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Sharky

Shark Tank

That's not a bug; it's an extra hour's sleep

37 comments

TAGS:alarm clock, DST
IT TOPICS:Hardware, Software

Pilot fish receives a new alarm clock as a gift, and it's a nice one. "This clock has an iPod dock, nature sounds, two alarms — all the great new features," fish says.

There's even a button on the back to switch from standard to daylight-saving time and back. Push the button once and the clock advances an hour; push it again and the clock drops back an hour. Now that's easy.

So when March rolls around and it's time to adjust the clocks, fish makes quick work of the new alarm clock. One push of the button and — presto! — the clock springs forward, and fish is set for a good night's sleep.

In fact, even more than a good night's sleep. He wakes up to the morning light streaming in his bedroom window — and a clock that says it's 7:30.

Huh? "What happened to the alarm that was set for 6:40?" asks fish. "A quick check reveals that the alarm is now set for 7:40.

"It was apparently adjusted for DST along with the clock. One push of the magical DST button and the alarm is back to 6:40.

"Let's go back over the basic concepts of the time change again..."

Wake Sharky up with your true tale of IT life. Send it to me anytime at sharky@computerworld.com, and I'll send you a time-tested Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

Now you can post your own stories of IT ridiculousness at Shark Bait. Join today and vent your IT frustrations to people who've been there, done that.

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What People Are Saying

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Cellphone

Submitted by Anonymous on September 25, 2008 - 12:12 P.M.

Yeah, my Ericsson cell phone does that. Change it to daylight savings and ALL the appointments on the phone get changed by an hour as well.

Idiots.

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Out with DST

Submitted by Anonymous (why not) on March 15, 2008 - 10:50 A.M.

All DST does is screw up the lives of me and the people around me, increases stress because someone missed that all important clock. When the "rules" were changed, the change should have been to eliminate DST, I personally haven't met one person who benefits from it.

So, How about one more rule change and eliminate the DST rules entirely.

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Oh, good grief.

Submitted by AL on March 16, 2008 - 11:00 P.M.

What a whinger! Next summer - get a life. Turn off your PC, go outside and enjoy the extra hour of daylight.

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Not Extra

Submitted by Anonymous on April 30, 2008 - 7:53 P.M.

It's not an extra hour!! The day is still 24 hours long! And the sun is visible for exactly the same number or hours that it would have been before you adjusted your clock.
DST just moves your work schedule around -- and that lasts for what? ...a week? ...before the lengthening summer daylight-hours catch up.
What a pain.

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Why Do Timezones Exist anyway?

Submitted by Mad Hatter on March 14, 2008 - 2:41 P.M.

For years, I've advocated doing away with both daylight saving time and timezones. It's all relative to where the sun is in the sky. The whole planet should be on CTU. So what if sunrise is at 2:00 am and sunset at 4:00 pm? So what if you go to work at 3:00 am and work until noon? The time/timezone is just a label.

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Because, quite apart from

Submitted by Anonymous on March 15, 2008 - 12:56 A.M.

Because, quite apart from anything else, "it's two a.m. in New York" would tell you nothing.

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mine has eight

Submitted by oyester on March 14, 2008 - 12:34 P.M.

I bought a very cheap clock that is supposed to use radio signals to keep track of the time. It came with eight buttons and a one page, with VERY tiny print, set of instructions in English, French, and Spanish. It's got an alarm, it tells the date and the time in 12 or 24 hour format, it keeps track of daylight savings time, and it tells me the temperature in Fahrenheit or Celsius. The instructions don't work and I need a magnifying glass just to read them, the buttons aren't labelled, the alarm keeps going off at 3am, the temperature is in Celsius and I prefer Fahrenheit,and daylight savings seem to kick in at the start of every full moon. Of course I haven't replaced the batteries in two years and it's still working and I did pay only 5 bucks for it.

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4 zones?

Submitted by Anonymous on April 30, 2008 - 8:14 P.M.

I had a similar gadget that set itself from a radio signal. Mine was made by Oregon Scientific. The instructions say "select one of the four US timezones."
Four? This country has 6 to 8 depending on how you count them -- try it ...lower 48 has 4 plus Alaska (Hawaii is in their too).
You'd think a company with a name like %Scientific would at least be able to count all the timezones.
BTW: Since the device was ignorant of my timezone, it was always off by an hour, but those minutes sure were accurate.

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Microwave

Submitted by Trollicus on March 14, 2008 - 11:21 A.M.

I have an over the stove microwave I installed last summer. Sometimes the timer counts down in half second increments so if you set it for one minute you get 30 seconds, but only sometimes.

I tried to re-program the micro controller using SPI to fix the problem, but they set the lock bits on the chip.

I guess they don't want someone looking at the advanced proprietary technology with presets for a baked potato and popcorn.

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DayLight Saving Time

Submitted by Feign on March 14, 2008 - 11:17 A.M.

What sort of prehistoric technology is it that requires one to manually set a clock these days. Anything that would call itself a "Clock" these days should "Sync" itself to the correct time automatically via radio signal

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