!

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...heir-computers

It's not the doctors' fault politicians decided time needed "saving". This repeated clock switching is stupid.

I would argue that what's stupid is computer systems that can't cope with a routine procedure that was developed a hundred years ago. Especially since all major operating systems have now got it sorted out.

But readers of the Daily WTF will know that this kind of stupidity is common, and seems to become more likely the more expensive and "enterprisey" a system becomes.

If most people went back to the pre-Industrial approach of waking and sleeping with the Sun then there'd be no need for DST. But our industrial society is entrenched in the way of work, school, and services starting at a rigid clock time year-round. DST is basically a kludge to make that mesh with the very variable sunrise especially at high latitudes. If you live in California DST might seem pointless, if you live in Scotland it becomes much more relevant.

I agree with both of you. The time changes aren't really needed any more, but any program can be designed to work around it.

Doctors, and maybe others also, are worried about a twice a year complication, but just imagine what their work would be like if computers didn't exist. Plus, they have a very simple solution...
Set their computers to not do DST. Several parts of the world don't use it. They don't have to either. They can do their own time changes after the critical stage.

The OS runs on UTC. The programs interpret this, after the fact, as whichever time-change nonsense is present.
It's fine, in conversation, to say "Oh, look, it's gine half-five" but anyone not using UTC as a programmer should be shot.

*nix operating systems run on UTC. Windows defaults to local time. Most computers I've seen in doctors' offices and hospitals have been Windows computers. Of course, I have no way of knowing what time settings they used.

This article, maintaining that DST is "dumb, dangerous, and costly," seems germane: https://www.seattlepi.com/national/a...s-10995267.php

There's no reason not to use UTC internally. You can still report local time to people who so prefer.

What worries me is—how many don't realize the infamous* "stupitidies" all are reared to...
ironically my opinion is not to have one.

More to topic, here in gen, ones may worry about plastic money and y2k* there but "doctors" are held back now by far more than tec.

Microsoft and software written for Microsoft OS dominates at pretty much every level in the medical field.

As I recall, Windows actually changes the BIOS/UEFI clock itself to match it's own DST changes and this behaviour hasn't changed so far as I'm aware [citation needed]. I remember "dual booting" several years ago with a Linux and Windows OS and having to mess about with Windows registry settings to stop it doing this and lock it to using UTC.

When I was a child, I asked my mother why the whole world didn't use the same clock time. It would make life much simpler. People in particular places could just have different standard times for doing things. For example, we in the UK start the day at about 7.00 AM but in America, people could get up at 1.00 AM instead. When you travelled, you wouldn't have to change your clock, you'd just have to learn the local times for doing things.

She said it wouldn't work but she never explained why.

Definitely the wrong thread to mention the sun gods huh!?.

Edit\add: as a third shifter, more often than not, I must say: I wish the world cater to me as well.

Personally, I think that would make sense. Look at it this way...

As is, the earths circumference is divided into 24 parts, not exactly equally, but that's another issue. If you wore a watch that automatically recognizes time zones, you could drive east or west for a while and the time would just change one minute for each minute elapsed, then suddenly it will jump ahead or back by an hour. What about cities that are on a time zone border? That must be fun having a set time to go see your neighbour, and when you get there, realise you forgot the time difference and you're an hour early or late.

Instead of dividing the world into 24 hourly changes, (other than the odd half hour ones), why not go more detailed and divide it into 1440 minute time zones.

We could all go with a farmer's clock. Wake up at sunrise and go to bed at sunset, but that would be pretty hard for people at the north or south ends. Awfully long days and nights.

I think just simplify the whole thing. GMT is the time and all others get deleted.

Before the railways, that was actually what happened, in England at least. Each town determined its own local noon by noting when the sun reached its highest level. But the railways had to work to fixed timetables, so you had to have the same time in London and Salisbury. That way the people who drew up the timetable could calculate precisely when the train would arrive in Salisbury: they just divided the distance by the average speed of the train and added the resultant time interval to the time of departure. Just imagine how complicated that would get if every town on the route had its own time zone.

Interesting. I never knew that.
There would be advantages to simplifying our whole time system, but then changing it would cause a lot of complications.

...so all of microsoft's programers?