DST is Dumb
By Richard Rost
2 years ago
Abolish DST: Why Daylight Saving Time Must Go!
We should abolish Daylight Saving Time (DST) once and for all. It's time to stop changing the clocks twice a year. DST causes problems for both people and computers.
DST was first introduced in Germany and Austria in 1908 to conserve energy during the war. In the United States, the Uniform Time Act of 1966 established DST, and it's important to note that it's "saving" not "savings," despite the common mispronunciation.
Contrary to popular belief, DST was not created for farmers; in fact, the agricultural industry opposed it. Arizona and Hawaii have exempted themselves from DST, maintaining standard time year-round. Meanwhile, 29 states, including my home state of Florida, have passed laws to make DST permanent, but federal approval is required since it involves interstate commerce.
The time changes are more than an inconvenience. Scientific studies have shown that DST disrupts sleep patterns, mood, and various health aspects. It can exacerbate mental illnesses and increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases and immune-related disorders. These negative effects extend to technology, creating issues with time synchronization, scheduled tasks, and record-keeping.
For example, does your time clock software account for the DST change? If not, it could cause problems. I've personally addressed software issues caused by DST. I recommend using Universal Time (UTC) to track time in Excel spreadsheets and databases, as I covered in recent tutorials.
Daylight Saving Time is outdated and cumbersome. I still dread the biannual ritual of changing multiple clocks. To enact change, I'm writing to my congressman, and I encourage you to do the same. Visit house.gov to find and contact your representative. I've also prepared a letter template, which you can use as a starting point.
In addition to fighting DST, I advocate for ISO standardized date formats, the metric system, and a revised calendar system. These changes may seem ambitious, but they begin with raising awareness and taking action. So join me in spreading the word and pushing for the abolition of DST.
Alright, that's it for my annual rant on DST. Share this message, write your congressman, and let's make a change. Thanks for listening. Take care. Live long and prosper!
Okay, bye.
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Intro This page features Richard's annual discussion about why daylight saving time (DST) should be abolished. You'll learn about the history of DST, common myths, its impact on states like Arizona and Florida, and the confusing legal rules behind changing clocks twice a year. We also talk about the negative effects DST has on people's health and on technology, such as problems with time clocks, databases, and spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access. Plus, you'll see tips for contacting your congressman and a bit of bonus commentary about how timekeeping could be improved.Transcript Hey folks, Richard Rost from Computer Learning Zone. I know you just had to watch this video back in November, but I'm going to keep posting it until our lawmakers finally get rid of this stupid practice of changing clocks twice a year. It's dumb. And clearly, I'm not the only person who feels this way. Look at these people. This guy is so angry his legs fell off his body. And this guy brought his cello to the party, so yeah, it's not just me.
Hey folks, this is Richard Rost with Computer Learning Zone. I want to just take a minute to say that we should abolish daylight saving time once and for all. It's dumb. It's time to stop changing the clocks twice a year. DST is dumb. It causes problems with both people and computers, and we're going to talk about that in just a minute, and it's time to get rid of it.
So, daylight saving time was originally introduced in Germany and Austria in 1908 to conserve energy during the war. In the United States, we had the Uniform Time Act of 1966, and that's what gave us daylight saving time. And it's daylight saving time as it is. And of course, it's a big myth that it was to help the farmers with their crops when actually the agricultural industry lobbied against DST. They hate it. So that's a big myth.
Now Arizona, which we'll talk about in a minute, and Hawaii passed state laws to exempt themselves from DST, so they're on standard time year-round. Twenty-nine other states, including where I live in Florida, have passed state laws to make DST permanent. However, and this is why it's stupid, since doing anything other than exempting yourself from DST goes against that law we talked about, it requires congressional approval because it's interstate commerce and blah, blah, blah. So we could exempt ourselves in Florida from DST, which means we'd be on standard time all year round, but we don't want that. They want to make DST permanent, so that requires congressional approval. The whole thing is dumb.
And let's talk about some more craziness. Inside of Arizona, you've got this mess. Arizona is exempt from DST. However, inside Arizona, you've got the Navajo Nation, which does observe DST. But then inside the Navajo Nation is the Hopi Nation, which does not observe DST. So, yeah, it's crazy.
Now, the Sunshine Protection Act, introduced by two Floridians, Senator Marco Rubio and Rep. Vern Buchanan, was aimed at making DST permanent. And it's been introduced in Congress multiple times, and it's passed in the Senate but has not passed in the House. So the House members need to get their butts moving, and no, those pictures in no way represent my feelings toward Congress.
Now, in addition to being a nuisance, DST has shown to have many negative effects on humans. It can disrupt sleep patterns, mood, alertness, appetite, and it messes with your circadian rhythm. Right? Even this morning, I woke up and, you know, it was seven o'clock, and of course, my body still thinks it's eight o'clock. It can trigger mental illnesses like bipolar disorder and seasonal affective disorder. I had that really bad when I lived up in New York because it was dark all the time. And of course, those things are all indicators for elevated risks for cardiovascular diseases, injuries, and immune-related diseases. And these are all from scientific papers, not just my opinion. You want some references? Google it.
Now, of course, this is Computer Learning Zone, so DST has also been shown to have many negative effects on technology, which is my emphasis. Switching clocks is dumb. It causes time synchronization issues, scheduled task disruptions, logging, and auditing challenges, for example, time clocks with shifts that span the DST switchover. Sure, Windows itself can handle the change, but does your software calculate those differences properly? Right? If your shift starts at midnight and it ends at 8 a.m., is your time clock software properly programmed to notice that daylight saving time kicked in? I've done lots of software fixes for people that had databases or spreadsheets that weren't the case.
In fact, I remember back in 2011 when the iPhone had a huge glitch and everyone was complaining about it. Its clock fell back an hour instead of springing forward during the DST transition, and lots and lots of people had a problem waking up that morning. But of course, it's an iPhone, so what do you expect and read forever anyways? If you've got Excel spreadsheets that track time clock data, the best way to do that is to use UTC or Universal Time, basically Greenwich Mean Time. Store that in your spreadsheets, and of course, I just did a video on this a couple of days ago. There's a link up, a link down below if you want to watch it. The same thing for Microsoft Access, which is my forte. If you've got a database where you're keeping track of your time clocks or any other kind of scheduling and calculating the number of hours between clock in and clock out is important, well, make sure you're using UTC time. And here's a video on that. And yes, you can hear me complain about DST some more in these videos.
And of course, I shouldn't even have to tell you how much of a pain it is to run around changing the stove, the microwave, the wall clocks, the clock in the car. It's just easier for me, just a couple of months out of the year, just to know that my clock is wrong than to change it everywhere. Remember the VCR. I hate it. I still have to do it today. Today, DST just, we just went to standard time today. We fell back. So, it's, I'm not looking forward to it. I've got like six clocks I have to change. It's a pain. Twice a year.
All right, so instead of me just complaining about it, what am I going to do? Well, I'm going to write my congressman, and I'm going to encourage as many other people as I can to write your congressman as well. There's the link. You can just Google "write to my congressman" and you'll find house.gov. I'll put a link to this down below as well. You can just click on it. You type in your zip code. There's my rep, Byron Donalds. And right down here, you can find a link to email them. See that little link right there? Click on that.
All right, you type in your zip code right here. Don't worry about the plus four. Hit submit. Or, there are links up here if you'd rather Facebook them. You know I hate Facebook, Facebook them, tweet them, and yes, I'm going to call it tweeting. It's not X-ing or whatever they're trying to do nowadays. Or there's a Youtube channel on some of them. Different congressmen have different ways to contact them. I'm going to email mine. And what do you say to them? Well, I wrote a letter, there it is. I'll put a copy of that down below too. You can find it at this page right here. DST is dumb. Feel free to copy and paste if you want. Put your congressman's name up here, your information down there, and send it.
So if you're like me and you hate daylight saving time, well here's something we can at least try to do. I don't know if they actually read these or not or if it has any effect or whatever, but I'm at least trying instead of just complaining. All right, I can check this off my list as a matter of my Rick's life missions checklist. Right now, to convert the world to ISO dates, already done several videos on this. This is the proper date format. Your month/day/year is confusing when people around the world use it differently because the software problems too. I've talked about a lot of videos on this. If you're sharing a spreadsheet with someone who's in, let's say, England and they're doing day/month/year, which is more logical than the way we do it here in the US. No, this is the way everyone should write dates. I've been putting it on my checks this way for years. And yes, I occasionally still write checks. I'm old.
All right, mission two, abolish daylight saving time. I complain about it every year. Time to do something about it. This one, I don't see happening in my lifetime, or this one. Right? Get everyone to use a metric system. Come on. Pounds, inches, dumb. And yes, I think we should switch to a 28-day calendar. It makes more sense. January 1st is always a Monday. You need 13 months of 28 days each. Each month is the same number of days. Shift the month names so that October is actually the 8th month. Shift all the rest of them over. Then we've got to add a 13th month. What do we call it? I don't know. Call it Rick Ember, I don't know. Then you take New Year's Day, you make it a holiday; you can either add it as the 29th day of the last month or whatever you want to do, or make it outside of the calendar, make it a party day. And then your leap day is Election Day every four years, and give everybody off so they can go vote, or do online voting, which we should do, which I don't know why we don't.
All right, so there we go. That's my annual tirade on abolishing daylight saving time. It's dumb. Go write your congressman, tell him I sent you, point him to my video, spread the word, share this. Let's get rid of daylight saving time forever. And yes, I know I just said saving's time. That's how dumb it is.
Okay, bye. Okay, bye. Okay, bye.Quiz Q1. What is the primary reason Richard Rost believes daylight saving time (DST) should be abolished?
A. It was originally introduced to help farmers with their crops.
B. It causes synchronization issues with computers and technology.
C. It is only observed in a few states.
D. It encourages people to spend more time outdoors.
Q2. What did the Uniform Time Act of 1966 establish in the United States?
A. A standard time to be followed internationally.
B. The first introduction of daylight saving time in the US.
C. The practice of changing clocks twice a year in the US.
D. That Arizona would be exempt from daylight saving time.
Q3. Which states have their own rules regarding DST?
A. California and New Mexico
B. Arizona and Hawaii
C. New York and Texas
D. Florida and Alaska
Q4. What has the Sunshine Protection Act aimed to accomplish?
A. To eliminate daylight saving time completely.
B. To make daylight saving time permanent.
C. To create a new time zone for the southern states.
D. To shift daylight saving time by two hours instead of one.
Q5. How has daylight saving time been shown to affect humans negatively?
A. It increases the risk of skin cancer.
B. It leads to better physical fitness routines.
C. It disrupts sleep patterns and can trigger mental illnesses.
D. It has no significant effects on human well-being.
Q6. What is Richard Rost's advice for tracking time in spreadsheets and databases?
A. To keep changing the time manually for accuracy.
B. To use local time to avoid confusion.
C. To avoid tracking time altogether.
D. To use Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) for consistency.
Q7. What did Richard do to address his concerns about daylight saving time?
A. He petitioned state government officials.
B. He created a new software to adjust clocks automatically.
C. He wrote to his congressman and encouraged others to do the same.
D. He decided to ignore the time change and keep his clocks the same.
Q8. In addition to abolishing daylight saving time, which other changes does Richard Rost support?
A. Reverting to astronomical timekeeping.
B. Switching to the metric system and a 28-day calendar.
C. Creating a single worldwide time zone.
D. Abolishing time zones altogether.
Answers: 1-B; 2-C; 3-B; 4-B; 5-C; 6-D; 7-C; 8-B;
DISCLAIMER: Quiz questions are AI generated. If you find any that are wrong, don't make sense, or aren't related to the video topic at hand, then please post a comment and let me know. Thanks.Summary Today's video from Computer Learning Zone is my annual message about the ongoing struggle with daylight saving time and my firm belief that it is time to abolish this outdated practice. I continue to repeat this topic not only because I personally find it absurd, but also because many others share my frustration. It is truly baffling that in the modern age, we are still changing our clocks twice a year.
Daylight saving time, or DST, was first introduced in Germany and Austria in 1908 with the intention of conserving energy during the war. Here in the United States, the Uniform Time Act of 1966 established nationwide daylight saving time. There is a persistent myth that DST helps farmers, but in reality, the agricultural sector actually opposed it from the beginning.
Some states, such as Arizona and Hawaii, have passed laws to exempt themselves from DST and stay on standard time all year. Meanwhile, twenty-nine other states, including my own state of Florida, have taken steps to make DST permanent. The problem is that, under current law, only opting out entirely is allowed without special congressional approval, as any other change relates to interstate commerce. That means even if a state wants to keep DST all year, Congress has to sign off on it. This legal maze makes everything unnecessarily complicated.
The situation gets even more confusing when you look at Arizona, where the state itself does not recognize DST, but the Navajo Nation within Arizona does. Then, even more uniquely, the Hopi Nation, which is located entirely within the Navajo Nation, does not observe DST. All of this stands as a perfect example of just how convoluted things have become.
Congress has seen efforts to make DST permanent, such as the Sunshine Protection Act, championed by Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Vern Buchanan, both from Florida. This bill has passed in the Senate several times but continually stalls in the House of Representatives. The legislative process is clearly stuck, despite persistent popular and political support.
Daylight saving time does not just inconvenience people. Scientifically, it has been connected to a range of health issues. Disrupted sleep, increased risk for mood disorders such as bipolar disorder and seasonal affective disorder, and more serious conditions like heart disease and immune problems have all been linked to switching the clocks. These claims are backed by scientific research, not simply my own observations. If you are curious, you can find plenty of references by searching online.
From a technical perspective, daylight saving time causes headaches with computers and software as well. It leads to problems with time synchronization, scheduling errors, and issues in logging and auditing. A specific example is time clocks that cross the point where DST takes effect. Even though operating systems like Windows typically handle the change, many software applications and databases do not account properly for these time shifts. I have had to fix countless problems in applications and spreadsheets where the developer did not plan correctly for the DST transition.
One notorious example was the iPhone bug in 2011, when the device changed the time incorrectly during the switch, leading many people to wake up late or early. For those using Excel or Access to track data involving time, the best solution is to standardize on using UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), which is not subject to daylight saving changes. I recently made videos on handling time data this way in both Excel and Access.
Besides the technical challenges, there is the everyday annoyance of having to adjust all the clocks in your house twice a year. The process is tedious, whether you are setting the stove, microwave, car clocks, or wall clocks, and reminds me of the famous blinking VCR clocks from years ago. Personally, I sometimes just leave the clocks alone and remember that for a couple of months they are incorrect.
Instead of simply complaining, I urge you to take action by contacting your congressional representative. You can easily find their contact information by searching online and entering your home address or zip code on the official House website. Most representatives offer multiple ways to be contacted, including by email and social media. In the video, I shared the letter that I wrote to my representative, and I encourage you to either use my letter or compose your own message to express your views.
This campaign to abolish daylight saving time is just one part of my broader effort to simplify and rationalize systems, both in society and technology. For example, I also advocate for the use of ISO standard date formats, which prevent confusion when data is shared globally, and I regularly discuss this topic in my videos. I would love to see the United States adopt the metric system and even a more consistent calendar, but I realize those changes will not come any time soon.
In summary, daylight saving time no longer serves any meaningful purpose and causes more problems than it solves. I encourage you to add your voice to the effort to eliminate it for good. Please consider reaching out to your representatives and sharing this message with others. If you would like a complete, step-by-step explanation and want to see everything I discussed here in detail, you can watch the full video tutorial at the link below.
Live long and prosper, my friends.Topic List This is a commentary video advocating for the abolition of daylight saving time, explaining its history, effects on people and technology, and encouraging viewers to contact their lawmakers to support making daylight saving time permanent. |
