Edit: One of the many reasons I moved to Arizona.
Originally posted June 15, 2011 on AIXchange
I devote a considerable amount of time to thinking about time. With family, friends, clients and fellow IT pros sprawled worldwide, I must think before picking up the phone. It’s never fun to be the recipient of a 3 a.m. call because someone incorrectly calculated a time-zone difference.
Even with e-mail, I must remind myself that, in some cases, I shouldn’t expect a reply any time soon since it’s nighttime where the recipient lives. Or I realize that no, I’m not getting messages in the middle of the night, just from other parts of the world.
My calculations are made easier thanks to a tool called kworldclock (here).
It helps me visualize where the sun is shining around the world. I’d like to see it ported to other platforms so more people could use and enjoy it. However, the Android Market has a free app called “daylight world map” that I recently downloaded. It’s almost as good.
Another useful resource is the website, EveryTimeZone.com. I’m sure there are other similar sites out there, and I’d be curious to hear about your favorites.
I’ve also used Windows desktop gadgets that display times (and local weather conditions) in different parts of the world. And with Firefox’s foxclocks extension, times in different locations worldwide can be displayed in your browser.
While the world obviously needs different time zones, I don’t understand why we compound the confusion with Daylight Saving Time. For 20 years I lived in Arizona, the one U.S. state that doesn’t observe DST. I still can’t get over the fact that the rest of the country and other parts of the world burden themselves with it. Nonethless, having since lived in other areas of the United States, I now spring forward and fall back and take weeks to adjust to the changing hours like everyone else. Who came up with this idea?
Though I am in agreement with many others who’d like to abolish DST, this group would take it a step further and halve the four U.S. time zones.
“Congress appears to have felt we were not having enough of a difficult time so in 2007 they passed a law starting Daylight Savings Time three weeks earlier and ending it one week later. This cost U.S. companies billions to reset automated equipment, put us further out of sync with Asia and Africa time-wise, inconvenienced most of the country, all in the name of unproven studies that claim we save energy.”
I can attest to this. Back in 2007 I was patching machines so computer clocks could accommodate the change. It was like a Y2K flashback. I can only hope I don’t have to go through that again.
More from StandardTime.com:
“The activists here at StandardTime.com have a modest proposal to end Daylight Saving Time that will reap large benefits in addition to ending the semi-annual changing of the clock. It has not escaped our notice that in the United States, Eastern Standard Time is the same as Central Daylight Time and Mountain Standard Time is the same as Pacific Daylight Time. Thus, we propose that The Pacific and Central time zones remain on permanent Daylight Saving Time, and that the Mountain and Eastern time zones remain on permanent standard time.”
I don’t mind planning calls or going to other lengths to facilitate communications with others from around the world. But change my clocks twice a year? Let’s just say I have no time for that.