Daylight Savings Time: Why?

Almost time for my favorite rant again. But this time there's something new to contribute:

Study: Daylight Saving Time actually raises utility bills

...While lighting bills were reduced, air-conditioning units had to run more often, because people were home on hot afternoons when they'd otherwise be still at the office. Heaters had to be run on cool mornings, too, when people got up and it was still dark outside.

You also have to love the bold statement contained in this quote:

Professor Matthew Kotchen, who pioneered the study, noted, "I've never had a paper with such a clear and unambiguous finding as this."

I'm all for killing DST, as it makes for a tidy end to my pet peeve. But that would mean 2 less Towform posts per year...

Daylight!

Things that make me happy:

PDT meets Y2K

You already know about my daylight savings time pet peeve.

This year there are 4 more weeks for the PST idiots to be wrong.

At least this article is hilarious.

Clocks' Early Spring Forward May Bring About a Few Falls

Excerpts:

When few people were paying attention in August 2005, Congress lengthened daylight saving time by four weeks in the name of energy efficiency. The change takes effect this year -- on March 11 -- and it has angered airlines, delighted candy makers and sent thousands of technicians scrambling to make sure countless automated systems switch their clocks at the right moment. Unless changed by one method or another, many systems will remain programmed to read the calendar and start daylight saving time on its old date in April, not its new one in March.

"After building bunkers in the desert for Y2K, we're not even talking about this, and it's happening in less than two months," said Matthew Kozak, an information technology specialist at Rutgers University who monitors numerous sites and discussion groups.

Microsoft cautions that some of its older products -- including Windows XP SP1 and Windows NT4 -- will require manual updates. The company's Web site provides detailed instructions on how to update various products, although it is pushing against the deadline in some cases. Updates and tools "are being developed and tested," the Web site says, and some will "be released through early March 2007."

As a fallback, Microsoft urges customers to double-check meetings scheduled during the four weeks being added to daylight saving time this year.

"Users should view any appointments that fall into these date ranges as suspect until they communicate with all meeting invitees to make sure that the item shows up correctly on everyone's calendar both internally and externally," Microsoft says on its Web site.

If there is a sweet ending to the debate, it will occur Oct. 31. Candy manufacturers lobbied for years to stretch daylight saving time to encompass Halloween. Not only will children have more daylight hours to consume treats, they contend, but they will be safer zipping across streets in their costumes.

Standard Daylight Time

Remember the famous interview question about Daylight Saving Time? It started because this has been a pet peeve of mine for years.

Why do companies feel compelled to list their hours of operation in "Standard Time," ie EST, MST, CST, PST?

Do they realize this technically makes the hours wrong for 6 months out of the year (soon to be over 7 months), including right now?

A short list of offenders:

Alienware
BellSouth
Delta Airlines Group Sales
Kyocera
Phizer
Sony
Harvard University

Would people really get confused without the 'S' in there?

Maybe they really stay open an hour later during the summer months, but hope that the confusion will prevent phone calls since they don't expect the consumer to do the time zone math to figure it out. "Let's see, open until 10pm PST. It's 10:30pm now but we're in daylight time, so it's 9:30pm standard time. They must still be open!"

Is it over concern for friends in Arizona or Hawaii (and formerly Indiana) who may get confused due to non observance?

Less is more. Clarity is better. Just ET/MT/CT/PT will suffice.

This concludes my rant of the day. Back to normal life in Pacific Time.