By the way, does the a2k clock change automatically or do we have to
manually change according to our time zone?
Edit: I just see the time I posted and it's still wintertime - so manually!
@CalamityJane,
Change it, leave it - I don't care - just make it stay the same - the switching back and forth gets me in trouble every time they do it. I forget no matter how hard I try. I was late to the Dr. this morning because of it...bah
@CalamityJane,
You have to change it manually.
@Thomas,
thomas wrote :
Quote:You have to change it manually.
can't find a "knob" at the back to change the time - perhaps i'll just twist the dial - never mind - i don't really care what the a2k clock shows .
hbg
Yes I did, thank you, Thomas!
Hamburger,
when you look at the bottom of our page, click on "my preferences"
and the first entry there is "time zone offset". There you change the time
according to your time (I think -4 hours).
@CalamityJane,
cj :
at my age i'm glad when i can count to TWO !
hbg
@hamburger,
A great new invention is the digitalclock that automatically updates itself and they're only about 20 bucks at Walmart. They do have a switch to turn DST on/off however- I discovered this at 2:30 (3:30?) this a.m.
I am totally in aggreance with ebrown p as to the fucked-up-ness of DST. Why? Because it screws with my circadian rhythms! What's the big deal you might well ask?
"This seemingly small hour translates to a repeat of 10 weeks in the annual progression of the relationship between our sleep-wake cycle and dawn--four weeks in spring and six weeks in autumn. In effect, it's as if the entire population of Germany, for example, is transported to Morocco in spring and back again in autumn."
Quote:Daylight Saving Time Disrupts Humans' Natural Circadian Rhythm
ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2007) " When people living in many parts of the world move their clocks forward one hour in the spring in observance of daylight saving time (DST), their bodies' internal, daily rhythms don't adjust with them, reports a new study.
The finding suggests that this regular time change--practiced by a quarter of the human population--represents a significant seasonal disruption, raising the possibility that DST may have unintended effects on other aspects of human physiology, according to the researchers.
Delayed sleep phase syndrome
"When we implement small changes into a biological system which by themselves seem trivial, their effects, when viewed in a broader context, may have a much larger impact than we had thought," said Till Roenneberg of Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich, Germany. "It is much too early to say whether DST has a serious long-term impact on health, but our results indicate that we should consider this seriously and do a lot more research on the phenomenon."
As in other animals, the human circadian clock uses daylight to stay in synchrony with its environment as the seasons change. In fact, Roenneberg said, this "entrainment" is so exact that human behavior adjusts to the east-west progression of dawn within a given time zone.
Despite the fact that approximately 1.6 billion people experience DST, he continued, few studies have investigated its impact on human physiology and behavior. The results of the few, relatively small studies that have addressed the question have generally suggested that sleeping patterns adjust within days.
In a large survey, which examined the sleep patterns of 55,000 people in Central Europe, Roenneberg's group now shows that the timing of sleep on free days follows the seasonal progression of dawn under standard time, but not under DST.
In a second study, they analyzed the timing of sleep and activity for eight weeks around each of the two DST transitions in 50 people, taking into account each individual's natural clock preferences, or "chronotypes," ranging from morning larks to night owls. They found that the timing of both sleep and peak activity levels readily adjust to the release from DST in autumn, but that the timing of activity does not adjust to the start of DST in spring, especially in those who like to stay up late and sleep in.
"While we generally think that the time changes enforced by the DST transitions are 'only an hour,' they have far more drastic effects if viewed in the context of the circadian clock's seasonal changes," Roenneberg said. "This seemingly small hour translates to a repeat of 10 weeks in the annual progression of the relationship between our sleep-wake cycle and dawn--four weeks in spring and six weeks in autumn. In effect, it's as if the entire population of Germany, for example, is transported to Morocco in spring and back again in autumn."
Indeed, "after taking the seasonal adjustment into account, our results show that the human circadian clock does not adjust to the DST transition," Roenneberg said. "This is especially obvious in the late chronotypes in spring when one looks at their daily activity patterns. Essentially, their biological timing stays on standard, winter time, while they have to adjust their social schedules to the advanced clock time throughout the summer."
*Reference: Kantermann et al.: "The Human Circadian Clock's Seasonal Adjustment Is Disrupted by Daylight Saving Time." Publishing in Current Biology 17, 1--5, November 20, 2007. DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2007.10.025
The researchers include Thomas Kantermann and MyriamJuda of Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich; Martha Merrow of University of Groningen in Haren; and Till Roenneberg of Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich.
This work was supported by the research networks EUCLOCK (the European Commission) and CLOCKWORK (the Daimler-Benz-Stiftung).
I hate DST as well.
Why not just wake up earlier? Instead of changing the time, and waking up earlier why don't people just wake up earlier and leave the time alone?
DST is frustrating to me. Yesterday the site went nuts because the server suddenly thought a bunch of posts were made in the future. I don't know who put it on a time zone that observes DST but I fixed it by putting it on one that doesn't. Time is a measuring system, don't mess with the measurements.
And then there's the complete ass-backwardness of how unpredictable it is. For example, I'd love for people to not have to set their clocks here either, but it's not as easy as compiling a list of what zones observe DST and adjusting. It doesn't even occur on the same days every year, and different locations change and observe it differently all the time. You may have a whole time zone that observes it with one location in the time zone that doesn't. It's an absolute mess.
So I agree with ebrown. When you dick around with it it makes it hard to measure things. It's not an alarm clock, and if people enjoy waking up an hour earlier they should just wake up an hour earlier, there's no rule that they have to be up at any certain time and we shouldn't need to change time just to wake up earlier.
My first California DST experience was beautiful, and I loved it. But I"d have loved it just as much if the stated time was the real time and I'd just woken up earlier. So why not a summer push to get to work an hour earlier instead of messing with the clocks? It should be Daylight Savings Work Hours (where people are encouraged to go to work earlier) and leave the time alone.
@Thomas,
Thomas wrote:
You're changing next week, Dasha.
Depends where she'll be: in Europe and many other countries worldwide, 'summertime' starts - as saab noted - the last Sunday in March and ends the last Sunday in October.
I like it - you get more afternoon/evening/night sunlight hours. (I remember that my grandparents told me about these benefits when we didn't have it: Germany introduced summertime in 1916 ...)
@Walter Hinteler,
well, i guess someone at the office will tell me eventually. what's important is that it's not today.
I'd be willing to bet that the people who enjoy DST are they people who have your typical 8-5 job. And the people who think that DST makes zero sense, don't work regular business hours.
About 60% of my daylight savings were lost in the recession.
@maporsche,
Quote:I'd be willing to bet that the people who enjoy DST are they people who have your typical 8-5 job. And the people who think that DST makes zero sense, don't work regular business hours.
See, even proponents of DST get confused. He meant people who have your typical 7-4 job.
@ebrown p,
No, that's not what I meant.
I love daylight savings, once I adapt to getting up at a time which my body isn't yet quite happy with. My only quibble is the
timing. I'd prefer we waited a few weeks before daylight savings actually starts each year. (When there is actually some daylight to "save".) And right now (in Oz) it seems like it should have finished, already .... Very dark when that morning alarm goes off & quite chilly, too. The other day students asked if they could have the heating turned on during the first couple of classes! I mean, in
March?
the a2k clock self-adjusted - good thing i didn't fiddle around with it .
(if you don't have to do something - don't do it - someone else might come along and do it for you
)
hbg
It takes me about 3 days to fully adjust to the 23 hour day that they ust dump on me.,.After that, however, I love the light at the end of the day. Like today, I was just putzin around in the garden while I made supper (Mrs F is painting window trim on our new Florida Room and I have no patience for that). I was able to check the chops, go out and clean up some in the veggie garden, run back when the timer went off, come back out. AND ITS STILL LIGHT AT & PM.
By Tuesday, Ill be kickin.
The only reason one loses an hour is due to having clocks. Cave men did not lose an hour. And, people that do not have a schedule to keep, did not lose an hour. Those who do not like Daylight Savings Time might have already far exceeded one hour of lost time through the time complaining about it.
@Foofie,
Foofie wrote:
The only reason one loses an hour is due to having clocks. Cave men did not lose an hour. And, people that do not have a schedule to keep, did not lose an hour. Those who do not like Daylight Savings Time might have already far exceeded one hour of lost time through the time complaining about it.
well, yeah. It will likely be months before I change my bedroom clock (if ever)
