Yep, Spring Forward

Image credit: Found at Deviant Art

If you’re late for something this morning, it’s probably because you forgot to set your alarm clock forward. For some reason, we’re doing that again. I guess it’s because we in the Northwest love it being light at ten o’clock.

Never thought we had that much impact on the world.

Enjoy what’s left of your Sunday.

Fall Backward

One of the actual cesium beam atomic clock units used in the 1960’s “flying clocks” experiment the synchronise time around the world. And later in the Hafele–Keating experiment to prove relativity theory. Currently kept at Agilent (formally Hewlett Packard) Melbourne headquarters. It’s accurate down to the nanosecond, but they still put an analog display on the thing. Image credit: Binarysequence/Wikimedia

Once again, it’s the time of year when, for reasons that surpass understanding, we set our clocks back one hour. Once again, I’m writing to remind you, and me, to set all the bloody clocks back.

Yes, strictly speaking, we set the clocks back now because we set them forward in spring, but I think you get the idea.

Spring Forward

A savonette-type pocket watch. Image credit: Isabelle Grosjean/Wikimedia

Yes. Today. It’s time to put the clocks ahead one hour, and sleep one hour less if you’re doing anything on Sunday.

Why? Our politicians couldn’t do anything useful to curb our energy use without risking the wrath of their masters in the carbon-based energy business, so they did this instead.

On the bright side, Spring is only a couple of weeks away.

Falling Backward

A 16th Century watch from Nuremberg, Germany. Image credit: Pirkheimer/Wikimedia

It’s that time of year again, at least if you live in most of the United States:

Beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time was extended one month and the schedule for the states of the United States that adopt daylight saving time are:

2 a.m. on the Second Sunday in March to
2 a.m. on the First Sunday of November.

Daylight Saving Time – North America

Now you understand as much about why we do this as I do.

If you’ve updated your computer’s time zone data in the last six years, or you’ve checked your cell phone, you already know what time it is. Otherwise, it’s probably an hour earlier than you think it is, and you may want to set your clocks accordingly.