One Step Away from Changing Daylight Savings Time

An anonymous reader writes "Congressional leaders from both parties have signed off on a proposal that will change daylight savings time in the United States as early as this year. All that is left is a signoff by President Bush. If the proposed solution becomes law, DST will be extended two months, from March to November. With many IT applications relying on accurate time information and many having automatic adjustments for DST, how will the IT world handle this change? And with the proposal reportedly taking effect this year, is there enough time to implement change?"

My own preference

[ZoneGray]

What I'd prefer is that they passed a law making the hours between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm shorter.

They should do away with 24-hour clock

[Anonymous Coward]

US should reaffirm its innovation and move out of the old systems, like the metric one. They should break up the day into 100 hours instead of stupid 24. Potential benefits:

- Easier to calculate amount of hours worked.
- Working 9 to 5 becomes a breeze.
- With minimum wage tied up to the hour everyone could be rich and retire early.

Answers

[DanThe1Man]

Badly. No.

Score yourself at home. How did you do?

Re:This is spectacular

[ottergoose]

Next thing you know Bush will make us use a calandar based on how many days it has been since Jesus died. That would be absurd.

usa

[sewagemaster]

since this is a US thing, will the change affect canada as well? (ok, before BC and Ontario become part of the US while Quebec splits off from the rest of Canada? ;)

WAHOOO!!!!

[QuasiEvil]

Yeah, here goes my karma. Oh well.

WAAAAHHOOOOO!!!! I'm not a morning person, so I don't give a crap if it gets light earlier. I'd rather have more light after work, when I'm actually awake and productive...

Non-morning people unite and rejoice!

Re:They should do away with 24-hour clock

[generic-man]

They should break up the day into 100 hours instead of stupid 24. Potential benefits:
- Working 9 to 5 becomes a breeze.

Are you insane? With a 100 hour day, working "9 to 5" becomes a 96-hour day, equivalent to 23.04 of your Classic American Non-Metric Hours. That's no good.

This could be a Hallmark event

[nizo]

This isn't a problem; simply get Hallmark to create yet another holiday. Something catchy like, "Don't burn your house down" day to help people remember to change their batteries (maybe even with a pocket to hold replacement batteries).

Re:Billing rates are going up!!!!

[sewagemaster]

It's Y2K all over again. :)
Hopefully the consulting companies will be able to sell the scare and raise the billing rates!
Jobs!!!! Jobs!!!!

This is like rediscoving your erection again. In the beginning there were no problems having one. Then it disappeared, seemingly for good. And suddenly it all came back like saussages at a hotdog stand!

Re:This could be a Hallmark event

[robertjw]

Something catchy like, "Don't burn your house down" day to help people remember to change their batteries

Good idea, except we will need two holidays, one for spring and one for fall. We should name them something similar so people will never remember which is which (like memorial day and labor day). Maybe "Don't burn your house down" day in the spring and "Save your life" day in the fall.

Re:Why the IAFC is against the change

[eln]

The biggest problem with this change is that Daylight Savings Time will now last much longer than Standard Time. Since it would then be DST most of the time, Daylight Savings Time should be renamed "Standard Time." Of course, that leaves the problem with what to call the old "Standard Time." My suggestions are as follows:

- Daylight Wasting Time
- Congress Has Too Much Time on Their Hands Time

Re:I know how I'll handle it...

[F452]

Now if there were only a way to automagically delete all occurrences of the word "automagically." What are you: Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer? Does our world frighten and confuse you? Your cell phone updates from the network because of software. There aren't little demons in there doing it.

Re:Fix

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha, whoever the idiot is that marked this redundant should have the dunce cap put on.

They should change the names, too.

[Robotech_Master]

If we're going to be in Daylight Savings Time 9 months out of the year, they should call Daylight Savings Time "Standard" time, instead, and change Standard Time to "Daylight Wasting Time" (DWT).

No DST worked for me!

[Dr. Transparent]

Blessed AZ. Giving the finger to you time switchers the world over.

I agree no DST is awesome.

Re:Why the IAFC is against the change

[darkonc]

Real simple.. We'll have Daylight Savings Time, and Daylight Standard time. That way we don't have to keep changing the abbreviation all the time.. Here on the West coast it'll just be "PST" all year 'round.
(Patent Pending)

Re:This could be a Hallmark event

[Martin Blank]

That's a Commie holiday. We don't support Commie holidays here in the US.

Commie.

Re:My own preference

[snorklewacker]

I work nights, you insensitive clod!

Re:Why the IAFC is against the change

[someonewhois]

I dunno. "What time zone are you in? I'm in GMT." "Oh, I'm in CHTMTOTHT. :)". Sounds kind of akward, eh?

Re:Billing rates are going up!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we have our 'puters set for GMT?
Another idea is to set your systems time to UTC.

Re:Why the IAFC is against the change

[user317]

i wish they would switch to metric time [wikipedia.org]. Remember this moment, people: 80 past 2 on April 47th.

Re:Why the IAFC is against the change

[b!arg]

That's a good idea too...I just usually burn something in the oven or on the stovetop. This gives me a weekly check of my smoke detector! No once can say I'm not doing my part for fire prevention!

Re:This is spectacular

[l810c]

That [wikipedia.org] would set us back decades.

It would be the 1970's all over again

Re:Why the IAFC is against the change

[deathy_epl+ccs]

Yeah, but EVERYONE uses France for that predictable knee-jerk response...

Re:Why the IAFC is against the change

[outsider007]

I would like as an add-on to the bill, a proposal for 13 O'clock to be added to the clock, that way we could all get an extra hour of sleep.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Why the IAFC is against the change

[omeomi]

Daylight Savings Time should be renamed "Standard Time." Of course, that leaves the problem with what to call the old "Standard Time." My suggestions are as follows:

We'll just call it "Standard Time Full Speed" and "Standard Time Hi-Speed"...that'll solve the confusion.

Re:Why the IAFC is against the change

[zippthorne]

There's a queen of canada? Or do you just take the Queen of England and call her the Queen of Canada (kind of like prince charles is Prince of Wales.. shouldn't he be prince of England if his mum is the queen?)

The only titles of nobility I recognize are Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon and Radon. And I don't count Radon since it's only temporary.

Re:Why the IAFC is against the change

[hunterx11]

can you imagine the confusion if we didn't follow?

We Americans are more concerned by the confusion caused by your 20 hour day [big-boys.com] than a slight adjustment such as daylight savings time.

Re:This is spectacular

[Anonymous Coward]

And that would give Bush to re-live those glory days in the Guard.

Re:This could be a Hallmark event

[WindBourne]

If you think that we speak English in the USA, then you obviously have not been here (nor did you capitalize the English). We speak something, but these days, I do not think it is English. Just listen to GWB.

YOU must be the terrorist leader( or if you are older, then you are a commie pinko ).

Re:Why the IAFC is against the change

[Atryn]

The Queen of England is also the Queen of Canada, she is also the Queen of Australia and the Queen of New Zealand, just to name a few more.

Mayeb ya'll should consider a revolution? I know, it was so last millenium, but you could get another holiday out of it...

Re:This could be a Hallmark event

[The Snowman]

That's a Commie holiday. We don't support Commie holidays here in the US.

No, we "celebrate" Labor Day by forcing our blue collar workers to their jobs to run the retail stores while everyone else enjoys sales, promotions, and extended shopping hours.

Celebrate Labor Day by working! Amazing!

Re:This could be a Hallmark event

[aidfarh]

Actually, I've always felt the other way around. I find it ironic that we celebrate Labour Day by having a holiday. I mean, fathers don't celebrate Fathers Day by stopping being fathers, mothers don't celebrate Mothers Day by stopping being mothers, nurses don't celebrate Nurses Day by stopping being nurses, etc., so why are labourers celebrating Labour Day by not doing any labour? In fact, we should celebrate Labour Day by doing more labour, to really celebrate the concept of labouring.

Re:This could be a Hallmark event

[MemoryAid]

Congress would better serve us by providing incentives to battery manufacturers to create batteries that could reliably detect smoke for a whole year.

Why do we need daylight saving time at all? Because congress is already in bed with those same battery manufacturers, who want us to buy twice as many batteries as we really need. Follow the money... but you already know where it leads, don't you.

Re:This could be a Hallmark event

[Anonymous Coward]

... but people will be too wasted...