Daylight savings time is going to be extended by four weeks to shorten winter, lengthen summer and save energy. The measure was approved Thursday by the Energy Conference Committ made up of Congressional memebers from the House and the Senate. cnn.com
My question (and I couldn't find a forum for electronics) is how will vcrs, dvd players, and other electronic devices that automatically change internal times to accomodate daylight savings be affected? I know some devices automatically change via telephone lines (caller ID units) or satellite (cell-phones), or cable (computers) but there are other electronics that change based on internal calendars that are set up with future dates on a memory chip. Some VCRs and DVD players are only programmable up to so many years. And daylight savings times are stored so that when certain dates are reached, the times change. But if you are using one of these, and are not hooked up to cable or any other source other than electricity, I wonder what will happen. Will the time automatically change at the "old" pre-set date... **************************************************** 07-23-05, 11:13 PM honilov Georgia, I was reading about this in the paper and didn't know that it was already approved, but I was hoping they'd just leave the freaking time alone. I was reading that the farmers complained about the change, and I'm all for the farmers. The fat cats are the ones concerned about conserving energy in their kind of way. Wink
As to answer your electronic questions, I haven't a clue.
Where's Methos?
07-25-05, 08:34 AM Georgia85 Honi, the farmers complained when the initial proprosal was to extend daylight savings by 2 months. That was one of the main reasons it was changed to only be extended by 4 weeks - kinda a happy medium I guess.
And I guess we might not know about the electronics until that time comes. Big Grin
07-25-05, 11:26 AM methos
quote: Originally posted by honilov: Where's Methos?
Vermont Wink
Well, I was when this was asked, but I'm back in Indiana, where I have internet and the clocks don't change (although they will start next spring).
Electronics (except those like the ones ggeorgia describes that get their tiome from elsewhere) have no way of telling that the time has changed, so they'll behave the same as they always did. The best thing to do would be to diable the automatic time switch (which is what we have to do in IN) and change it yourself on the new dates.
Some electronics can have their software upgraded (computers are the obvious example, but some of the newer electronics can as well). Keep your ears open for this sort of thing, but it's very likely that the programmers never thought that this would be something that needed to be upgraded, so they probably didn't make it upgradable.
07-25-05, 01:17 PM Georgia85 I thought as much Methos. My DVD player has the option to set DST (daylight savings time) automatically which I have always had enabled. So now I will have to disable it, wait until the official day to change the time, and then hope I am not recording anything at the precise time the time changes.... As if remembering one date wasn't bad enough now I have to remember TWO!
07-26-05, 08:00 AM methos Regarding the bit of confusion at the beginning over whether or not this has been passed - a subcommittee has included it in an energy bill, but that doesn't make it law. The full House and full Senate still need to vote on the energy bill. It seems likely that they will approve it, but they haven't yet.
On a side note, I'm not so sure that this extension will do anything beneficial regarding energy - there isn't even a consensus on whether or not the current daylight saving time saves energy (it saves a small amount by requiring less artificial lighting, but may actually increase air conditioning usage and, with it, overall energy consumption).
07-26-05, 08:49 AM Georgia85 Methos, the reports I read state: House and Senate delegates agreed on an energy bill Thursday (July 21) that would begin daylight savings time three weeks earlier, in the second week of March, and extend it by one week to the first week of November. The new measures would be implemented in 2007. The new extended daylight hours will not affect all 50 U.S. states. Arizona, parts of Indiana, and Hawaii do not observe daylight savings time at all, along with Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.
Is agreeing on an energy bill different from voting on it?
07-26-05, 10:00 AM methos Yes.
What the delegates(rather than the few hundred total members of the House and Senate) agreed on is a bill (not yet a law) that will now be presented to the full House and full Senate to approve or reject. Trying to work out the details of a large bill like the energy bill with the whole Congress would be so unwieldy that even that plodding body recognizes that it wouldn't be effective. Instead, they select a few of their members to work out the details. Once the details are worked out, the full House and full Senate vote to approve or reject what the committee has done.
The report you quoted in the last post is misleading, and actually wrong in part. It should technically have said "If the bill is passed, the new extended daylight hours will not affect all 50 U.S. states." It should also have left Indiana off the list because, by the time the law is implemented (assuming it passes), Indiana will follow daylight saving time.
07-26-05, 10:12 AM Professor
quote: (Methos: ) I'm back in Indiana, where I have internet and the clocks don't change (although they will start next spring).
I have a daughter in Arizona (Mountain Standard Time MST = GMT-7) where Daylight Saving time is also not observed.
BTW, Google search suggests that the preferred term is Daylight Saving (in the singular). I heard the same thing a few days ago on public radio. Not sure about capitalization. CNN (at Georgia's original link) uses hyphenated lower case.
So these months Arizona's time is effectively Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), because PDT "sprang forward" from GMT-8 to GMT-7. Welcome to L.A. Smile
In Windows, if you right-click on the clock, select "Adjust Date/Time" and look on the time zone tab, you find a drop-down box that's a nice little lesson in Geography. Note that Arizona and Indiana are the only U.S. states named as exceptions. What better authority than Microsoft Wink There's also a checkbox to enable or disable daylight saving.
Following the 1973 Arab oil embargo of the U.S., the Carter administration applied Daylight Saving time year-round (for how long?). I recall that a big comlplaint came from parents and teachers worried about school kids waiting in darkness at bus stops.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Professor, 07-26-05 01:26 PM
07-26-05, 12:28 PM Georgia85
quote:
The report you quoted in the last post is misleading, and actually wrong in part. It should technically have said "If the bill is passed, the new extended daylight hours will not affect all 50 U.S. states." It should also have left Indiana off the list because, by the time the law is implemented (assuming it passes), Indiana will follow daylight saving time.
That was one of the things that was confusing me...all the news reports I have read have worded it just as I did above...worded it as if the bill had already been passed.
Senate and House lawmakers agreed late Thursday to extend daylight savings time by four weeks beginning in 2007. gainesville.com
Seems the media is doing a poor job of presenting this situation as a possibility rather than a fact.
So now what's this about Indiana? The entire state will be following Daylight Savings???
(yup I know, one "s" but I like the way it sounds with that added "s" )
07-26-05, 12:45 PM methos Yes, there seems to be a good amount of sloppy wording. They aren't necessarily getting it wrong, though. The Gainesville article, for example says that House and Senate lawmakers agreed on extending it, which they did, but that sentence alone might make it seem like it is now law rather than an agreement on what to vote on. I assume they think that the next two sentences, which say "it would start three weeks earlier..." and "... Congress hopes to approve next week" would clear things up. I think it's a matter of assuming a level of background knowledge that they shouldn't.
Yes, starting in 2006, Indiana is going to follow daylight savings... not that we know whether it will be Central or Eastern, that wasn't part of the law Roll Eyes.
07-26-05, 12:51 PM Georgia85 And thanks for clearing up things for this person who obviously doesn't have a high level of background knowledge...Wink At least not when it comes to how a law is passed.
So....how are you going to change your electronics when your time change goes into affect? Wink Like the way I kinda segued back to my original question? Big Grin
07-26-05, 01:51 PM Professor
quote: (Methos: ) ...disable the automatic time switch (which is what we have to do in IN) and change it yourself on the new dates.
You mean there are gadgets that default to using DST by a stored program? How do you disable it?
07-26-05, 02:21 PM Professor A detailed list of which regions do and don't observe DST, including within many U.S. states, can be found here .
Methos, here's what is says about exceptions in Indiana:
CENTRAL TIME ZONE (UTC-6)
northwestern
Jasper County, Lake County, LaPorte County, Newton County, and Porter County,
southwestern
Gibson County, Posey County, Spencer County, Vanderburgh County, and Warrick County,
EASTERN TIME ZONE (UTC-5)
Indiana (most of state), except
Clark County, Dearborn County, Floyd County, Harrison County, and Ohio County, which do unofficially observe DST,
07-26-05, 04:18 PM methos
quote: Originally posted by Georgia85: So....how are you going to change your electronics when your time change goes into affect? Wink Like the way I kinda segued back to my original question? Big Grin
I don't really have much to change. Most of my electronics are old enough that they don't have anything so fancy as a clock Wink (even my VCR, which deos, didn't have a remote by the tiume I got it, and the universal remotes don't work with that feature). I suppose the one exception (aside from my computer, for which I imagine there will be a software update) is my camera. I guess I'll change that, but I'm not really concerned with being off by an hour on when I took a picture.
Yes, Indiana's a bit of a mix right now, which is part of the reason we're unsure what will happen next year when we start observing daylight saving time. The parts that do switch are quite happy where they are (imagine if the Chicago suburbs were switched to Eastern time), and the bulk of the state is in synch with central half the year and eastern the other half - I hope we go eastern just because it would be more convenient for me to be in the same time zone all year as most of my friends and family.
07-26-05, 07:53 PM Professor Daylight saving changes about a month after the equinoxes, doesn't it, at six-month intervals? And now they want to extend it for another few weeks. Is it mainly about lights and air-conditioning? Do we know the optimal times of year to switch based on mathematical or computer modeling (some guy with a spreadsheet)? Has anyone seen any technical analysis reported in the mainstream press?
Cox News quoted Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich) that 100,00 barrels would be saved for every day DST is extended. I heard a radio report that the proposed lengthening of DST will save about of about 1% in energy consumption. Do those figures jibe?
1% sounds trivial to me, but then I don't have much intuition when it comes to global economics and petroleum pricing. Maybe the system is so sensitive to changes that a 1% cutback is huge. It's hard to know.
07-28-05, 01:42 AM Professor I goofed:
quote: Originally posted by Professor: Following the 1973 Arab oil embargo of the U.S., the Carter administration applied Daylight Saving time year-round (for how long?)
quote: The OPEC oil embargo led President Nixon to sign the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act. Clocks were set forward to save energy in the winter of 1974, and daylight saving time lasted for eight months in 1975.
I associate Carter with the long lines at gas pumps, with even-or-odd refueling days, a few years later.
The author confirms the 1% savings figure I mentioned earlier.
07-28-05, 08:12 AM methos The 1% figure is an old one, and represents a reduction in energy on the days DST is in effect, rather than in the annual energy usage. So, assuming it is correct, the benefit of the proposed change, on a yearly basis, would actually be less than 0.01% savings. The problem comes back to that being an old figure (i.e. pre-air conditioning). The legislatiuon itself recognizes that there needs to be more research, and calls for that research to be done. To my mind, it would have been better to do the research to determine if even the present system actually saves or costs energy before extending daylight saving time.
07-29-05, 12:18 AM Professor Thanks for the clarification, methos. As for predicting the real economic impact of extending DST, I guess the legislature is about to undertake some major field research...
08-07-05, 11:24 AM methos An update:
The bill, with the daylight saving time change, has been passed by Congress. It is not actually law until Bush signs it, but he has said he will do so this week.
08-08-05, 09:06 AM Georgia85 Daylight Savings Change And another update, the original topic posted here was discussed in the news this morning. One concern is for cell phone users who have different rates for day mins than they do for evening minutes. The change in daylight savings time possibly could affect the way minutes are charged meaning an hour's worth of evening minutes may be charged the day rate and vice versa.
08-08-05, 10:39 AM Professor
quote: Georgia85's original question: ...how will vcrs, dvd players, and other electronic devices that automatically change internal times to accomodate daylight savings be affected?
Check this story on CNN that appears today. Some are calling it a "mini-Y2K." They must have seen your question on AP. Smile
08-08-05, 01:17 PM Georgia85 HA! Do I over analyze or what??? Big Grin
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
Posts: 9192 | Location: Atlanta, GA, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
This was just a topic on PBS' Washington Week. It was pointed out that studies show that, in DST, rather than stay home an do things with family, people generally shop after work. Also mentioned was that people a)drove to malls more b)spent more and c) ate out more. It seems that retailers and the candy industry have pushed extended DST for years. (Why candy-makers? Think about Halloween.)
So, it appears that not only does the country not save on energy costs, but families actually spend more money on other things than they normally do.
Posts: 17187 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
I wonder how many other things are being smuggled past us in the guise of some 'good cause' or other?
Recycling promoted by the dishwash-soap manufacturers? (Studies show that recyclers use a little more soap to clean stuff for recycling that would otherwise go straight to the trashcan?)
Ugh! I hate it when something else comes along to bolster my inerent cynicism!
Posts: 6333 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
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