Questions about Daylight Saving!

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Ian

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May 4, 2005
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766
Location
Adelaide, South Australia
Now that Australia is officially on Daylight Savings Time I'm wondering what happens to all the time we are saving?

If we save an hour each day, does that mean that every 25 days we have a full day off for free?

;)
 
When we go off DST in 4 weeks we have to give those saved daylight hours back, so don't squander them.
 
Of course living in Arizona, we don't have to worry about all that silliness of savings and unsavings and changing clocks all the time. Probably the only thing our AZ government has done right.
 
Just remember Ian.. There are now two time standards

ST, or Smart Time, originally set up when the world was carved into time zones

And DST, or Dumb Stupid Time.. Created by politicians to comfuse us

Would it not be simpler if we all just went back to "Z" (Universial Time Coordinated)
 
Maybe an exchange program -- you send us the time you save on Daylight Time, and in the opposite season, we reciprocate. I volunteer to submit myself to the all-expense-paid trip to Australia to negotiate the deal (without portfolio, of course). Cheers.
 
John From Detroit said:
and DST, or Dumb Stupid Time.. Created by politicians to comfuse us

I like more daylight late, so I favor DST.  But of course we could all do everything an hour earlier without changing the clocks.

However, IMO, Americans confuse too easily.

For an example . . .

How come Canada, Great Britain  and the USA considered changing to metric at the same time, but only Canada and Great Britain succeeded?  We in the USA totally gave up on the idea. Are we really that much dumber than them?


-Don- SSF, CA​

 
The biggest concern, Ian, will be for the Australian farmers who could suffer from burned up crops due to the extra hour of daylight ::)
 
How come Canada, Great Britain  and the USA considered changing to metric at the same time, but only Canada and Great Britain succeeded?  We in the USA totally gave up on the idea. Are we really that much dumber than them?

Not dumber, just more spoiled. Neither the population nor the politicians had the intestinal fortitude to do the right thing - too  inconvenient to make a change.  This is America - I don't have to do anything I don't like.
 
::)Don........Don't get me started on the metric system. I can not for the life of me understand why the US can be so obstinate about it!!
In fact, after living here in the States for almost 30 years, I still rant and rave about it to my poor husband.

Mariekie
 
Well, the major stumbling block to metric system in the US has been addressed, Finally, and in perhaps 50years it might happen.

When I was in school when they taught metrics they taught a bunch of totally useless stuff like how many inches in a meter or 5/8 of a mile in KM, or 5(F-32)/9=C and such.

Now fact is, if the US goes metric, I need to know absolutly NONE of that

Today they teach "How long is this line" or How much does water in this jar, or how heavy is this brick.. and they provide you with the measuring tools, and you have to measure it.. This is good

I mean, Here is MY course on metrification: 

Lesson one

How many pennies in a dime?  Dimes in a dollar? Dollars in a ten-spot? Ten-spots in a C-Note? C-notes in a Grand?  (hint all answers are TEN)  That's metrics

And every drug dealer from here to there and back again.. Understands those metrics.

Lesson 2:

You are going down the road and you pass a sign: Speed Limit 40

You look at your speedometer.. Needle is nailed, on 60

You glance in your rear view and there he is.. Officer Smily.. Big Simle, Overhead lights on, Pointing to you and to the curb.

WHat is about to happen?

(HINT: Ticket for 20 over the speed limit)

QUESTION: KPH or MPH?  (Answer: Does it matter?)

And that's all you need to know about metrics.

Today they teach that way... Which is a good thing.. I've been teaching that way since about 1970.

Oh, did you know YOU are metric?  Yup, what's normal body temperture..

Well if you take that math formula I posted up above 5(F-32)/9

98.6F = 37.0C
 
Mariekie,

From my prior experience with a US standards-making body, part of the issue related to the converted numbers. Rather than dimension things in mm and have round metric numbers, the engineers wanted everything to relate to whole/rounded numbers in inches. It's too many years ago to recall the details, but here's a hypothetical example:

Rather than have a dimension such as 3.5mm, which equals 0.1378", they wanted 3.556mm because it equals a nice round 0.14". IOW they were happy to use metric measurements on paper, provided they translated to familiar numbers.

Of course, there was also the huge re-tooling costs for existing factories, which was quite a convincing argument. But, getting past the "whole/rounded inch measurements" thinking for future designs was still a huge task.

Having been schooled originally in imperial measurements, then later re-schooled in metric, it became automatic to think in either terms, like someone who speaks several languages fluently. Then I came to the US and found that a gallon is not 4.56 litres  ;D
 
BernieD said:
Of course living in Arizona, we don't have to worry about all that silliness of savings and unsavings and changing clocks all the time. Probably the only thing our AZ government has done right.

Do you wanna bet?? It all depends on where you live in Arizona.
 
RV Roamer said:
Not dumber, just more spoiled. Neither the population nor the politicians had the intestinal fortitude to do the right thing - too  inconvenient to make a change.  This is America - I don't have to do anything I don't like.

But metric is so much easier.  For an example, a 15mm open end wrench is too large. A 13 MM is too small. Try a 14 MM.

But if a 5/8" is too large  &  a 9/16"  is too small, we now we have to stop and think about it.

But if Americans were practical, we could do the same thing by NOT reducing fractions. Call a 5/8 inch open end wrench an  80/128 and a 9/16"  inch a  72/128 and half inch a 64/128 and etc. But since we don't do that, I would prefer metric.

When I was in Vietnam, it seemed nobody had a problem with "clicks".  So I don't understand why the rest of society has  a problem with such a change.

I can remember when Canada was using both KM and miles to show distances to other cities. Now, they just use the number and don't even mention it is in KM. It's now understood to be such.  IIRC, we did that too for a short while, but got rid of the metric number instead.

Perhaps our government just assumes we're too dumb for such a change.

"He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery."
--Harold Wilson

                               
-Don- SSF, CA​

 
RV Roamer said:
  This is America - I don't have to do anything I don't like.


I was drafted, put in the infantry and sent to Vietnam. I didn't like any of it.

"The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do."
--Eric Hoffer

However:

"We are not free, it was not intended we should be. A book of rules is placed in our cradle, and we never get rid of it until we reach our graves. Then we are free, and only then."
--Ed Howe

-Don Quoteman      SSF, CA​
 
The metric (decimal) system may be easier to visualize than the imperial system, but it is nowhere near perfect.

A better system might be a duodecimal system.

We use it now in measuring length (distance) and time. (12"=foot, 5x12sec=60sec=1min,etc..)

It's sure a lot easier to divide a duodecimal number by 2,3 or 4 and come up with a whole number than it is to work with a number like 333.3333333m. (1/3 of a km)
 
LOL Lou. In the rationalized metric system, aka the System Internationale (SI system), all units are standardized, e.g.:

Length is always in meters, so 1200 meters is stated as 1.2x103 meters, not 1.2 km.

The nice thing about this is that, whenever two SI metric numbers are multiplied together, the result is always a known unit.

In imperial, try multiplying a sack of potatoes by a bucket of water, and see if you can figure out what the unit is for the answer  ;D
 

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