Daylight Saving Time

[7george]

Summer time shift coming again to North America. Next weekend. We just changed it to this ~ 4 months ago.
Isn't it senseless? What lamp energy, what savings? These are the smallest expenses for a house. And here everything is about spending.
Just change your awaking or working time in the summer if you need it and thats it. And avoid the stress of adapting and so many clocks adjusting 2-ce a year.
Will need lot of years to get this.

[majcka]

We got into DST in 1983 I thik and I still didn't get used to it. It is the dumbest thing to do for saving anything in my book.

[DaveW]

We supposedly set the worlds base time in the UK (Greenwich Mean Time = GMT) but only stick to it half the year, then changing to British Summer Time = BST for the other half. Evidently the government doesn't think our population is capable of the mental computation of starting work one hour earlier in summer, so have to change the clocks to fool them into doing so! Personally I would stick to GMT all the year and just move work hours by one hour in the summer. Presumably it is also done to save altering work or delivery contracts where hours are already stated, therefore altering the clocks legally effectively alters the period contracted to without needing any change to the wording?

I remember my father talking about Double Summer Time = DST Maja in WWII when they moved the clocks on in the UK by two hours in summer in order to get an extra hours wartime production.

[majcka]

Well. At least you have it done for half a year. We have a DST for 7 monts....I think we should of done a winter wasting time or something and have our clocks one hour late for 5 months.

[adetheproducer]

I think in this day and age of complete connectivity with everyone in all time zones the idea of every one having different times is pretty pointless. The majority of the world is now active 24 hours a day may as well all adopt a single time for the whole world and then understand subject to your possition on the planet you operate at different times. The southern hemisphere is ok with december being in the summer rather than winter, the world has coped with that all along its the same concept.

[DaveW]

Earth time is not the same across even a small country like the UK. When it was determined by sundials etc the time varied from town to town since when the sun was at it's highest that was noon. The whole country only equalised it's clocks when "Railway Time" was introduced:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Now the atomic clocks are so accurate the earth is out of step with them and they have to keep being adjusted to bring them in line with the seasons and rotation of our planet.

"But the Earth, Moon, and Sun—massy orbs of rock and fire—do not behave so predictably. Some years, interactions between the three make the Earth orbit a little slower; sometimes, a little faster. In order to keep UTC noon synced to solar noon, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service adds or subtracts a second to the global UTC every so often. On Monday, it did this most recently, decreeing that June 30, 2015, will last one second longer than the usual 86,400."

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a ... ck/384355/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Regarding DST:-

http://www.timeanddate.com/time/europe/ ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[7george]

Here EU citizens (and others too) can express an opinion on DST practice and plans of European Commission to abolish it.

https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/20 ... rangements