Bump.

Note: this site's clock is based on GMT which has no DST. So, as Toby said, you need to manually make an adjustment when necessary. For the USA that was early AM on November 1st.

i think DST is a crock of crap. i understand why the US did it during the war, but the war is long over, and now we do it simply for routine's sake. not all states participate anyhow and we might as well simply get rid of it. thats my thoughts in a nutshell.

My phone didn't and apparently I have another hour to sleep in. Thanks alarm.

This site doesn't support DST :'-(

@ Tru Ninja: "I think DST is a crock of crap"

I could not agree more. There is no justification for it.

In the UK we use GMT from late Autumn to late Spring, then we leap forward an hour to "British Summer Time" in Summer and early Autumn. It is totally pointless.

I'm glad I will never follow DST or live in a place that does.

No offence, Sayjo, but are you really THAT good at predicting the future?

How can you know for certain that:

a) You will never, ever, leave the country you currently live in,

or that:

b) Even if you stay living in the same place, your government will never, ever, in your lifetime, decide to INTRODUCE daylight savings time.

How can you be so certain? Do you have terminal disease which is likely to kill very soon?

Daylight saving time has genuine economic and safety benefits.

Being something of a night owl and having lived in countries that do and do not follow DST, I find it quite nice at the height of summer to have an hour of sunlight "moved" from the morning to the evening.

@ Ghostmaker: "Daylight saving time has genuine economic and safety benefits."

Would you care to back up your statement, Ghost?

>Daylight saving time has genuine economic and safety benefits.

You mean, getting up earlier (and going to bed earlier) has genuine economic and safety benefits.

It's sad that we have to tell the government to trick us into doing this.

TGM is correct, DST allows offices (actually, everything in the tertiary) and schools to keep the lights off one hour more. This means less electricity used so less money spent.

The alternative would be to move by one hour opening and closing times of the whole service sector for the whole year. Which would be simpler, probably, but well, it's not a big inconvenient.

During summers, at least in regions outside of the tropics, daylight hours are long enough that the sun is up well before most businesses open, and sets well after most are closed. The only time it would effect lighting is in fall or spring - but I'd be willing to bet that any energy savings by businesses are more than offset by residences having to turn on their lights to compensate for getting up before sunrise or staying up after dark.

"@ Ghostmaker: "Daylight saving time has genuine economic and safety benefits."

Would you care to back up your statement, Ghost?"

Ok. Firstly, the daylight saving time adjustment means that more rush-hour traffic is in daylight, meaning that there are fewer accidents. Secondly, the daylight saving time means that people spend more time in the sun, which is beneficial to health. Thirdly, it ensures that lighting is used to a minimum. Fourthly, it means that school-age children sleep enough, and so it has a dramatic effect on their learning, and there are long term knock-on benefits to the economy.

"It's sad that we have to tell the government to trick us into doing this."

It's no trick. If we didn't have Daylight Saving Time, in order to get the effects it has, we would have to move all of the times that we do things during the day forward and back throughout the year. By having daylight saving time, we can work and the 'same' hours all through the year, and the benefits remain. In addition, in a given country, the times we have are all moved at the same time.

In addition, we would continue to use DST even if there was no government to 'enforce' it.

Here in West Aus we had a vote a couple of months ago on whether to go for DST, it ended up 49:51 against, I don't think people were too bothered either way (but having a trial period then going off it again really makes it hard to account for)

I've googled for ways to deal with DST in PHP, but can't find anything except people having trouble. One possibility is having the site output UTC/GMT timestamps and using JavaScript to factor in your timezone locally, where your computer already has correct timezone info, but it's not high on the todo list

>Fourthly, it means that school-age children sleep enough,

I don't understand this one at all. How does starting school an hour earlier in late spring and early fall ensure that children get enough sleep? It would seem to me to do the opposite.

>In addition, we would continue to use DST even if there was no government to 'enforce' it.

We might. It's hard to believe that it would have gotten started without governments, who set the rules. That would mean that businesses in some area, or railroads, or some other nongovernmental group with influence got everybody to agree to set their clocks back an hour in the summer; and to get DST as it exists now, they'd have to eventually agree to expand that period of time to most of the year. It seems much more likely to me that businesses, schools, etc would just decide to open an hour earlier in appropriate seasons, since this doesn't require any coordination. Then there would be no resetting of clocks.

But if the government collapsed, then we might well continue what we're used to. At least that would stop its insidious spread towards winter!

@ Noirin: "DST allows offices (actually, everything in the tertiary) and schools to keep the lights off one hour more. This means less electricity used so less money spent."

Not in this country. In the UK, during summer, when we are on the "British Summer Time" or DST time, it is sufficiently light between 9am and 5pm that a well-designed building should get enough natural light that electric lighting is hardly needed at all. Lots of public buildings have the lights on a lot of the time when it is not necessary, in my opinion, but DST does not effect this.

(Yes I know, this is basically what Nostradamus said, but I thought I would give my perspective from the UK to back that up)


@ Ghostmaker: "Ok. Firstly, the daylight saving time adjustment means that more rush-hour traffic is in daylight, meaning that there are fewer accidents."

Interesting - this isn't an argument I was aware of. I can't disagree on this one, Ghost, but I might do some reading on this if I get time. Care to suggest any places I might start reading?


"Secondly, the daylight saving time means that people spend more time in the sun, which is beneficial to health."

How? It applies at the brightest time of the year? Surely all it does is mean people spend time in the sun at a slightly different hour?


"Thirdly, it ensures that lighting is used to a minimum."

I don't agree with this, as I have explained above. As an addition, I should point out that in Scotland, where I grew up, BST makes sunrise MUCH later, so that for at least a couple of months in the year, normal daylight does not come around until about 10am, so you actually use lighting MORE in the morning.


"Fourthly, it means that school-age children sleep enough, and so it has a dramatic effect on their learning, and there are long term knock-on benefits to the economy."

Like Toby, I don't understand this at all. Why would they sleep less if time did not get moved about?

read this article Ghost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time#Benefits_and_drawbacks

results are inconcluse regarding economic effects and energy use, appear good for public safety but fatal for health. heart attacks and suicides rise severely for weeks after clock shifts. also, added complexity, especially in software, costs trillions of dollars. trust me, i work in IT. even Kestas can't implement DST on this site correctly. imagine the effort to implement it in every single software that sells in more than one country

I think this thread is moving towards a consensus that DST does not lead to energy being saved.