Time Zone Wars: Australia v Indiana
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So why is the change of DST observation in Australia (changed from Mar. 26 to April 2 because of the Commonwealth games) worthy of an MS patch (KB912475) but Indiana's move into the 21st century was greeted only by a KB article that no one will probably read? If it's important for my computer to know that Australia's DST observation changed once, isn't the Indiana change (in perpetuity) also important? Indiana has their own time zone in the Date/Time dialog, for crying out loud. And the changes themselves are so convoluted that it could only happen in Indiana...
Most of Indiana will be fully on Eastern time; 10 counties, mainly near Chicago and Evansville, were already on Central time and will remain so; 8 additional counties are also moving to Central. However, one of those counties is protesting that they really belong on Eastern but the DOT is forcing them to be on Central. So in protest they're instead observing "Commerce Time", in which the government offices, etc. observe Central but schools, businesses, etc. observe Eastern. They're technically in compliance, but it'll be confusing as hell.
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And the real kicker is, when you change a PC from Indiana time to Eastern, by default it doesn't check the "Observe Daylight Savings Time" box... [:@][:D]
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Well, because in a couple of years, when soon-to-be-ex govenor Mitch is out of office and we're no longer observing DST, they'd just have to change it back. You're either in the Eastern zone or the Central zone. Change your timezone to one of those, turn on DST, and quit your griping. And I think you mean "Indiana's move back into the 18th century". DST is an idiotic idea whose time has past and the entire world would be a better place if everyone quit using it.
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@RoKe said:
And I think you mean "Indiana's move back into the 18th century". DST is an idiotic idea whose time has past and the entire world would be a better place if everyone quit using it.
Execpt that DST has only been in use since WW1, so at worst it's a move back to the early 20th century...
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@RoKe said:
DST is an idiotic idea whose time has past and the entire world would be a better place if everyone quit using it.
I completely agree with this... I wouldn't use these words but I agree that without DST it's better. I read about some researches and in general DST doesn't help at all. It's just increasing the chaos and creating jobs for some programmers - I saw a site selling a program showing the time in different location and they claimed it was sold for $20 or so, more than 2 million copies !?
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@mallard said:
Execpt that DST has only been in use since WW1, so at worst it's a move back to the early 20th century...
Ben Franklin first tried to get DST adopted in the 18th century; it's an 18th century idea.
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Regardless of when it was invented or conceived or whatever, it's in widespread use and it causes big confusion when some people observe it and others don't. And it's a lot easier to convince 20M people to start observing it than 3B people to stop...
You know the main reason Indiana cited for not observing it for so long? The cows. Yeah, apparently cows don't like DST. Angry farmers beseiged the statehouse at any mention of DST. Funny, Indiana actually isn't even in the top 10 in milk production. They're even behind Arizona, which also doesn't observe DST - and they're not in the top 10 either. 2/3 of all of the US milk production comes from the top 10 states, all of which observe DST.
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/dairy/pmp-bbm/milk0405.txt
I grew up in a state that observed DST, and I don't see what the big, hairy freaking deal is. Did Indiana take pride in having their own entry in the Windows Date/Time dialog?
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In Japan, there is also no DST.
Because of the farmers.
It's crap, really. What about all other farmers in, like, THE WORLD?
DST is designed to reduce power consumption. I don't know if it works.
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Seems to me that, if the significant majority of the people around you observe DST, you're at a disadvantage if you don't. We run a call center (help desk) in our office, and it was a constant source of confusion with customers as to when the help desk was open, because half the year it was on Eastern and half on Central. They conveniently ignored the statement that it was open 7-7 EST.
The theory is that more people are active in the evening than in the morning, so the sunlight that starts at 5AM is pretty much wasted. So instead, the time is shifted so that the light lasts until 10PM. Your mileage may vary, depending where you live.
