Are we springing into a Y2K-class nightmare?
(2022/03/16)
- Reference: 1647448207
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/03/16/dst_forever/
- Source link:
The US Senate has passed legislation aimed at making Daylight Saving Time permanent, leaving the country in the "spring forward" state from 2023.
The practice of changing the clocks twice a year in the US dates back to the agrarian heyday of the early 1900s and has endured, despite regular grumbling. Clocks go forward an hour at the start of the year ("Spring forward") and go back towards the end ("Fall back"),a process that creates its own biannual chaos.
Assuming the permanent daylight savings bill gets through the House of Representatives along with a nod from President Joe Biden, the change could happen from the end of 2023.
The argument that it will be took dark in the morning kids if we make [1]#DaylightSavingTime permanent ignores the fact that we are already on it for 36 of the 52 weeks a year
It’s time to [2]#LockTheClock — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) [3]March 16, 2022
While there are arguments for and against the change (there might be fewer car crashes, but equally children might have to spend longer traipsing to school in the dark, and so on), the IT world is pondering the possibility of a mini-restart of the [4]Y2K gravy train that paid for so many consultants' Ferraris as the 1990s drew to a close.
Certainly, time zones have presented a headache for engineers over the years (although perhaps not so many as those caused by the insistence of some in the US on the MM/DD/YYYY date format) and while lawmakers have tinkered with the system since its first introduction, society today is considerably more digital.
[5]
Changing how time is observed could have implications for all manner of services, from payroll and financial through to broadcasting and transport.
[6]Set your alarms for 2.40am UTC – so you can watch Unix time hit 1,500,000,000
[7]tz database community up in arms over proposals to merge certain time zones
[8]Douglas Coupland: The average IQ is now 103 and the present is melting into the future
[9]Time is on their side: NIST's new atomic clock accurate for 300 million years
However, the connected nature of many services should, if programmed correctly, mean that a straightforward update will do the trick. For many, it should be a simple case of grabbing the [10]IANA tz database when updated and reconfiguring against it. There will, however, be outliers and complexities but hey – there's more than a year to go. What could go wrong?
There's no word on whether other countries will follow suit. The UK, for example, insists on using British Summer Time from the end of March through to the last Sunday of October and despite regular debates around ditching the practice continues to cling to it.
[11]
Sadly, while there seems a good chance that the US will press ahead with reforms to its timekeeping, there is no sign of a move to a date format that's a little more computer-friendly (ISO 8601, anyone?) And as for inches versus centimeters... well – [12]we'll always have giraffes . ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://twitter.com/hashtag/DaylightSavingTime?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[2] https://twitter.com/hashtag/LockTheClock?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[3] https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1504058670237331459?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2019/12/31/y2k2/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YjIXwE0aUJgEYqhF6lqraAAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2017/07/13/unix_timestamp_epoch_making_moment/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/28/time_zone_database_controversy/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/27/douglas_coupland_the_average_iq_is_now_103_also_the_present_is_melting_into_the_future/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2014/04/05/nist_new_atomic_clock/
[10] https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tz-link.html#tzdb
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YjIXwE0aUJgEYqhF6lqraAAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://twitter.com/TheRegister/status/1503836971688361988
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The practice of changing the clocks twice a year in the US dates back to the agrarian heyday of the early 1900s and has endured, despite regular grumbling. Clocks go forward an hour at the start of the year ("Spring forward") and go back towards the end ("Fall back"),a process that creates its own biannual chaos.
Assuming the permanent daylight savings bill gets through the House of Representatives along with a nod from President Joe Biden, the change could happen from the end of 2023.
The argument that it will be took dark in the morning kids if we make [1]#DaylightSavingTime permanent ignores the fact that we are already on it for 36 of the 52 weeks a year
It’s time to [2]#LockTheClock — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) [3]March 16, 2022
While there are arguments for and against the change (there might be fewer car crashes, but equally children might have to spend longer traipsing to school in the dark, and so on), the IT world is pondering the possibility of a mini-restart of the [4]Y2K gravy train that paid for so many consultants' Ferraris as the 1990s drew to a close.
Certainly, time zones have presented a headache for engineers over the years (although perhaps not so many as those caused by the insistence of some in the US on the MM/DD/YYYY date format) and while lawmakers have tinkered with the system since its first introduction, society today is considerably more digital.
[5]
Changing how time is observed could have implications for all manner of services, from payroll and financial through to broadcasting and transport.
[6]Set your alarms for 2.40am UTC – so you can watch Unix time hit 1,500,000,000
[7]tz database community up in arms over proposals to merge certain time zones
[8]Douglas Coupland: The average IQ is now 103 and the present is melting into the future
[9]Time is on their side: NIST's new atomic clock accurate for 300 million years
However, the connected nature of many services should, if programmed correctly, mean that a straightforward update will do the trick. For many, it should be a simple case of grabbing the [10]IANA tz database when updated and reconfiguring against it. There will, however, be outliers and complexities but hey – there's more than a year to go. What could go wrong?
There's no word on whether other countries will follow suit. The UK, for example, insists on using British Summer Time from the end of March through to the last Sunday of October and despite regular debates around ditching the practice continues to cling to it.
[11]
Sadly, while there seems a good chance that the US will press ahead with reforms to its timekeeping, there is no sign of a move to a date format that's a little more computer-friendly (ISO 8601, anyone?) And as for inches versus centimeters... well – [12]we'll always have giraffes . ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://twitter.com/hashtag/DaylightSavingTime?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[2] https://twitter.com/hashtag/LockTheClock?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[3] https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1504058670237331459?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2019/12/31/y2k2/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YjIXwE0aUJgEYqhF6lqraAAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2017/07/13/unix_timestamp_epoch_making_moment/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/28/time_zone_database_controversy/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/27/douglas_coupland_the_average_iq_is_now_103_also_the_present_is_melting_into_the_future/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2014/04/05/nist_new_atomic_clock/
[10] https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tz-link.html#tzdb
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YjIXwE0aUJgEYqhF6lqraAAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://twitter.com/TheRegister/status/1503836971688361988
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Daylight Daylight Savings Time
Wally Dug
Wouldn't it be fun if, in a few years, someone has the great idea to advance clocks by an hour in the spring "to take advantage of all that sunshine" and then revert them by an hour in the autumn?
And then, a few years after that, someone has the great idea to advance clocks by an hour in the spring...
Within a couple of generations, we might end up getting up when it's dark and going to bed in the daylight.
USA change its date format ...
alain williams
that would be nice.
How about also adopting the same paper sizes as the rest of the world ?
Politicians arse about face again
Greybearded old scrote
Lock the clock, yes absolutely. But lock it to match the sun FFS.
Since working at home I've realised that I don't need to play along with that 'spring forward, fall back' nonsense. The clock goes forward, the alarm goes later. Cancels out.
I only wish I'd thought of it all those years I was on flexitime.
if programmed correctly, mean that a straightforward update will do the trick
I've seen enough code to laugh at this optimism.