Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!iuvax!bsu-cs!dhesi From: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) Newsgroups: comp.os.vms Subject: Re: Times and Time Zones Message-ID: <1575@bsu-cs.UUCP> Date: Mon, 23-Nov-87 12:04:07 EST Article-I.D.: bsu-cs.1575 Posted: Mon Nov 23 12:04:07 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 26-Nov-87 02:37:59 EST References: <8711220353.AA03743@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana Lines: 39 In article <8711220353.AA03743@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> IVANOVIC%VAXR@LLL-ICDC.ARPA ("Vladimir Ivanovic, x3-7786") writes: >One of the stated reasons for Daylight Savings Time is to increase the >amount of light when schoolchilden board buses in the morning, thereby >reducing the number of accidents. Is that stupid? Yes. First you set a school starting time that's too early in the morning, when there isn't enough light, and then you observe too many accidents, so, instead of adjusting the starting time, you tell everybody to change the clock? It sounds like an awfully complicated way of starting school at 9 instead of 8. Most of Indiana does not observe daylight savings time and gets along just fine, and avoids a lot of confusion (and a lot of misadjusted clocks twice a year). Somebody ought to sit down and calculate how many man-hours of labor goes every year into moving clocks backwards and forwards, and into fixing the problems caused by confusion about when daylight savings actually starts, which is not always known in advance, making it much harder to make software behave correctly. You have already seen people asking questions about how to make VMS handle daylight savings correctly. Some people actually reboot their system twice a year just for this purpose. Worse, not all countries agree on when daylight savings will start, which means international carriers have to hit an elusive target with their printed schedules, to say nothing of international broadcasting. The costs are hidden, but you can be sure there are plenty. >Seems to me that Rahul Dhesi ought to rephrase his comments to delete the >name calling and instead provide reasoning for his points of view. We >might just agree. Name-calling directed at inanimate objects ("damn this stupid computer!") or at ideas ("stupid daylight savings") is perfectly civilized behavior. And in this case at least, the label is well-deserved, since I see no way of increasing the amount of daylight short of making the earth rotate at a variable rate, or bringing the sun closer, both options being beyond the current state of technology. -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP: !{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi