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3/11

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by onbliss

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The Energy Policy Act of 2005 was passed by Congress and then signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 8, 2005. Under the new law, Daylight Saving Time begins three weeks earlier than previously, on the second Sunday in March. DST is extended by one week to the first Sunday in November. The new start and stop period begins March 2007.

The original House bill would have added two full months, one in the spring and another in the fall. According to some U.S. senators, farmers complained that a two-month extension could adversely affect livestock, and airline officials said it would have complicated scheduling of international flights. So, a compromise was worked out to start DST on the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November.

Enactment of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 will not alter the rights of the states and territories to choose not to observe Daylight Saving Time.

Source: http://www.energy.ca.gov/daylightsaving.html

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The place where I work, had set up an exploratory committee err.. :-) a functional team to explore, identify and mitigate issues.

Reminds me of Y2K.....

I did not know about this until I received an email from a co-worker. How is the awareness about the change on March 11th?

Looks like MS XP SP1 requires some updates.

Things appear quite calm.

23 replies

by tony hopkinson

The committee does realise they are just moving the little hand on the clock and not adjusting the earth's orbit don't they?

by onbliss

I guess they are just doing their work to ensure the systems work correctly.

Well it looks like the Y2K bug did not really bite us after all :-)

by tony hopkinson

checking their fake rolexes and mentally working out how fast to secrete milk so the udder would be full at the right time. :D

by thechas

Especially on the western edges of time zones, DST has always been a problem for farmers. If any group looses time because of DST, it is farmers.

A lot depends on if the farmer can continue to follow a natural rather than a man-made schedule.

A dairy farmer has the most issues to deal with. Dairy cows want / need to be milked at the same time each day in order to keep milk production at it's optimum. Change the milking time, and production levels will be low for weeks if not months. When you shift the hands of the clock, the cow still wants to be milked at the "normal" time. The farmer and any hired help may not be able to stay on the cows time when we shift to and from DST.

Even crop farmers would rather stick with standard time. They would rather get their work done earlier in the day and have free time in the evening, than work past 9 or 10 PM.

Chas

by tony hopkinson

Cow's Milking Time. :D
Biological clocks are set by by a period of sunlight, so the ruminants probably have a better sense of time than some twit of a politician.

by jaqui

I was in the US, I really wouldn't care.
I personally don't change a single clock or observe the complete waste of effort that is daylight savings time.

it's sole purpose is to screw up your sleep patterns.

you don't get any extra daylight.
you don't SAVE any time.
there is exactly the same number of hours of daylight without it as with it.

by nicknielsen

But that's because I lost the directions and have forgotten how to change the time. I'm so used to it now, I'll probably keep subtracting an hour from the time for weeks after we go back on daylight savings time.

by dawgit

They did this once before, in the early 70's if I can remember that far back. (after the 60's, the 70's were still a bit foggy ;\ ) It was a diaster if I remember correctly, got quickly recinded. Oh-well, here we go again. Does the US have to repeat all of it's mistakes? -d

by onbliss

The PCs were not there, and obviously the "perceived" impact to the common man was less, right? Days when Mini and Main frames ruled.... Main frames continue to still share the limelight.

by dawgit

No PC's of course. I don't think at that time it had much effect on the computers at all in those days. Net-Time coordination was not an issue yet. There was also not much of a hic-up in our comms either as we were always on Zulu anyway.
It was the people that is was hard on. (I don't remember asking any cows about it though.) -d

by charliespencer

Because of the OPEC oil embargo, we went to a longer DST period to save on light bills and electricity generation.

by charliespencer

There's been a patch for weeks, downloadable by the Windows Update system or manually from MS.

I raised this issue here over a year ago when the legislation passed. More people were interested in correcting my use of the phrase "Daylight Savings" instead of "Saving" than were actually interested in discussing the technical implications.

I wish we'd move the clock forward this spring and leave them there.

by dawgit

Now I've something to worry about. A patch to fix the worlds computers for something that only affects the US. I can smell the mess already.

by thechas

This was covered pretty heavily when the energy act went through congress.

I think there was even a TR discussion on it at the time.

What will be effected?

Any Windows system prior to Windows 2000. That means 95, 98, Me and NT systems will all need to have the time changed manually.

Any old system with a BIOS DST setting will not function correctly either.

A bigger issue for this go round than Y2K is embedded systems with DST built in.

Any time keeping device that adjust itself for DST will not change on the correct day starting this year. And, guess what? No patches for most of these systems. You will need a new device. Be it alarm clocks, DVRs, VCRs, watches, or cars. The clocks won't automatically adjust on the correct day anymore.

From a business standpoint, the biggest impact will be on labor reporting systems for third shift employees. Unless patched or upgraded, the systems won't handle the new date properly, and could credit or debit time for employees on the old transition date.

Chas

by onbliss

...out have manual adjustments to set the time, don't they? If it is just a question of [b]automatically adjust[/b]ing on the correct day, people could possibly live with it.

by thechas

True, most of these can be manually adjusted. Some can be set to ignore the programmed in time changes. Others cannot.

If the device cannot be set to ignore the automatic change, you will need to manually adjust it 4 times a year.

Chas

by tig2

Where we didn't really care about DST. We simply did not observe it.

I have all the computers set to ignore DST completely. It is a reasonable solution and it works.

All DST ever does for me is make me confused as to what time it is.

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