungs blacker

Joe CamelNot only are we getting fatter, we're smoking more! How can this be? I don't get it. From the article:

"The same survey showed that 27.3 percent of Hoosiers said they smoked last year, up from 24.8 percent in 2004."

Maybe we're smoking more because it's mandatory in restaurants. Maybe it's all the "Start Smoking Now" programs we're putting into schools. Or maybe it's all the Joe Camel ads on television ...oh, wait a second! I may be missing something here!

We must be smoking more because of all the stress over daylight savings time.

(Let me sincerely apologize if any of the sarcasm from this post dripped from your screen to your keyboard and gummed things up.)

Long considered among the nation’s most unfit citizens, Indiana residents are apparently losing ground in the battle against obesity, smoking and other unhealthy behavior, according to a new survey.

(link) [FortWayne.com]

via Masson's Blog

06:56 /Politics | 3 comments | permanent link

03 Apr 2006
Why I'm Opposed to Daylight Savings Time in Indiana

Look out! Here comes Dave Quixote, tilting at another windmill! Why is the idiot doing this, ignoring so simple a thing as a setting on a clock?

Observant readers will note a new graphic in the left hand column here, replacing the logo for StandardTime.com but maintaining the link. It shows the time the page was loaded in Eastern Standard Time - and I must confess it was quite interesting to get it working both locally and on the server (which is in San Diego, incidentally) and ignoring the now near ubiquitous DST. But I managed. None of the computer clocks here at Hammerstead have been reset, nor will they be. I've set up my own time server for this purpose - if you're intereted leave a writeback or drop me an email and I'll open it up.

What could compliance with this possibly hurt, and why will defiance help? Why don't I just shut up, or at least stop my grousing and get on with it? After all, when I've lived in other states I managed to change the clocks and get on with it, despite the unnatural interruption of sleep and the feeling for an entire season that my biological clocks had not quite been reset as easily as my digital ones.

Compliance would certainly help me keep appointments - not that I have that many. And, in point of fact, the wall clocks here probably will be set to DST - and the satellite already has done so automatically. Just my personal pocket watch, the computers and my coffee maker will stay standard along with my personal schedule.

Defiance, even to the limited degree I plan, will cause me some headaches. The possibility that I'll forget and miss an appointment, or get to the post office too late to mail an important document.

But defiance also adds one very important psychological dimension: it's a way of personally shouting out to the (Hoosier) world a simple statement, breathtaking in it's simplicity. And that statement is: Non serviam. I will not serve the State. The State is not divine in any sense, and they no longer have any claim on my loyalty or for my conformance. This is a quintessential act of passive revolt: they have crossed an invisible line, and lost the nominal cooperation of one man (me) who is finally outraged enough to say "No!".

The way in which the current Republican administration went about this is the real problem. Every poll showed Hoosiers either opposed to DST entirely or favoring a statewide move to Central Time. This was not only ignored by the Daniels Administration, it was openly mocked, as though those of us opposed to such a "progressive" measure were nothing but rude and uncultured hicks who were opposed to any sort of "progress". Insulting the people of the Hoosier State was the order of the day...

And when the vote came down to it, the arm twisting was nothing short of unbelievable: my State Representative, Mr. Jeff Thompson, a man I've always respected (even if he is still a Republican), admitted to me in a phone call that he voted for the measure, even though we, the voters in his district, were massively opposed to it. He did this simply to spare a representative from an "unsafe" Republican seat in northern Indiana from having to vote for it. In short, representative democracy fell on the sword of politics, and holding power was more important than expressing the views of his constituents. "Respect" is no longer a word I use when discussing elected officials at any level.

In a very real sense, the daylight savings time debate in Indiana last year and this, has pushed me back to my political roots in left libertarian anarchism: I no longer believe that the State can be reformed in any meaningful sense. We are slaving under the yoke of a bunch of megalomaniacs , and the yoke needs to be removed, not simply repositioned.

Thanks to changes the Bush Administration made to Federal tax and immigration policy, our programming jobs were shipped to India in 2002 and 2003. That same "small and limited government" Administration is attempting to put the farm out of business with it's onerous NAIS regulations. And now they want me to set my clocks ahead and back to "save daylight" - an absurdity on it's face, but a small thing as these things go.

But it's also the one thing that I can seize some control over - it's one area where I can defy the politicians seemingly limitless appetite for power. And I can do so with little physical risk, as they've neglected to make it a criminal offense to fail to move your clocks.

Perhaps it is just a pebble - but landslides that move mountains oft start with a single small stone. So: No! I will not serve! And by the way, fuck you, Mitch!

PS: I won't be driving the toll road, either. And for exactly the same reasons.

23:00 /Politics | 3 comments | permanent link

11 Mar 2006
Time switch creating computer nightmare

Backwards ClockYou know, this really deserves to be in large, bold letters:

TOLD YA SO!

And you can bet I'll keep you posted on the chaos ...

For the record, Hammerstead Farms will not be observing "Daylight Savings Time" - if you make an appointment to come out, plan on arriving on the standard time, and not some made up hour. If you're in doubt, try looking at the sun. You might learn something that our esteemed politicos in Indy are apparently ignorant of: you cannot change the time by passing a law. To trot out my favorite quote for situations like this: "You can put a shoe in the oven but that doesn't make it a biscuit!" (Malcolm X).

If you have an important meeting starting April 2, beware of relying on your computer for a reminder--there's a fair chance you'll be late. The state's first-ever switch to daylight-saving time will leave thousands of computers confused about what time it is, and their users not much better off.

(link) [Indiana Business Journal]

via Masson's Blog

00:00 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

13 Nov 2005
Timekeeping proposal sparks row

What's all this, then? Not content with the arbitrary rescheduling that is Daylight Savings Time, some of the commercial guardians of the clock seems Hel-bent to decouple it completely from any natural phenomena. If this is their real goal, why not just redesign clocks to be totally arbitrary - and go to a ten hour day with 100 minutes per hour of 100 seconds each.

Such systems have been proposed - see the Decimal Time Homepage.

Of course, such systems still need leap seconds to stay in coordination with the Earth: otherwise astronomers, farmers and others who depend on Nature for their work or observations will get totally screwed up. But who needs those guys anyhow? All they do is discover the nature of the Universe and feed the planet! Where's the money in that?

A proposal to abolish leap seconds - occasional adjustments made to clock time, angers UK scientists.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

Update: Here's a link to an opinion piece in the New York Times on the same topic.

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

29 Oct 2005
Mainers Embrace Daylight Time Extension

I've discussed the advent of Daylight Savings Time here quite a bit in the past year, and I'm glad to report that we're not the only place with a time problem.

It's geography versus politics and economics: geographically, Maine needs to be on Atlantic Time, with no DST, year around, but network TV and a desire for economic coordination with the rest of New England have it stuck on Eastern Standard time, with a resulting early sunset.

We're in the reverse situation: when this change takes effect here, it won't get light until after folks have arrived at work and had their first coffee break! But, like like their collegues in Maine, Hoosier politicians have more important things to consider than simple geography: why, how can we keep jobs if we aren't on the same time as New York, all the time? Never mind that sleepy folks with their circadian rhythms seriously disturbed are less productive and more accident prone! The political solution is to disturb these biological rhythms twice a year, so that just as you begin to adapt to one time period, you get to switch to another!

Of course, the Feds have thrown a real ringer this week: they want to split up two adjacent counties in northern Indiana into different time zones. Which has Our Man Mitch in a tizzy, to say the least.

If jobs are the main concern, perhaps we should just switch to Bangalore time, since that's where a great many hi tech jobs seem to be heading. Alternately, we could pay a bit of attention to longitude and latitude and set our clocks to match the position of the sun ... what a concept!

AP - John Rossignol says: Let there be light. Who can blame him? The winter sun goes down earlier in the day in his northern Maine hometown of Van Buren than anywhere else in the continental United States.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

27 Jul 2005
Spring Forward, Cut Back?

Congress passed the bill, and we're going to find out how much energy daylight savings time really saves. I suspect it won't be much, if any at all. In fact, some of the original proponents of DST were the oil companies, on the premise that longer daylight meant that folks would be out driving more rather than sitting at home in front of the boob tube. That should save some oil imports, eh?

Congress is on the verge of passing a new energy bill this week that would make daylight-saving time last from mid-March to early November. (It now runs from April through October.) The sponsors of the daylight amendment say it will save the country at least $180 million in energy costs. Why does resetting your clock save oil?

(link) [Slate]

via MyAppleMenu

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

07 Apr 2005
Not Just Indiana

I have followed with a sense of incredulous amusement the absolute fixation of the new Indiana government on daylight savings time - some of these guys are more obsessed with passing it than this old curmudgeon is obsessed with stopping it. It's gotten to the point that these people are ceasing work on infrastructure improvements, taxation, public works and nearly everything else in an attempt to ram DST down the throats of a Hoosier public that either doesn't want it or couldn't care less one way or another. And I can't for the life of me figure out why.

Few local links here (as the Indianapolis Star archives go offline after a few days) but the short story is that the bill to institute this nutty scheme was first passed, then died getting out of the House when the Democrats "pulled a Texas" and left the building, not allowing the chamber to gain a quorum. The bill was resurrected (over much more substantial and to my mind, important, legislation) and rammed through the House again - only to be amended in a fashion that it's supporters find impossible to accept - it would allow individual counties to opt out! So that's now in a conference committee, and faces a threatened court challenge!

But time stupidity is not just the province of the Indiana Legislature - apparently it's infected Congress as well.

Congress also is debating daylight-saving time. Wednesday, a U.S. House committee adopted an amendment by Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., that would extend daylight-saving time by two months...

"Extending daylight-saving time makes sense, especially with skyrocketing energy costs," Upton said. "The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use. It is that simple."

In that case, Rep. Upton, why don't we just move our clocks ahead by 12 hours and eliminate darkness entirely? Think of the energy savings!

The latest twist in the daylight-saving time saga calls for the House to vote today on the bill and let the Senate -- if the measure makes it that far -- deal with a provision that is illegal.

(link) [Indianapolis Star]

Update: Apparently I'm not the only paleo-conservative out there who thinks DST is a stupid ritual, with "the malodorous whiff of industrial policy". Lot's of good history in this article, too.

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Saving Daylight

Indiana is once again immersed in the Hoosier Great Debate: should we adopt Daylight Savings Time or not.

Our new Governor is quite a bug on the subject - he contends that by moving the hands of our clocks around we'll encourage economic development and all sorts of good things will just drop from the sky for us. I think he's full of this: but what I really object to is the entire notion that we're "saving" anything. It's just specious - a completely fallacious argument.

Daylight savings time is like cutting six inches off the end of your bedsheet and sewing it to the head, and then claiming the sheet is longer! You're not saving squat: you're moving an artificial "time window" around the day. My livestock don't schedule their days according to a clock: they go by sunrise and sundown, getting more active in the summer and less in the winter. It's a natural cycle. Humans have a natural rhythm too, and when we go monkeying around with natural cycles, all sorts of unintended consequences can result.

I was quite amused to find this site: it points out many of the fallacies proposed by DST proponents as to power consumption, accident reduction, etc., etc. Listening to some of the moonbats testifying for it's adoption in legislative hearings this year you'd think that merely adopting daylight savings time would cure all of the the worlds ills. One lady even said she was all for it because it would shorten the three hour drive from Indianapolis to Evansville to two hours! Personally, I think this shows we need to spend some more money on education!

I'm quite proud of Indiana for refusing to go along with this nutty scheme to "save" light, and I can only hope that the Legislature, in it's infinite wisdom, remains set against it.

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link