Saturday, October 28, 2006

207. Daylight Savings Time

Daylight savings time ends tonight. I think next year it ends the first weekend in November istead of the last weekend in October, like it does now. (Too bad - I like the trivia question "Which is the longest month of the year?" The answer is October, because it is an hour longer than the other 31 day months.)

Should Alaska bother with daylight savings time? When it is still light at midnight, there is no need to "save" daylight. A state initiative to do away with it will probably be on the ballot in 2008. We really do not need to bother with it. The only arguments for it here is that (a) it will be too confusing for us and the rest of the country to figure out the time difference is it varies depending on the time of year (b) in he summer we would have 5 hours difference between Us and the East Coast, making it more inconvienent to talk to people there.

Alaska should not allbe one time zone. Alaska is a pretty large area. Also, it extends pretty far north, where theoretically the time zones get skinnier. In Nome (pretty far west), during standard time, noon comes around 3 pm.

I think Israel already switched to Standard Time. They swich on the weekend between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kipper, right? My i-pod thinks they are still on DST. (The i-pod lets you set a bunch of clocks. I'm not sure what the limit is. I have one set for Anchorage where I am, one set for Portland where my daughter is although she is actually in Eugene which is not one of the choices and is in the same time zone as Portland, one set for NYC where I have friends and family, and one set for Jerusalem so that when the news gives up to theminute news I know what minute that is.)

As long as I'm on the topic, here is my favorite daylight savings time story, pirated from the Darwin Awards website.

*************************************************************

5 September 1999, Jerusalem

In most parts of the world, the switch away from Daylight Saving Time proceeds smoothly. But the time change raised havoc with Palestinian terrorists this year.

Israel insisted on a premature switch from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time to accommodate a week of pre-sunrise prayers. Palestinians refused to live on "Zionist Time." Two weeks of scheduling havoc ensued. Nobody knew the "correct" time.

At precisely 5:30pm on Sunday, two coordinated car bombs exploded in different cities, killing three terrorists who were transporting the bombs. It was initially believed that the devices had been detonated prematurely by klutzy amateurs. A closer look revealed the truth behind the explosions.

The bombs had been prepared in a Palestine-controlled area, and set to detonate on Daylight Saving Time. But the confused drivers had already switched to Standard Time. When they picked up the bombs, they neglected to ask whose watch was used to set the timing mechanism. As a result, the cars were still en-route when the explosives detonated, delivering the terrorists to their untimely demises.

Comments:
Have you seen Tsuguya Sasaki's excellent blog
reflections shmeflections?
He wrote about the daylight savings system in Israel a week or two ago (scroll down for archives). It is the most complicated daylight savings formula on earth:

[the following is quoted from reflections shmeflections]

According to a law issued in 2005 as a compromise between religious and secular citizens, Israel daylight time begins on the first Friday after 31 March inclusive and ends on the last Sunday before Yom Kippur in the Jewish calendar. There are ten possible patterns as follows; when daylight time starts at 02:00, it becomes 03:00 (i.e., IDT = GMT + 03:00), and when it ends at 02:00, it becomes 01:00 (i.e., IST = GMT + 02:00):

1. From the last Friday of March to the second Sunday of September
2. From the last Friday of March to the third Sunday of September
3. From the last Friday of March to the fourth Sunday of September
4. From the last Friday of March to the first Sunday of October
5. From the last Friday of March to the second Sunday of October
6. From the first Friday of April to the second Sunday of September
7. From the first Friday of April to the third Sunday of September
8. From the first Friday of April to the fourth Sunday of September
9. From the first Friday of April to the first Sunday of October
10. From the first Friday of April to the second Sunday of October
 
Hi again, I meant to add that as pointless as DST seems to be in AK, it seems like more of a pain not to keep it.
 
Hi,
If you want to follow the progress of the effort to get rid of DST in Alaska and monitor our progress, please visit our website:
http://www.endalaskadaylightsaving.com/
 
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