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Spring forward tonight — 12 Comments

1. Dreading it, as my wife and I do, every year. I have never been a morning person. Making them darker only makes the challenge to rise timely all the more intense

2. What I mind is not DST per se but the twice-yearly time change; it disrupts my sleep pattern for several days, not to mention the nuisance of having to set several clocks and watches either forward or backward. I’ve often wished that the gummint would pick either standard time or DST and stick with it year round– as long as TPTB don’t call it the Great Reset!

3. Thanks for the reminder.

   I’m an agnostic on DST. I can take it or leave it.

   My only complaint is in having to remember it. I do like gaining more sunlight.

4. Here in Germany it springs forward on March 27. so I have to calculate the time difference between here and the US for 2 weeks. Then I can get back my normal 6-hour difference.

5. Thanks to Daylight Saving Time, we can all enjoy the benefits of jet lag without leaving home.

6. I hate resetting all my clocks twice a year.

   DST forever.

7. DST forever, or Standard time forever. Preferably the first, but I hate the spring one-hour shift.

8. bof: silver linings… 🙂

9. In the fall the hour I “gain” is spent resetting all the clocks. In the spring I lose two hours.

10. bof – practice makes perfect 🙂
    live long and change your clocks as often as you are able to do so.
    Or consider the alternative.

11. I read a good article yesterday (good = against switching back and forth; I’m neutral on what should be the “real” time).

    https://nationalpost.com/opinion/daylight-saving-time-clocks-change-march-13-2022

    Twice a year, the government mandates that we all arbitrarily change the time on our clocks.

    It’s an annual ritual that robs us of sleep, reduces our productivity, scatters our highways with death and destruction and plunges thousands of people into seasonal depression. And it definitely doesn’t save energy, which was the whole reason we started this damn fool ritual in the first place.

    Here is your definitive guide to why daylight saving time is the dumbest, most wasteful and most unnecessary piece of public policy ever devised.

    Benjamin Franklin is often credited as the inventor of daylight saving time. But that’s not true: Benjamin Franklin wrote a 1784 article making fun of how dumb it would be for the government to switch clocks around in an attempt to save energy.

    He does give some good arguments.

    In searching for it among my bookmarks, look what else I found!
    https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/03/09/permanent-daylight-saving-time/

    Here’s an article about the move to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

    Hear, hear! I say. Being a nightowl, I very much prefer having more hours of daylight at the end of the day. But I’m aware that for those who must get up very very early, permanent Daylight Saving Time would mean a lot of darkness in the morning and even for the morning commute.

    If you live in more southernly latitudes of the US, it probably wouldn’t affect you too much. But the further north you go, the more extreme the winter darkness. So this question could pit the morning people against the night people.

    (Bonus: ballet clip)

    Why should we stop flip-flopping?
    (2020; most behind paywall)

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/heres-why-health-experts-want-to-stop-daylight-saving-time-11583340628?tesla=y

    Early Sunday morning, most people in America will spring forward and move their clocks one hour ahead to daylight-saving time.

    It is good news for those who enjoy more daylight in the evening. But experts say a growing body of evidence shows that the annual time shift is bad for our health, disrupting our circadian rhythms and sleep and leading to a higher immediate risk of heart attacks, strokes, atrial fibrillation and potentially car accidents.

    A more recent opinion by Scott Johnson, which references an old NPR story.

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/03/redistributing-daylight-3.php

    As a morning person, I am not the least bit pleased by the extension of dawn by an hour so early in the year. By the same token, do we really need to move sunset back an hour this early in March? It seemed to be coming along fine all by itself. Couldn’t we wait a few weeks, until the start of daylight saving time wouldn’t be so noticeable in the morning?

    Congress didn’t think so. In 2005 it passed a mammoth new energy bill that included the controversial monthlong extension of daylight saving time under which we are now operating. National Geographic recounts the history of daylight saving time here and here.

    A deep theory of energy savings was the basis of the applicable provision of the 2005 bill. As of the effective date of the new regime in 2007, however, National Geographic was noting that “the move’s energy-saving potential is uncertain and is already being called into question.”
    …
    Redistributing daylight is the kind of zero-sum game that underlies the liberals’ vision of the world. The hour of daylight in the evening comes at the expense of the morning. At least it is in fact only a zero-sum game.

    The economy is not a zero-sum game, although liberals frequently treat it as such, as though the wealth of “the rich” comes at the expense of “the poor.” When liberals succeed in acting on or imposing their vision on us, on balance it produces effects that are detrimental or destructive.

    [Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey, who co-sponsored the bill in the House of Representatives] Markey’s press statement demonstrated a certain credulity that puts me in mind of the scientists of Lagado discovered by Gulliver in the course of his travels. They sought to extract sunlight from cucumbers.

    Actually, you can get electricity from a potato, to power your lights in the early DST dawn; it’s done in grade-school science classes and old Cub Scout manuals.
    https://www.vedantu.com/physics/potato-battery-experiment

    NPR’s post is somewhat informative, neutral on pros and cons, and blessedly non-ideological.
    They couldn’t blame Trump for anything in 2014.
    https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/03/08/287854200/daylight-savings-time-set-your-clocks-ahead-tonight

    If you feel the time change seems to be coming earlier these days, you’re not wrong. For years, the day to “spring forward” was the first Sunday in April; it was changed in 2007 to the second Sunday in March. That change also extended Daylight Saving Time an extra week into November. For 2014, DST will run until Nov. 2.

    As Kim Ode notes in a story for the Minnesota Star Tribune, “Standard time now lasts a mere four months, making it anything but the standard.”

    Daylight Saving is meant to adjust our clocks to match the times people are active with daylight hours, the National Institute for Standards and Technology says. But the agency admits that there’s room for debate:

    I remember the days when you could debate the assertions of the “experts” – without being cancelled, jailed, or accused of wanting to assassinate The Science.

    As usual, at Neo’s post, there was an elevated, urbane, and civil discussion of the question at hand. I’ll recapitulate one comment (just happens to be mine, no favoritism here or anything).

    With flex-time, working from home, stores open 24/7, international companies, etc. — the clock-time is less important than ever before.

    Let’s call the whole thing off.

    Class dismissed.

12. FWIW
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10616433/Senate-PASSES-bill-make-daylight-savings-time-permanent.html

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