DST
Clocks all over Western Europe hopped forward by an hour at the stroke of 0100 in the wee hours of the morning, marking the arrival of Spring1.
They call it the Daylight Saving Time (DST). The first time, I became aware of this was in 2002 when the server, which hosted my site, started acting “funny” with my post publish times.
For someone experiencing this “phenomenon” for the first time2, I fail to see the obvious advantage this brings. It reads more like a hassle to me. Changing clocks doesn’t really seem to mean anything, other than, perhaps, “convenience”.
May be that we’ll get used to this in time, but right now, this apparent “convenience” seems to be rubbing us the wrong way. I mean waking up at 0500 instead of the usual 06003, is surely going to take a toll on our body clocks.
Oh, what the hell.
- Yes, Sun is brightly shining in this part of the world. [←]
- I come from a place that doesn’t observe DST. [←]
- Even if that 0500 actually now reads 0600 on the clocks. [←]
The rationale was to save energy by turning the lights on a hour later than usual.
I am not sure about the sunset times in Netherlands, but in Aberdeen, which is located in the north east of UK, we have daylight uptil 10:30 PM in summer and twilight throughout the night until early hours in the morning.
When we first came in June 2002, we weren’t sure, whether the sun set at all or not. It was quite disturbing, because we used to wake up very early in the morning thinking that it was time to go to office (due to lot of daylight), though the time would have been say 4:00 AM. The same was on the weekends. We barely got to sleep beyond 7:00 AM as our body internal body was saying it was day and it was time to wake up.
Mar 27, 07 at 12:52What I don’t understand is why don’t they let nature decide for you when you should turn the lights on or off. If it’s dark, you put them on and when there’s light, turn them off. Why should clocks go backward and forward? It’s stupid.
The only reasoning I see is that e.g., street lights are set to go “on” at a certain time, then they turn on at the specified time, irrespective of seasons, and even when it is daylight.
I am sure there can be a better solution to this today: by programming seasons with time so devices could act accordingly.
Mar 27, 07 at 13:051. History
. Read the rebuttal who resonates your opinion.
Mar 29, 07 at 15:342. energy saving is the motivator - one switches on the lights later
Govind, thanks for those links. Interesting read. The best I liked from history is this one:
This is turning out to be a humorous topic after all
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Mar 29, 07 at 16:35