Time to Spring Forward - Daylight Saving Time
For most of you who live in the United States, don’t forget to “spring forward” to Daylight Saving Time this morning.
Remember that since last year Daylight Saving Time was extended an extra four weeks.
Here’s an MSNBC video that describes the time change. Part of the point of this post was to experiment with how to embed MSNBC videos in a WordPress blog so give me some feedback on how well it works for you if you have a chance. If you’re familiar with HTML, it does use an iframe element rather than a Javascript or object embed like you see with YouTube or other services.
What’s interesting in the video is the description of how extending Daylight Saving Time actually increased energy usage in some areas between 1-4 percent. I think this is probably accurate since in warmer areas of the country people will be at home running their air conditioner while the sun is still out. Also, if you’ve ever wondered how long it takes a clock shop to adjust their clocks for the time change, the video answers that question.
The thing I like about Daylight Saving Time is that I’ll have time after work to go fishing at a nearby local lake. Is there anything you like or don’t like about it? Leave a comment and let me hear from you.
Hi Frank,
We don’t have daylight saving time here in Hawaii, but it does have some effect on me … I have to get up earlier if I want to try to get on my company’s Saturday morning conference calls.
It was interesting when I was in Iraq last year. We used Daylight saving time. But, the day’s weren’t planned in advance (imagine that, lack of planning in Iraq). We found out that we had to push our clocks forward literally the day before it happened.
Todd
Hi Todd,
Time is one of those things that keeps me busy at the company I work for. We recently merged with another company and they use GMT for everything while the old one used time zones. Time conversion hell in the database.
Given the way things usually work in the military I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that the Navy was on one time zone, the Army on another and the Air Force on yet another. The Marines, of course, had the right time.
DST? What the heck is that?
I’m in Arizona, which doesn’t observe it, and forget about the Philippines. I did deal with it, though, when I had to deal with national truckers.
Hi RT,
Arizona is one big reason why I like to use GMT/UTC in my database records. It makes everything easier with no special calculations required.