Daylight Saving Time is giving most of us an hour this weekend! Don’t forget

[scrabbler1]

I'll have to spend at least twenty minutes to reset a bunch of clocks, wrist watches around the house. Then the car, truck and suburban.
At least the four computers will do self service.

I had all kinds of fits trying to change the time on my telephone answering machine today. I overshot the time setting option 4 or 5 times before finally getting right.

My two digital clocks went okay although it is easier to move them forward by an hour in the spring than move them backward an hour now. I have to advance them 23 hours instead, and they don't have a separate hours-advance feature. At least the car's clock has an hour-advance feature with no AM/PM. My previous car's clock was part of the cassette/radio device, and that was a major PITA to change every 6 months - it was some combination of the buttons and dials which triggered the clock adjustment, and I'd have to dig out the instruction manual every 6 months until I finally remembered how to do after about 10 years!

I got rid of the battery-powered kitchen clock I bought to replace the old one which died. But the new one's ticking was too noisy so I stopped using it, sparing me the easiest time change. And I stopped wearing a wristwatch about 6 years ago, sparing me another device whose time I had to change.

 

[Pluperfect]

I have no idea how the new vehicle handles the time change.

I've been driving a borrowed 2020 model Infiniti for a couple of months. I noticed that every morning, no matter what time I got in the car, the clock said 7:00. Then as I was driving it would be 7:01, then 7:02, and usually around 7:03 or 7:04 it would change to the correct time. WTF?

I finally got the manual out and I think the problem is that I park it in a garage overnight, because the manual didn't say much about changing the time but did say that if a car is equipped with GPS, the clock could be wrong, and maybe parking it where it won't get a GPS signal is what makes it wrong?

This is just conjecture on my part. But there are two clocks--one on the GPS display and one on the instrument cluster, and both say 7:00. They couldn't make the one on the instrument cluster kick it old school and be, you know, accurate no matter where you park?

Oh, and on that becoming accurate after a few minutes of driving? Well, yes, except for the time it didn't. It continued to just add time to 7:00. I reached my destination after 30 minutes--7:30 according to the clock, but actually 9:20. When I came back to my car, the clock had become accurate at some point during my absence.

That's the state we find ourselves in--intermittently accurate clocks are considered not a bad thing.

Fortunately, I'm not driving that car right now, so I have no idea how it's going to handle daylight saving time. On one car I have, I'll hit a couple of buttons that move the digital clock, and on my other car I'll put my finger on a little round button and twist it to move the hands on the clock. Clearly far inferior methods.

 

[oldphd]

DW loves this time of year! She has a 2021 Lexus with an analog clock. She likes it when she starts up for the first time after the change and watches the clock change automatically!

 

[GrayHare]

I tried adjusting the dog's feeding hour but his controls don't seem to work.

 

[statsman]

The new vehicle has a GPS setting to auto-adjust the local time, time zone, and daylight savings setting (on or off). We haven't driven the vehicle today (it's in a garage), but we plan to go out to dinner in an hour or so.

 

[audreyh1]

I tried adjusting the dog's feeding hour but his controls don't seem to work.

No surprise there, ha ha.

 

[audreyh1]

One immediate impact from the time change is now when I walk in the morning (7 am-ish) it’s light out. That’s good. Safer for me.

That’s what is funny to me, we simply adjust our walking time throughout the year so that it’s light enough to walk, usually about 10 mins before sunrise in the summer.

 

[audreyh1]

We only have to change clocks on 2 appliances (very quick) and 1 weather display (still short) which does not receive an atomic clock signal. Actually doable in 5 mins. Everything else (all the important stuff) is automatically switched, including the car.

And it turns out that on the more complex device I simply had to turn DST off. I keep forgetting that shortcut. So overall very quick when I finally got around to it today.

 

[Music Lover]

I tried adjusting the dog's feeding hour but his controls don't seem to work.

We have automatic feeders for my wife's two cats. I don't bother to change them for DST.

But I do have to adjust one of them every month or so as it keeps time slower and #2 cat gets annoyed when her food doesn't come as fast as the food for #1 cat.

 

[Turbo29]

As a new Arizona resident, I really like that we aren't changing the clock back and forth.

Welcome! Two of the best things here: No front license plates and no daylight saving time.

 

[Turbo29]

Dec 21 or 22 is the shortest day of the year, which also the earlies sunset in the northern hemisphere.

Study this: It explains why the earliest sunset is a few weeks before the winter solstice and why the latest sunset is in about a week after the summer solstice.

 

[ncbill]

Only had to change the clocks manually on the kitchen range and microwave.

Everything else is connected and automatically resets.

 

[Dtail]

Only had to change the clocks manually on the kitchen range and microwave.

Everything else is connected and automatically resets.

Same

 

[MichaelB]

That’s what is funny to me, we simply adjust our walking time throughout the year so that it’s light enough to walk, usually about 10 mins before sunrise in the summer.

I get that. We live in an urban area and a few minutes later means lots more cars and people walking their dogs, so I appreciate the light earlier in the morning.

The other side of that is aging makes it more difficult to see at night, which now comes even earlier.

 

[audreyh1]

I get that. We live in an urban area and a few minutes later means lots more cars and people walking their dogs, so I appreciate the light earlier in the morning.

The other side of that is aging makes it more difficult to see at night, which now comes even earlier.

Since we live in a small 55+ community we don’t deal with work commuters, and most of the (not many) regular dog walkers seem to time their walks around sunrise like us. We also like to get the walking done before construction crews start to appear.

We also don’t see night coming earlier than a minute or two each day because we don’t do evening things by the clock, but instead ~1 1/2 hrs before sunset time. DH often goes out for a last nature photography run around then.

 

[More Cowbell]

Study this: It explains why the earliest sunset is a few weeks before the winter solstice and why the latest sunset is in about a week after the summer solstice.

Dennis Mammana the astronomy columnist has an easy to read article about the analemma and why longest and shortest days don’t always correspond to expectations:

The Solstice and the Analemma, by Dennis Mammana

Week of June 14-20, 2020 Look on any globe or map, and you're bound to find a mysterious figure-eight pattern. It's called the

www.creators.com

TLR

Many have noted earth’s off-axis tilt as it orbits around the sun. In addition,
Earth’s orbit around the sun is an ellipse, not a circle. This is why sunsets may occur later (slower) or earlier (faster) than expected.

The NOAA chart Turbo29 included can be used to estimate how much the variance is. There are also applications and scripts that display the analemma for any arbitrary location and time.