Has UBB.threads set the clock back a week early?

The time stamps on my posts are 1 hour earlier than when I actually posted.

(By my watch, it is now 4:18 EDT.)

Edit: I noticed that several minutes difference a few days back, but I thought nothing of it until just now.

Wakey, wakey.
DST ended just about 3 hours ago (first Sunday in November). [I just had to change my FTM clock because DST isn't observed here.]

Edit: Otherwise the FTM clock is running ca 5 minutes too fast; I sent the message at 04:57 CST and the post is time-stamped 05:01:58. Could we say that it's a cuckoo clock?

Wow! I somehow thought it was next week.

I probably would have been an hour early for my dentist appointment on Monday.

Thanks.

(The 5 minute oddity still stands.)

The time is set on the server that FTM lives on, which is supposed to be maintained by the hosting company. Alas, I'm still in Europe (and will be for two and a half more weeks), so I won't be able to look into it for a while.

Are you there promoting your book?

Yep. It's been kind of insane--I've been on the road for six weeks now, both alone and together with my co-author Eve Rickert. We set a speaking schedule that was way too ambitious (30 events and 3 conferences in 10 weeks), so we're really dragging through this last bit of it. At one point in Belgium, we did 4 events in 3 cities in 2 days.

Next time we'll know better!

Now the FTM clock is running ca 7 minutes fast — my last post/edit was sent at 09:22 CST and it's time-stamped 09:29:17.

Maybe it takes the electrons in your edit 7 minutes to get to the server and get posted!

You could be very far from its location!!

Maybe it's a mirror server on another planet.

The only explanation. So, it's 5:10 and it's dark out already. Why do they do this? I thought DST was something to do with farming...

Only in so far as it pertained to farm children being able to do their after school chores while it was still daylight.

Yeah, you reset the dial on your key-wound Westclox. People aren't going to know how to read a clock face soon. The way they can't read a map. (Actually, I never could read a map.) Maybe we can talk about Sony Digimatics... right up there with the Selectric typewriters. Great things.

I adamantly disagree!!!!!

If you're trying to drift off to sleep the thing wakes you up every minute when the number flips.

I ditched mine and bought an LED readout clock almost instantaneously.

IMHO, you ditch a lot of great stuff. I love the sound of my digimatic.

Please refresh my memory.

Have I really reported ditching other "great" stuff in the past?

Edit: The FTM clock was on the mark this time.

Checking ... It is! Automatic or interventional fix, I wonder.
Maybe back to earthly server.

You ditched your Selectric.

I didn't say that; I quoted you.

I can't hardly type a lick, and I never had a Selectric, but had I had one I'd probably still have it.

I used to love just watching the things work. (I never understood how they didn't vibrate themselves to pieces.)

As noted earlier, I did and I do and I use it almost daily.


The weak spot was the dancing ball (the typing Element, as named by IBM).
• The lever on top of the Element was prone to snapping off if not handled properly or its retention spring could remain in closed position if part of the plastic broke off.
• The positioning teeth at the bottom of the ball could also break off (if one didn't handle the Element carefully). Fortunately, one could repair it neatly by pressing the bottom of the ball into a bar of soap, filling one of the depressions with Epoxy and then positioning the ball appropriately so that the created tooth would attach itself to the broken base.
I've still got a couple of the thusly-repaired Elements, and they still work just fine.

Slightly off the topic: IBM also had a variable spacing typewriter (where the width of the "m" was 5 times wider than the "i"). It made for a beautiful manuscript, but if you made a mistake you were SOL.

What about the "numerous studies" that have shown sleeping with or near electric blankets, motor-driven clocks and others of that ilk is hazardous to your health?

If you read the "studies" it could easily be concluded that anything invented in the last 4 or 5 millennia is hazardous to health. On the other hand it could be argued that it is a recent phenomena that we are living long enough for most of today's killer illnesses to manifest themselves.

That ping time to Mars is quite a pain...

Harking back to yesteryear (actually just November 1st) ...

Just so you don't miss a possible appointment on Monday ... DST starts this Sunday, artie.

Thanks, grelber, but I'm on top of it. (I set my clock back on Wednesday just to be sure. )

I don't mind Daylight Savings Time per se but I absolutely despise the change. Arizona's decision to opt out of Daylight Savings Time makes all kinds of sense to me. I just wish I could sell the crazies in Austin on the idea. (By "crazies" I am of course referring to the Texas legislature that once commended Mario Savio (the Boston Strangler) for his efforts at population control.)

Oh goodie ... then you'll be only 2 hours off the mark come Sunday.

Just for your edification (FYE):

Back in 1914 (2 years before Germany decided to try it out) Saskatoon, Saskatchewan decided to go to "fast time". Then a referendum was held with respect to same and it was turned down 2 to 1; city council reversed the decision. All within 2 months.

Saskatchewan toyed with idea during the 1930s-1950s. However, the line between Central Time and Mountain Time went right through the middle of the province. The legislature allowed municipalities to choose which time zone they wanted to be in and whether they wished to observe DST. Thus one could have 4 communities within spitting distance of one another which could be hours "apart". In 1961 the legislature dumped the notion of DST completely. It also chose for the whole province to be on Central Time. There have been numerous attempts over the past half century to renegotiate the situation, but all have wound up preserving the status quo.

Adding to the previous post:

Apparently there are numerous reasons to ditch the switch, not least of which is that there are more heart attacks on the day following the switch. (Who knew that cranking the clock ahead an hour could be so stressful?)

Moreover, the reasons for switching (eg, enhanced productivity by some measure) don't seem to survive closer scrutiny. The (under)current suggestion now is to put everyone on DST and leave it there. (And again, Saskatchewan would be in the vanguard, already being on Mountain Daylight Time.)

And yes, I did change my FTM clock.

I guess that proves two things

1. we are creatures of habit
2. breaking a habit is hard enough to do that it can kill us

I remember DST being sold to the U. S. Congress on the basis of how much money it would save. Wonder if eliminating the medical costs of all those DST imposed heart attacks would be enough to nullify the supposed cost benefit? Just thinking. Given that transportation scheduling and planning is all based on GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and then converted to local times for public consumption, why not just use GMT across the continent and set our wake, work, and sleep times by local daylight which is what the human body wants to do anyway.

That would be Zulu time (or UTC), long since used by the military.

After working on my computer briefly this morning, I looked at my watch as I was getting dressed... wha.... oh. (runs around the house changing clocks after changing watch)

Glad I remembered to at least fix my alarm before bed last night.

I actually enjoy this time of the year, when we "spring forward", and remain that way for the next 8 months. The extra hour of daylight, especially from May through August, drives me to be more energetic. What could work is just to stay on DST for the entire year.

The farmers might enjoy the extra daylight to harvest their crops, but the school kids would be walking to school in the dark if DST was year-round. Or so went the argument when the idea first surfaced way back when.

Farmers work from sunup to sundown, so DST means nothing to them, and if I remember correctly they hate it, but you're correct about school kids.

Edit: Do kids still walk to school, or is it the bus driver's problem?

I've heard that before also, but it seems to be a weak "argument". Farmers should be able to easily adjust to it. As for school kids, parents can escort them to the bus stop, or take them to school themselves. It's really not that difficult to adjust.

Pretty sure the origin had to do with WW1 or WW2 and saving energy. Specifically, lighting.

Y'all gotta be city folk. When the custom combiners come to town (so to speak), they're out there 24/7 until the job is done, with huge lights on the equipment which turn night into day. Then they move further north.
(Why north? you ask. They follow the direction of crop ripening — from the great plains to the prairies.)
And even if it's a small farming operation, the harvesters still use the lights.
And the kids don't give a rat's patoot if it's dark when they go to school. They just hope for a snow day or two from equinox to equinox.
Yee-haw! ... all around.

City folks or not, the easiest way to resolve this issue is to just have it be DST all year round. Then, there won't be all this whining and squealing like little children!

As it is, even though I "get back" an hour's sleep in November ("fall backward"), I get somewhat dismayed that the extra hour of sunlight is lost. The sleep business is mute at that point, as I have already been used to the "lost" hour of sleep since the second Sunday in March ("spring forward"). A number of folks are so, so ignorant, and do not grasp that simple fact.

Unless you're a sleep-talker.

And you've just called an awful lot of people ignorant simply because they don't see it your simple way.

Most people are not sleep-talkers. And, I am well aware of a new product coming out soon that will help folks with that issue (along with other sleep-related problems).



I'm just telling it like it is. And, there are a number of folks who also believe in that simple way. And, it is a simple, viable, and easy to implement solution to all the whining, squealing, etc. Remember, the KISS philosophy applies here: Keep It Simple Stupid.

As I stated above, once we are well into the spring, everyone (one would logically expect!) would be used to the extra hour of sunlight (and thus had got over the loss of 1 hour of sleep (only happened the other day)). So, changing that again in early November would be disruptive.

Is that explanation simple enough?

The "sotto voce" flaming (among FTM participants) is once again intruding into civil discussion.
Please knock it off.

(This does not apply to criticizing neofascist politicians.)

As Arnie says, "No problemo!"

I've been told I'm a sleep-talker. Allegedly, I sat up in bed one night and said "The answer is 23" and fell back asleep. Too weird for someone to make up.

...actually, the answer is 42......

It's moot at this point.


Couldn't be any simpler!

And it's equally simple that not seeing it your way does NOT make anybody ignorant, and that insulting those who don't does NOT make you authoritative.

Nailed it!

The answer is 42. I might have been dreaming about the Jim Carey movie except for the fact that it hadn't come out yet...