Daylight Savings Change Proposed 1392
AveryRegier writes "CNN is reporting that Congress has added an amendment to the Energy Bill to extend daylight-savings time by two months. They expect to "save the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day." How long it would take for the associated energy savings to overcome the cost to make, test, and deploy the necessary code changes? How would the cost of this change compare with Y2K? Does most date routines' reliance on GMT make this just an issue of presenting the right time to the user?"
Creating a Boom? (Score:5, Interesting)
It has been speculated, and fairly so IMHO, that Y2K was what initially drove the .com
bubble. While I certainly wouldn't discount releases of many previously classified technologies
and growth of the internet, there was a consider amount of capital put into hardware and software upgrades in the mid-to-late nineties.
Imagine what kind of capital would be required to change DST behavior on govt computers alone. We could probably convert CO2 and H2O back into hydrocarbons cheaper.
CSC, Accenture, EDS, et al are probably salivating at the thought of such a passage of law.
How does the US differ from EU ? (Score:5, Interesting)
CC.
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not just eliminate DST (Score:1, Interesting)
Didn't we do this in the 70's? (Score:3, Interesting)
retarded (Score:3, Interesting)
this is the way you want to save energy? a saving of 10 000 barrels / day? if you look out on the streets, do all the people that drive SUVs need to drive them? this is an argument that also apply for eupoe, but goes double for the us. tax the hell out of fuel guzzling monster cars (almost the same size as monster trucks) and lower the tax waaay down on cars like VW Polo, MB Smart and hybrids. this also deal with a lot of other problems like parking. some snowy staes might be a little m ore lean on the tax, like snowy states. But theres no need for an Suv in LA, NY, Paris or Oslo.
Re:Why not just eliminate DST (Score:3, Interesting)
My vote is for eliminating it altogether. While I'm dreaming-- if we can slow the earth down to, say, 25 hours a day, that would be super, too.
Re:Creating a Boom? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:2, Interesting)
Farmers hold a decent bit of lobbying power, moreso than one would expect by chance. They complain about DST one way or another. Most farmers like DST so they don't need to get up so early in order to get chores done. My grandfather didn't really care; he just got up when it was light out, regardless of time.
Indiana still doesn't do DST (due to the farm lobby), but, IIRC, they're trying to work it through their legislature. Whenever I go to my mom's in the summer I always laugh at them because the sun rises around 5 a.m. in June / July.
Re:How does the US differ from EU ? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, Israel has perhaps the world's most complicated DST issue in the world, as there are two separate lunar calendars in use. So not only do the competing demands of Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Muslim and secular have to get resolved, the optimum solution has to change every year. And it's still the most technologically productive per capita country in the world, so I wouldn't panic.
Regarding code changes -- c'mon. It's literally a single line of code for the whole Windows platform, same thing for Mac. Even for the Linux UI spaghetti, it's a one-liner for the KDE and GNOME date handlers, and whatever else is in use. And none of it affects anything important.
There's a good side to everything... (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, changing Daylight Saving Time could prevent terrorist attacks:
In September 1999, the Palestinian West Bank was on daylight saving time while Israel had just switched back to standard time. West Bank Palestinians prepared time bombs and smuggled them to Arab Israelis, who misunderstood the time on the bombs. As the bombs were being planted, they exploded--one hour too early--killing three terrorists instead of two busloads of people, the intended victims. (from webexhibits.org [webexhibits.org])
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:1, Interesting)
Sarcasm aside, the answer is simple, go out with them. If your job doesn't allow it, simple, find a new fucking job! Can't find a new fucking job, well, there's always the option of starting your own business. Why should the rest of the world give up something that will help the economy for just a few worthless people that don't contribute much to society?
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:3, Interesting)
That traffic accidents increase slightly in the week after the switch to summer time was in the news around here.
In terms of health and safety, it might make most sense to avoid making people change when they get up and go to sleep arbitrarily. I, for one, have been feeling like hell this week: "spring forward" sucks.
Re:how about just.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Another thing on the lights is that it is cheaper (in many places) to leave them on, than to pay someone to go around and turn them all on and off in the evening/morning. It also (slightly, but signifcantly enough) degrades their lifespan causing them to need to be replaced sooner. So for financial and environmental, they are essentailly the same. The more environmental (less energy) they use the less it costs. Businesses do use this when looking at the bottom line already.
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't remember the exact times and dates, because I was in 1st grade or 2nd grade, but in about 1974 they had Daylight Savings Time in the winter because of the energy crisis. My school started after 8 a.m., but we were getting on the bus before daylight so after a couple weeks they just cut the first hour of the school day so we went in at 9. Missed half a year of science because of it. Maybe that's why I'm so stupid today.
The current proposal is a joke, really, it is expected to save 00.05% of U.S. daily oil usage for two months a year. We need to concentrate on changes that would actually, you know, make a difference.
Re:Ban SUVs = Save More Oil Than Expanding DST (Score:4, Interesting)
How's that for encouraging efficiency?
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm, where do I start? I guess with me. I care. I loath trying to get out of bed when it is dark outside (my alarm goes off at 5:15 AM). I hate trying to get my nearly 3 year old and 18 month old to eat dinner when they want to play outside instead because "the sun isn't sleepy yet daddy." Because trying to get them to go to bed at 8:30 PM is hard enough as it is, let alone with sunshine ("daddy, it isn't sleepy time, it isn't dark yet," yes, my almost 3 year old has said these things). Personally, I think DST is one of the stupided concepts ever created (so yes, I am biased, grew up in Indiana where we are smart enough to leave our clocks alone). I get so frustrated and depressed after we switch the clocks and I again have to drive with the sun in my eyes in the morning, wake up in the pitch black, grrr! (sorry for the mini rant there)
Different idea: Get rid of it completely (Score:1, Interesting)
I'd like to see a study on the lost productivity of workers and see how that compares with these supposed energy savings. As another poster stated: why not just change the hours of our businesses? That's all that's happening anyway.
As for the farmers, don't they set their own work hours? I'm convinced daylight saving time is one of the stupidest practices in American culture.
Re:Creating a Boom? (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean carbohydrate , right?
The cheapest way is to grow lots of plants. Let the nature takes care of them! We just need to figure out how to use these plants as an efficient source of energy. Energy researches who are botanists will have an edge here.
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm still tired and coffee'd up to my eyeballs! (Score:5, Interesting)
mac os x and EST (Score:4, Interesting)
The clock ticked to 1:59:54 am and jumped to 2:59:55 am.
Re:I'll take the daylight (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not a condition that can be much improved by diddling the clocks ... I live in Ottawa, Canada, about 45N. Mid-winter sunrise is about 7:55 EST and sunset 4:25 EST. Now, you can make a big-enough offset that the sunrise is 12:55 PM and the sunset is 9:25 PM, if you really want to ... but you can't make more daylight by playing with the clock.
The British tried double daylight savings time in 1968-1970 as an accident prevention mechanism [wikipedia.org], but the results were apparently inconclusive.
As for the energy use ... surely this mostly impacts lighting energy? That's not a huge part of the energy budget, and with, as others have posted, office lights on 24/7, the reduction from clock games is likely unmeasurable. Back in WWII, when "play" meant "play outside", not "play X-box", that might have been different.
Re:Wrong Target (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe we should stop expecting children to show up at school at 7:30AM, then. Sleep deficit in high school students is heavily documented. Let them sleep in an extra hour, then it will be light enough that they don't get hit by the packs of roving cars that people think seem to be out and about during the pre-daybreak hours.
Re: kids in the dark! (Score:3, Interesting)
Our school started at 0730, I was at the bus stop around 0640. The argument that kids would have to go to school when it's dark out is STUPID!
I like DST. The more lite we have in the evening the better if you ask me. As far as it saving more in energy...which is worse, running the AC until 2230 or turning on a few 100watt litebulbs at 2130? I no live in the SF Bay Area now and we don't have AC so that argument is kida moot here
Slow Down! (Score:3, Interesting)
That will save much more. In fact, it's been proven with the speed limit set at 55mph in the U.S. in 1974.
In fact, comsumers could have an impact if they would slow down just on weekends!
Why one hour shifts (Score:1, Interesting)
If anyone is going to change his clocks anyway, why not act like real men, determine the optimum shift, be it 54 min or 89 or 124 or whatever, tell the populace the magic scientists said it was better and use it ? Why that arbitrary one hour shift. It's not like someone's gonna notice anymore after two days.
If we were robots we could even adjust each day, but that's extremistic.
Re:I'm still tired and coffee'd up to my eyeballs! (Score:1, Interesting)
Having 50 or so days of commuting removed from most of the working stiffs yearly schedules would more significantly reduce energy demands.
I think that that's great idea - employees win (1/5 less traveling cost and risk, not to mention stress for urban commuters), employers win (one less lunch break to cover).
Here's another idea: mandate office building designs that take better advantage of natural lighting. North American office buildings (like the one I work in) disgust me. I worked in a couple of multi-storey office buildings in Germany over the span of several years that I was over there and it's not uncommon to work during daylight hours with the overhead lights off. There is less eye strain and quite an energy saving and for some reason, it just feels more relaxing.
Re:retarded (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, this is actually a little more complicated than that.
If you increase taxation, the people will ask for more efficient cars. This will increase the demand of such vehicles and the vehicle manufacturers will start to do a lot of R&D to improve the efficiency of their cars.
20 years later you have a country with efficient cars and highly priced gas.
That's what happened in most European countries and that's why europeans cars are more efficients than those in North America.
Software defects (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm still tired and coffee'd up to my eyeballs! (Score:2, Interesting)
(If you don't want your kids to wait at their busstop in the dark, then change the time they have to go to school.)
BTW, this is not just a matter of "discomfort." Studies have shown that there are more traffic-related fatalities in the days after we "spring forward."
Re:I'm still tired and coffee'd up to my eyeballs! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure that that would actually help in the long run. A while back I saw an article reporting on a study of commuting habits. It seems that across all cultures and income levels around the world, they found that people on average spend roughly the same time commuting each day, whether it's walking, public transportation, bicycling or in cars.
Presumably, if flextime helps to clear up traffic jams, over time people will just tend to move even farther away from their workplaces. They'll trade in their newly freed time for a chance to live somewhere closer to their ideal accommodations, which will often be farther than they are willing to commute today.
Re:Statistics!! (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the other calculation:
The average American drives 8000 miles per year [usf.edu] (I think car owners drive 17,000 mi/year, so this average includes non-drivers)
Let's say the average car gets 28 mpg [sierraclub.org]
The US has 296M [census.gov] people.
Each barrel of oil yeilds about 20 gallons of fuel [roshd.ir].
So we have 8,000 miles/year * (1/28) gallons/mile = 285 gallons used by each American per year, or 285/20 = 14.25 barrels per year.
14.25 * 256M = 3.648 billion barrels used by cars in the US per year.
Now the same calculation getting 29 mpg, we get 3.531 billion barrels used, saving us 117 million barrels of oil per year, or 320,500 barrels per day.
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:3, Interesting)
Smart enough?
I have a family member in government in Indiana and he's looked into this given that Indiana is likely to finally cave and join the rest of the country (for right or wrong) soon.
He found out that the original lack of DST isn't due to smarts, but due to lobbying from, get this, the drive-in theatre owners in days gone by.
Their lobby isn't as strong as it used to be.
Re:Switch off the lights (Score:2, Interesting)
Not enough to be of sufficient financial impact to the owners/occupants of the building to compel them to do otherwise. Specifically, not enough to give a measurable competitive advantage for a company that turns the lights off versus one that leaves them on.
I think they should do it because it's the right thing to do, but I know that's not how it works. Bottom line is, energy costs are still too low.
While everyone seems to get upset about $50/bbl oil, I'm preparing for orders of magnitude higher.
Re:I'm still tired and coffee'd up to my eyeballs! (Score:3, Interesting)
For me, I love getting off work and still having a couple hours of sunlight. I can pretend I didn't work all day long. Of course, here in Colorado, the evenings are still nice and cool.
On the flip side, I hate this week more than any other. I've been downing coffee all day, and I could still fall asleep at my desk. If we have to go through this, I think that we should make the change occur at 4:00 p.m. on Friday...I'd rather lose an hour of work than an hour of sleep.
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:3, Interesting)
No, you're not doing either. You're just changing your clock which doesn't have any effect whatsoever on time iself, the amount of sunlight, the length of the day or the distribution of time in the day.
The problem isn't with the clock, it's with when your work starts... which SHOULD be something that can adjust seasonally.
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Creating a Boom? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep, you're right. Basically, all of Indiana is on EST year-round. However, a few counties in the SE corner (around Cincinnati) go with DST. In addition, some counties in the NW and SW corners (basically the Chicago and Louisville areas) are in the Central time zone and observe DST. (map [timetemperature.com])
There's a bill just about every session of the state legislature to change this. There's a boost right now in that the new governor is actually pushing for it. I might go through this year, probably (the plan would be to switch on June 5 this year), but they amended the bill in the House to say that counties could "opt out" of DST. The feds came in (Dept. of Transportation, I believe) and said that that would be illegal, it's either all or none. But, the House passed it anyway. The Senate leaders have said they won't touch the bill until it goes through a conference committee to take that part out.
See stories here [indystar.com] and here [indystar.com].
It's not as clear cut as this, though. It's a hotly debated topic in Indiana, with most of the business people for it (they say not having it hurts business) and farmers against it (they say it makes no sense). Generally, Republicans are for it, and Democrats are against it. Technology people that I know are generally for it, but the timeline (June 5) has them worried about keeping systems up to date.
I'm agnostic on it, though I do follow it closely.
Re:I'm still tired and coffee'd up to my eyeballs! (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, it may be limited, but the supply might be hugely greater than has been estimated. Practically without fail, they estimate such and such a field has X number of barrels, and they CONSTANTLY move these number upward.
Could it be that oil is NOT a product of biology, but of simple inorganic chemistry? Some people think so [wikipedia.org], and they are not kooks.
Daylight savingfs is dumb (Score:3, Interesting)
Just get up with the sun and go to bed when it's late, learn to deal with a world where work starts at 10am not 8am. It's stupid. China does pretty good with only one time zone and no daylight savings time. People will get used to it. Stupid daylight savings time.
While I'm on the topic how about metric time? I propose 1 day length days and decimal time so noon would be 0.5!
mwahahaha
ok I'll shut up now
Re:I'm still tired and coffee'd up to my eyeballs! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/stories/20
Re:Why not go to DST permanently? (Score:2, Interesting)
Off the cuff, I'm inclined to say that it has a lot to do with people banging buttons like a retarded chimp trying to remember how to adjust the clock in their dash as they drive to work instead of watching the road. The quotage says the Monday after we go off DST isn't safer than usual. I wonder if it's more accident prone as well?
Re:Creating a Boom? (Score:2, Interesting)
Here in Indiana (Score:2, Interesting)
Can't save what isn't there (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll add my voice to the choir... (Score:2, Interesting)
I hate Daylight Savings Time.
I had a conversation with some Chinese graduate students this week. They said, "we tried this for one, maybe two years - then we stopped it. No one liked it. Do Americans really like it?"
I replied that no one I knew liked it - in fact no one I knew had a feeling warmer than great disdain for it.
I've read enough of the comments that cite energy savings and doubts about those savings. All I can say is, unless the savings are staggering (much more than I have seen cited), it isn't worth the trouble. All of my co-workers, employees, students and clients are tired, grumpy or simply call in sick. The work done frequently has to be redone once inspected (if the inspector catches it, of course). The productivity hit, the lag of folks who forget about the change, and the accidents that happen from sleepy people just is just not worth it.
Re:Adjust the time so that it really saves dayligh (Score:3, Interesting)
To this day my strongest trigger is still dawn. When it gets dark it may not be very late, but when the sun comes up you know it's friggin' late.
~Lake