What an absolute waste of time and an utter pain in the ass. In this day and age, when so many of us could care less what time of day it is, you think this cock and bull show is saving anybody any money? When you’re up till 3:00am playing World of Warcraft, do you think: “Boy am I glad we’re on Daylight Saving Time now…I just got an extra hour of daylight.” Yeah, buddy, when did you ever notice daylight in the first place?
Anyway, silver lining: Caribou Coffee is giving away free espresso shots today and tomorrow. Go drown your sorrows in that.
THE DAYBALL.
IT BURNS.
(yes I did buy that tank from the shop ^_^; )
It actually is for energy conservation… annualized, energy savings from daylight savings time is about 3.5%, probably billions of dollars. The is also a public health benefit… it is estimated that daylight savings reduces traffic fatalities by about 1%… in the US, that’s about 600 lives annually.
So it’s not just archaic convention.
There are social and cultural downsides… Sephardic Jews regard it as an interference with morning prayer.
Me, I’ll take the numerical benefits though.
H.
I thought it was started during World War I to give the soldiers more daytime to kill people in.
Interesting take, H…and I’m all about the money…more money = more coffee to keep me awake through all of this crap. However, according to this article, 3.5% is a number only for peak hours usage and it’s only .5% for overall savings. And the article also states that the data used is from the 70s. So if the savings are there in any form, I’m all for it. But I’d want some more up-to-date studies to back keeping it.
I was told that daylight savings time was started so that in the summer farmers had more light by which to farm. I’m not sure of the exact benefit there since they farmed when it was light, not a specific time.