Did Everyone ......

[Red Kittie Kat]

Change their clocks ahead one hour?


I'm not liking this new and improved longer DLS length :rolleyes:

[budafist]

Daylight savings is next weekend around here. Hey look! for once the US is ahead of us at something :D

[MyST]

Never watched the Olympics, did you?;)

[budafist]

Not in a few years...MyST! Sorry, I mean time wise.

[Botchup]

We've been on DST since December last year, and will finish at the end of the month I think.

I hate it, it's not needed in Australia. It started in countries where longer daylight meant people could drive home from work in daylight not at night where accidents occured more frequently. All that happens now is kids play, screaming and shouting in the street up until 8:30pm, and our 2 little kids don't go to sleep at their normal bed time because the sun is still shining into their rooms until 8pm.

The polly's didn't even let us vote, they just handed it down. Grr.

[Samakimoto Graphics]

Does this DLS thing have anything to do with the Sun's proximity to the planet at this time of year???

[SpugNothuson]

I believe its to do with the "wobble" of the the earths axis.

We don't spin in a perfect rotation so to speak (I'm sure there are more complicated words to describe this but my brains on standby right now).

If you were to draw a line going straight though the North Pole to the South Pole and then sped up the earth to do a full 365 days in a few seconds you would see that the line does not stay in one place, you would have a image a little like this.

\/
/\

This wobble is what gives us our seasons as at the most extream points, Summer and Winter we are at our closest and furthest points away from the sun respectively. The further away from the sun we are also creates more of an acute angle that the sun beams hit us at, therefore sunrise and sunset are closer together.

I'll try and find some better images to describe this.

Watch this space for an edit. :D

Here's the edit. Ignore me, I'm thinking about somethig a bit different. Here's the actual reason.

The axis of the earth is tilted at about 23 degrees from the sun. This means that as we rotate around the sun on our year long journey different parts of the earth are closed to the sun as shown ni the diagram below.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d7/Seasons2.png

The earth in December (left hand side) the northern himisphere is in darkness. But as we orbit the sun, half a year later with the earth still on the same axis, the southern hemisphere gets the darkness.

See that was a little easier to explain the second time around. :)

[budafist]

We have daylight savings change this weekend. Thousands of people here have signed a petition to get the date pushed back 3 weeks. Apparently, we have 3 less daylight savings weeks compared to other countries that participate in daylight savings.

The question pretty much, was do you want your sunshine in the morning, or in the afternoon. Most people want it in the afternoon.

[Linzzz]

STUPID COMCAST. My TV still says the wrong time and it made me late for work. Arg

[DesignStudio]

It started in countries where longer daylight meant people could drive home from work in daylight not at night where accidents occured more frequently.

Nice try. Daylight savings was first suggested by Ben Franklin, but only as sort of a joke. It was proposed in the US several times around the turn of the century, but always voted down because so many people were farmers, and they wanted their sunshine in the early morning. I think it finally came about during WWII, though I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe more hours to fight? I think really it might have been an energy conservation attempt for countries already driven to poverty by war. It started in Europe, I think with the axis powers. The US was one of the last to adopt it. We've had it off and on a few times since then, again with farmer's lobbying to get rid of it wanting the daylight early in the morning. I've heard other people claim it was driven by traffic accidents, but that's not very likely since it started in the 40's when traffic accidents weren't nearly the concern they are today. Accidents only go down about a percent during daylight savings anyway. That's about all the useless knowledge I have on that subject.

[Virgo Nightingale]

I just like that we get more sunlight at the end of the day. I like sunlight. Not that I'm ever outside anymore to enjoy it, but that's besides the point... :rolleyes:

[DesignStudio]

i'd be happy if they moved daylight savings ahead like 8 hours, since thats when i prefer to be up anyway.

[budafist]

i'd be happy if they moved daylight savings ahead like 8 hours, since thats when i prefer to be up anyway.

But then won't you just sleep in another 8 hours to miss the sunlight?

[DesignStudio]

you just blew my mind

[budafist]

you just blew my mind

Sorry, here's a new one. It's a bit soiled and squished on the top (sorry - I was using it as a cushion) but still good!