November 4, 2013

The end of daylight saving.

For the first time (other than when I was a child), I completely failed to notice the clock shifting ritual. I didn't notice it yesterday, and I didn't notice it all day today, not until I left the law school building at the end of class at 5 p.m. and saw how dark it was.

All the clocks I use — my computers and my iPhone — self-adjusted, so I followed the correct time, but I never had the feeling of gaining an hour. That was strange! And risky, because I do sometimes go by the clock on the oven that needs to be hand cranked to the right time.

43 comments:

rhhardin said...

If you get self-adjusting atomic clocks, they're off by an hour at random for a couple of days, but minutes and seconds are perfect.

madAsHell said...

Wait until the spring.....ahead.

ken in tx said...

In college, I had a work-study job at a library. I showed up an hour early one time because of the time change, and had to wait outside until the library opened.

Today it does not matter much because I am retired. A few years before retiring, I got migraines every year at fall time change. I think it is because all my meals were one hour late. My brain was expecting a dose of food and coffee, and did not get it.

MadisonMan said...

We ate at 5 today. Haven't adjusted my stomach to the new time yet.

MadisonMan said...

The tag is making me nostalgic.

Time....
flowing like a river.
Time....Beckoning me.
Who knows when we shall meet again
(If ever?)
But time....keeps flowing like a river To the sea

Heartless Aztec said...

Close to the equator there is no dawn or dusk. daylight and darkness are abrupt and immediate. It's disconcerting at first. Light at 6am and dark at 6pm.

Anonymous said...

If You Like Your Daylight Savings Plan You Can Keep Your Daylight Savings Plan.

Mike Smith said...

The end of DST seems to have had an effect on the Wichita sunsets. Two superb skies in a row. http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2013/11/wichitas-fiery-sunset.html

Left Bank of the Charles said...

A favorite website http://my.iwon.com/ that has concise news and TV listings is sadly not being as well-maintained as it used to be so the TV listings have been off for an hour since DST began last spring. Now the TV shows have gone back to their true times, and all is right with the world.

Yes, it turns out some websites can be worn past their prime time like a favorite old shirt, and I still don't get why you can't go back to the same shelf at the same store you bought your favorite shirt 10 years ago and get another just like it.

Anonymous said...

No Matter How Isolated You Are There is a Second Hand, Somewhere, Performing its Inexorable Sweep. The Second Hand Does Not Care if You Are Asleep, it Does Not Care if You Hit the Snooze Bar Just That One Extra Time in the Dark, Dark Morning: It Will Sweep Away the Seconds from You Regardless of What You Choose To Do. Death is a Swiss Wristwatch Passed from One Generation to the Next. One Mississippi, Two Mississippi...

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Heh. My husband has four private students on Sundays, and we were wondering which, if any, would show up an hour early. None did.

Around here it's the microwaves, the oven, and my clock-radio that need resetting. (And my watch.) Everything else adjusts seamlessly to the will of the government :-)

Anonymous said...

Re: "...my iPhone — self-adjusted..."

I Have iPants That Self-Adjust.

Original Mike said...

"If you get self-adjusting atomic clocks, they're off by an hour at random for a couple of days, but minutes and seconds are perfect."

At our house, we call it the radioactive clock.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

surfed,

Close to the equator there is no dawn or dusk. daylight and darkness are abrupt and immediate. It's disconcerting at first. Light at 6am and dark at 6pm.

Whereas we've got our long crepuscular spells. Still, "fall back" is a bummer up here. I mean, we're already getting up over an hour before dawn; now we have a late afternoon that goes almost to black by 5.

Moving 600 miles north gives you some perspective on things. Scottish Calvinism is suddenly understandable, for one.

Michael K said...

Arizona gets along fine without it. It is about a half time zone east from Los Angeles so it is Mountain time but ignores DST. In northern states, it probably makes for more difference, good or bad.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Titus said...

Cher is on DWTS tonight.

I have a huge hardon.

JackOfVA said...

In the unlikely event anyone is interested, "atomic" clocks synchronize to the NIST's WWVB 60 KHz transmitter at Ft. Collins CO.

Of course, WWVB time pulses are controlled by a cesium based "atomic" time base, but the accuracy is degraded by limitations in radio propagation and, in the case of consumer grade radio clocks, by the simplified synchronization techniques.

WWVB uses pulse code modulation, at a one bit/sec rate, and two bits are used for DST/ST flags, as explained in NIST Special Publication 432:

Daylight saving time (DST) and standard time (ST) information is transmitted at seconds
57 and 58. When ST is in effect, bits 57 and 58 are set to 0. When DST is in effect, bits
57 and 58 are set to 1. On the day of a change from ST to DST bit 57 changes from 0 to
1 at 0000 UTC, and bit 58 changes from 0 to 1 exactly 24 hours later. On the day of a
change from DST back to ST bit 57 changes from 1 to 0 at 0000 UTC, and bit 58 changes
from 1 to 0 exactly 24 hours later.


This is a fairly robust system and a decent radio locked clock will flip to/from DST when it is supposed to.

However, the increasing use of switching power supplies, CFLs and LED illumination has greatly polluted the radio spectrum in that range. Many radio clocks, therefore, only synchronize periodically, such as once a day, at a time (2 AM) when household noise is likely to be at a minimum and more favorable propagation conditions exist at 60 KHz. Between synchronization intervals, the clock display relies upon an internal crystal time base that's probably not much better than a couple seconds a day accuracy.

For more details see
http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/grp40/upload/SP-432-NIST-Time-and-Frequency-Services-2012-02-13.pdf

FleetUSA said...

You were not using Hazan's cookbook or you would have seen the kitchen clock. Bon Appetito

Joe said...

Once again, I advocate moving our clocks 30 minutes ahead this spring and leaving them there.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

MM,
Alan Parsons makes you nostalgic? Dude...

Wince said...

Titus said...
I have a huge hard-on.

Titus just went from six to midnight.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

FleetUSA,

You were not using Hazan's cookbook or you would have seen the kitchen clock. Bon Appetito

Ann may not be, but I am. Minestrone on the stovetop as I type. Won't be done for a couple of hours, of course -- I always forget exactly how damn much peelage and choppage is involved.

Unfortunately, I need to buy that book over again. Let's just say that the binding wasn't quite up to the use it has gotten, and the book is now in five very tenuously-connected sections.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

MadisonMan,

We ate at 5 today. Haven't adjusted my stomach to the new time yet.

You should see my cats. They are accustomed to getting their "wet" food at 6 p.m., and begging me for it from 4 p.m. Yesterday was a bit ugly.

Not that they're grateful in spring, when they're suddenly fed an hour early. I mean, we're talking cats here. Gratitude doesn't come into it.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Once bitten twice shy.

Another lil dog strolled (and trotted) along, big grin, loose in the city, but unbeknownst to me at that time. I told my little Fellow Barnett "hey" thinking there was an owner following, hence Barnett should allow that dog and his or her owner the freedom any American deserves-namely, to walk unmolested.

I put lil B into the fenced area and began after the stray once I realized my egregious error.

I saw a car pull over, a block-and-half ahead, and take control. The driver got out and, on his knees, was making weird "maybe this will make the dog unafraid" scary gestures.

We're I to have allowed Barnett to "molest" this stray the stray, with collar weighing 8 or 9 lbs. max, would be home now.

Now I don't know what happened.

Like dead Ethanol kids.

Original Mike said...

Thanks for the link, Jack.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Politics requires now the maxim "could lead to."

When there aren't maxims needed this one will not.

Big Mike said...

Get a grandfather clock, like the one we have. It'll be good to learn not to be too dependent on electronics to do your thinking for you.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Now, having only recently been a dream of mine, though I accept all consequences, that The Great Liz Cheney is up to bat, Enzi who?

Who is Cheney gonna beat?

You answer that and you don't, even having pertinent knowledge, understand.

Enzi ought to be A Women. He can become a he/she to serve his/her country.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Any cunts round here bring up, resurrect "The End" by The Doors.

Fuck.

Anonymous said...

And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and
...then he Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door...and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother...I want to...SET YOUR CLOCK BACK BABY....

Anonymous said...

@ NotquiteunBuckley:

You're Welcome.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Liz Cheney may become stupid and attack Rand.

But, the most appealing candidate I've dreamt, other than The Unmaking Of A Mayor, is and has always been Liz Cheney.

Attack Liz. She needs it. She, like a super-natural-being thrives on Lob Hate.

Which is abundant. In abundance and abundant, moreso when other factors also are considered.

Sorry Mike. You had so much power and did so little.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Liz Cheney suffers fools.

She knows those fools are Libs.


Other Repubs suffer conservative fools.

Not my hero Liz Cheney.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Liz Cheney is our Bill Buckley.

Our luck supersedes our shoulders of giants upon which I proclaim.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Why hasn't Big Ethanol assassinated speaking of BE?

Guildofcannonballs said...

Iowa being a political area for graft wholesome and corn-fed has starved dead kids dead.

Corn kills.

Greens are too corrupt to care about Ethanol deaths.

America is too American to consider dead kids happen when we burn corn.

That is our culture.

gadfly said...

Daylight Savings Time is absurd and so are the political decisions to insert whole states into the wrong time zone. Except for the western counties near Chicago and Evansville, the state of Indiana is assigned to the Eastern Time Zone when in fact, the Hoosier state should be in the Central Time Zone based upon its longitudinal coordinates.

When Indiana adopted DST in 2006, scientists were able to measure new energy consumption against historic use and we found out that it costs more to be on DST.

MadisonMan said...

Alan Parsons makes you nostalgic? Dude...

Just the words of that particular song.

hawkeyedjb said...

Time goes, you say?

Ah no, alas, time stays.

We go.

-Henry Austin Dobson

D. B. Light said...

We were in Europe for the past several weeks and over there they go off DST one week earlier than the US. So we woke up one day to find our clocks and watches, tuned to US time, one hour off. Fortunately we didn't sleep through any appointments. We reset our timepieces, then we flew back to the US and had to reset them again, then DST ended here..., will it never end?

southcentralpa said...

Well, if you had to pick one, it'd be the Fall ... you can more easily excuse being an hour early than an hour late

JoyD said...

Time changes don't matter to me...I don't watch the clock much.