Daylight savings time debate

[bluesdave]

Daylight saving makes your grass grow longer, and your curtins fade! :p

[xoxoxoBruce]

On the news there were bunch of adults and children complaining about getting up and going in the dark.
I get up at 4, leave before 5:30 and start at 6. It's dark most of the year so it's hard to sympathize with them.

[SteveDallas]

Why don't you call the TV station and offer to do a "point/counterpoint" response? I'm sure they'd be eager to have you.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

On the news there were bunch of adults and children complaining about getting up and going in the dark.
I get up at 4, leave before 5:30 and start at 6. It's dark most of the year so it's hard to sympathize with them.

I hear you, but it has just started getting light when we leave here. I feel like I've earned the morning sun and now its gone...

[BigV]

Boo to the new DST.

I'm at work this morning trying to understand where I went off the rails... The servers all have the right (new not old DST time) but the BlackBerries don't. Despite the fact that they are set to "Use Network Time" and that the network time clearly shows an hour later on the same screen. Yes, save, accept changes, nada. Restart. nada. I'm looking at three weeks (now, maybe more in the fall) of one time on the BlackBerry, and one time for everything else. It's not pretty.

[wolf]

Check your vendor. I got a patch for my palm. The VCR is the one that's pissing me off.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Griff

I hear you, but it has just started getting light when we leave here. I feel like I've earned the morning sun and now its gone...

You reminded me, the last mile or so to work is a 4 lane, straight as an arrow, shiny concrete road....smack into the rising sun. Too low for sun visors and still see past the hood plus refections off the road.

The sun would be a little higher every day and just about the time the sun would be high enough to be safe.... the clocks would make me start over again. I might only have to go through it once this way.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by BigV

Boo to the new DST.

I'm at work this morning trying to understand where I went off the rails... The servers all have the right (new not old DST time) but the BlackBerries don't. Despite the fact that they are set to "Use Network Time" and that the network time clearly shows an hour later on the same screen. Yes, save, accept changes, nada. Restart. nada. I'm looking at three weeks (now, maybe more in the fall) of one time on the BlackBerry, and one time for everything else. It's not pretty.

Did you ever get it to work?

I'm an end user, not a sysadmin, but I do know they had some extra trouble getting the Blackberries at my firm to get the correct time. They had to patch MS Exchange on all the servers before patching the Blackberry Enterprise Server. And there was a comment about Microsoft breaking the send feature for Blackberry users.

At least, those were the broadcast e-mail excuses for why it took a while for the Blackberries to work again. And why it took like 15 minutes one day last week for my Blackberry to turn on while it was loading stuff.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

You reminded me, the last mile or so to work is a 4 lane, straight as an arrow, shiny concrete road....smack into the rising sun. Too low for sun visors and still see past the hood plus refections off the road.

The sun would be a little higher every day and just about the time the sun would be high enough to be safe.... the clocks would make me start over again. I might only have to go through it once this way.

Get some nice, dark POLARIZED sunglasses. I drive the same stretch and I don't have a problem.

[footfootfoot]

Some interesting information about the supposed energy savings on this clip form a recent radio show I heard. Essentially the only effect of DST is that it boosts consumer spending since people ahve more daylight after work. The Number one lobbyist for DST is the Chamber of Commerce.

listen; it's about halfway in.
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net...amc-571241.mp3

or

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wa...&sectionID=715

[BigV]

3ft. heard it broadcast. I believe it. golf lobby says one month earlier one hour dst change is worth $100 million dollars. I bet the lobbying expenses were a small fraction of that.

glatt:

Nope. Didn't work, completely. Grrr.

BlackBerries use a different lookup table to know when dst is. Different from the lookup tables that the underlying OS uses. a real pita. I tried the wireless dst patch push and got hosed. Frankly, it's easier to just ask the user individually to move the damn clock up on the BB. If I ask them nice, they think they're doing me a favor. They are. The fifteen minute reset time was listed in the docs. Normal. Sorry.

For the rest of the story, all my W2K machines didn't make the change, including the voicemail server, the phone switch, and a few workstations. Fortunately, there's a neat tool that lets you change the dst rules. It's called TZEdit. I urge those who get paid to care to read the whole article, and for everyone else to just search for tzedit. It's a real slog. But the tool works well.

Unfortunately, W2K and Outlook ALSO use different lookup tables for the dst rules. And I haven't found the time/strength to get to the "fixoutlook" tool. I'm sure it exists, I just haven't called out the dogs.

Don't even ask about the nt4 based cardkey system. :sad: "How come my keycard doesn't work?"

Im in ur svr rm windin ur clox!


oops. Forgot to add that some, not all, of the backup exec systems decided to abandon some jobs, reschedule some jobs.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Get some nice, dark POLARIZED sunglasses. I drive the same stretch and I don't have a problem.

I have several pair of glasses in various tints. In order to make the sun bearable they are too dark to see anything else. Polaroids only help with angled reflections, nothing for straight at the light.
I don't believe you drive the same stretch.

[monster]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

On the news there were bunch of adults and children complaining about getting up and going in the dark.
I get up at 4, leave before 5:30 and start at 6. It's dark most of the year so it's hard to sympathize with them.

When it's light, my kids and I can bike/scooter to their bus stop. In the dark, it's too dangerous because of all the wankers who think the the 25 limit doesn't apply to them because it's hard to control the speed when you're talking on the phone, adjusting your tie, reading the paper, drinking coffee and eating a donut and besides who can see you speeding in the dark. So we have to drive, which actually takes longer, never mind all the environmental downfalls.

[BigV]

Arrrgh.

I'm discovering more and more of those durable W2k machines. Up to about ten now. By the way, that tzedit tool works great. Highly recommended.

Gawd. The (partial) list of possible exceptions and special cases boggles me. Here's an excerpt:

Consider the following scenario:
1. A single-instance calendar item is created before the DST 2007 updates are installed on the operating system. The calendar item uses the DST 2006 rules.
2. You install the DST 2007 updates on the operating system. The system now has the DST 2007 rules.
3. You manually update the calendar items by using the DST 2007 rules.
4. You run the Outlook Time Zone Data Update tool.
5. The single-instance calendar item is rebased to the wrong time.
In this scenario, the single-instance calendar item is rebased when you use the \ONLYCREATEDPREPATCH option because the item was created before the DST 2007 updates were installed on the operating system. The item is rebased even though the item was updated manually.

or

Note After you run the tool, any single-instance items that are created by using Outlook 2000, Outlook 2002, or Outlook 2003 are moved and updated when you next run the tool. This behavior occurs even if these calendar items are created by using the Daylight Saving Time 2007 rules.

However, if the user explicitly asks the Time Zone Data Update Tool to ignore a set of calendar items, the tool will continue to discover those calendar items in future runs. In this case, the user has to explicitly ignore those calendar items on each run.

For example, this can occur when the user has single-instance appointments that are targeted at a different time zone. Additionally, this can occur when the user has appointments that the user created after the time zone rules were updated but before the user ran the Time Zone Data Update Tool. When you run the Time Zone Data Update Tool, skip any items that were created under the Daylight Saving Time 2007 rules and that are correctly scheduled.

or sometimes it just don't work...

The Outlook Time Zone Data Update tool cannot update items that are affected by many users who are using different DST rules. For example, consider the following scenarios:
• A delegated user is using the DST 2006 rules. The delegate's manager is using the DST 2007 rules. In this scenario, items will not be updated if they are created in the manager’s calendar by the delegate between the time when the DST software update is installed on the manager’s operating system and the time when the Outlook Time Zone Data Update tool is run.
• You use a client computer that uses the DST 2006 rules. Then you use another client computer that uses the DST 2007 rules. In this scenario, if you create items on the client computer that is using the DST 2006 rules and then run the Outlook Time Zone Data Update tool on the client computer that is using the DST 2007 rules, the items that are created by using the DST 2006 rules will not be updated by the Outlook Time Zone Data Update tool.
• An item is created by a mobile device or by a program that creates items by using the DST 2006 rules. This item is created after you install the DST 2007 updates but before rebasing has occurred. In this scenario, the item is created by using the DST 2006 rules. However, because the calendar uses the DST 2007 rules, the items will not be rebased when you run the Outlook Time Zone Data Update tool.

Too bad I'm salaried and not hourly...

[Toymented]

See what Í mean. Look at that mess. Set it and forget it.