When does the time change? And when is Daylight Saving Time? Who even thought up these time travel shenanigans?
Coming to Americans everywhere (minus Arizona, a piece of Indiana, or Hawaii) at 2:00AM Local Time, Sunday March 10th. The Daylight Saving Time change is about to “spring forward.” We’ll all “lose” an hour of beautiful, beautiful sleep. The grand upside is that we get an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day, so if you sit chained to a desk with no windows from 8AM-5PM you’ll get 8 glorious months of no longer living like a vampire.
Why does Daylight Saving Time Exist?
In short, because people want more light at the end of the day rather than at the beginning.
And to save oil. People are sleeping during the morning, so aren’t in as much need of daylight. Whereas at night, people have been using oil lamps for centuries.
As oil companies tighten their grip around the throats of us commoners, the good ‘ol US Congress came to the rescue (at least they did in the 70s).
After the 1973 oil embargo, Congress extended Daylight Savings Time from 6 months to 8 months. Saving us loyal Americans 10,000 barrels of oil a day. In 1986, Daylight Savings Time was extended again, saving us more oil. Then again in 2007, DST was extended again saving us even more electricity and other forms of power! Thank you for getting something right Congress!
More Daylight, More of the Year
Daylight Saving Time was extended from later October till after Halloween in 2007. Why? Children being run over by cars are 4x higher on October 31. So Congress passed that DST would extend to the first Sunday following Halloween.
Do we still need the daylight saving time change?
I just have the question, in modern time, why not just completely switch over to Daylight Saving Time? Farmers don’t need the early morning light during the Fall like they used to. Get on it Congress!
Pro Tips
Here’s how to recover from the Daylight Saving time change blues:
Go to bed an hour early
Be really happy the sun doesn’t go down at 5PM
Plan something awesome to do on Sunday
Sleep in because you didn’t change your clocks.
Here’s how to remember whether your clock should move forward or backward:
If you didn’t learn this as a kid, shame on your parents.
In Spring time “springs” forward an hour, in Fall, time “falls” back an hour.
Here’s how to not miss work, church or whatever you do on Sunday morning:
Set at least two alarms—your phone alarm, and if you own another clock or watch, change the time on that and set the alarm on that too. Sometimes our “smart” phones aren’t smart enough without the proper update to get the time change right. With the Daylight Saving time change you don’t want it to move forward and show up to something an hour late.
Double Check Your Bomb Timer: Daylight Saving Time saves the day in Israel
On September 5, 1999, three Palestinian terrorists were given bombs to target buses with. It was Daylight Saving for them, but not yet for Israel. They were given bombs with timers set to 7:30 Palestinian Daylight Saving Time, while thinking the bombs were set to 7:30 local time in Israel (because the time hadn’t changed there yet).
So the terrorist homies were driving around with the bombs waiting to put them on their intended targets, and blew themselves up. Thank you Daylight Saving Time!
How to spell it:
The official spelling is “Daylight Saving Time” not “Daylight SavingS Time”. Why? Because we are saving daylight, not storing it up in an account (savings). Which really nitpicking about it is hilarious. Since you can’t save time or save daylight. I would like to call it, “Time Shifting Time For the Sake Of Longer Days and More Happiness Because I Like the Sun and That’s Why I Don’t Live in Seattle”.
Or TSTFTSOLDAMHBILTSATWIDLIS for short.
What is “Standard Time?”
Standard Time is the 4 months of the year that’s not Daylight Saving Time. So if you own a business and state your hours this summer as, “We are open 8AM to 5PM Central Standard Time” you’re actually stating that you don’t follow the Daylight Saving Time clock. Or you live in Indiana or something.
Don’t Forget!
Remember-the Daylight Saving Time Change is this Sunday, March 10, at 2:00AM. Turn forward your clocks!
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithser/
I love that it stays lighter later in the day! I always used to hate getting off of work at 5 and it being dark. It feels like you can get much less done, outside at least.
I know! The time change in November is pretty depressing! So right now not only do we get the extra hour of daylight at the end of the day, our days are still getting 1 minute longer per day. Love it!!
It is so weird handing out Halloween candy during broad daylight, though. This is going to sound callous, but four times as many kids getting run over is actually pretty good considering that there are probably 10+ times as many kids out on that day. That makes Halloween safer per capita than any other day of the year!
Hahaha! It MUST be safer for children on Halloween!!
THat’s awesome about the terrorists bombs going off at the ‘wrong’ time! Haha, suckas! Sometimes I hear peopel get all weird about being tired after a 1 hour time change. “Oh, I’m so tired today because of the time change…” Does an hour really affect people that much?? It’s not like they just ran a marathon or saved kids from a burning building. They get one hour less during one day. Suck it up, people! It’s hardly noticeable unless you’re late for work, of course, then you’re pink slip is very noticeable.
I actually read a study once by NASA on sleep changing. They were looking into how much they could change the sleep schedule of a space crew because of there, they don’t have a circadian rhythm to go off of. Anyways, I think it said changing your sleep pattern no more than 1 hour every two weeks won’t have much of an affect on you.
Thanks for the reminder, I will make sure to change my clocks (except the ones that really matter because they change automatically!).
Don’t forget to check the battery in your smoke detectors.
Yes good reminder Paul! I actually looked for my smoke detectors as I was writing the article!!
I think Indiana since 2005 or 2006 now observes DST.
For real? Hmmm, I did not know that!
http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/dst.cfm
DST was formally introduced in the United States in 1918. Today, most of the country and its territories observe DST. However, DST is not observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the state of Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Indian Reservation, which does observe DST).