Well, despite (or perhaps because of, who knows) all the patching and fixing to make sure that the new DST start time won’t frell up everyone’s computer appointments — I discovered that only most of computer appointments were frelled up, and I had to go in and tweak a bunch of them. Interestingly, most of them, when I went into the Recurrence screen in Outlook, had the proper time in them, so I only needed to resave them to have the display pop up properly. Still, annoying.
Even moreso when I read little ditties like this, that essentially argue the sole reason for the estenstion — saving a paltry amount of oil consumption — isn’t likely to happen anyway. It seems that so many people work varying hours these days, that while there’s some possible savings in lighting later in the day with DST, it’s offset by increase use of lighting early in the morning. The study that Congress cited for
the change was some thirty years old, after all, and it’s not like work patterns, power consumption patterns, or similar factors haven’t changed since the mid-Seventies …
*sigh*
One possible bit of good news …
In the 2005 energy bill, Congress calls on the department to report whether energy consumption drops, as hoped, after the early start of DST. If not, the bill has a provision for the country to return to the old daylight savings calendar. Under the previous law, standardized in 1986, DST began on the first Sunday in April.
In the meantime, consumers and information-technology specialists are girding for the myriad hiccups that could happen because many computers, digital networks, hand-helds and other devices with clocks built in need to be updated. While no major disruptions are expected, one analyst estimated to ABC News that American companies were spending $2 billion checking and updating all those devices.
And add some billions in lost productivity as appointments get mangled.
Of course, if we “revert” back to the previous DST … will that mean all the same problems and patching happening over again? Swell.