Congress wants to extend daylight savings time

[AKA_Monet]

Circadian cycle...

The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the brain, also know as the master regulator biological clock, responds to daylight and nighttime. Since we humans are daylight creatures, our active transcription factors, (BMAL, clock, per, tim, etc.) are either at its height or depth depending on our own genetic makeup... I forget which way these things go.... Anyhoo, these factors are thought to either activate or inactivate various other internal organ clocks that are used to for food consumption and energy--namely those coming from the liver, the stomach and the colon... That is why you unload, then drink, then eat...

So, I guess congress is inadvertantly trying to make themselves "regular"???

[jubilance1922]

Originally posted by valkyrie
The real problem with school starting when it's too dark out is that SCHOOL STARTS TOO EARLY. Why does anybody think kids learn anything when they have to get up before the ass crack of dawn? School should never, ever, EVER start before 8:00. EVER.

In my school district (and I've heard this to be true in others as well), it was an issue of not having enough buses. So they have to stagger the start times for high school, middle school, and elementary so that they have enough buses and drivers to transport all the students.

I have read studies that indicate high school students need to start later, but most districts choose to start early anyway.

[AGDee]

They haven't thought about the impact of the millions of computers that are programmed to automatically adjust for DST. They are saying that when this passes, it will go into effect immediately. If that's a week before DST is due to expire, computers all over the country are going to be screwed up. People can't get security patches installed in a timely manner. They aren't going to get this fixed in a short amount of time.

Hawaii has never observed Daylight Savings Time.

I do hope they keep it that way.

[PsychTau]

Originally posted by AGDee
They haven't thought about the impact of the millions of computers that are programmed to automatically adjust for DST. They are saying that when this passes, it will go into effect immediately. If that's a week before DST is due to expire, computers all over the country are going to be screwed up. People can't get security patches installed in a timely manner. They aren't going to get this fixed in a short amount of time.

You mean seriously we can't turn off DST on our computers? I have a Mac at home and I can check a box for DST or no-DST and adjust the time that way. Same with my Windows computer at work just now. I double clicked the clock, went to the Time Zone screen, then "unchecked" the "Automatically adjust clock for daylight savings time changes". Hit OK, and my clock backed up an hour.


PsychTau

[AGDee]

Sure, at home you can. At work, where you have to be an administrator to access that function, you have 19,000 users (in my corporation) who will have screwed up clocks and some of the applications they use require that the time be synchronized with the server that the app is on to work properly. I don't worry much about home users, it's the big corporations that have issues with this kind of thing.

ETA: if you can change your clock, then you have been given access to it by someone. Our desktops are required to be locked down so that nothing can be changed.