In Denmark DONG - a major energy supplier - just claimed that nothing was gained whatsoever.
If the politicians MUST play gods
why don't the stick to the same religion on both sides of the Atlantic?
The sun does ...

Personally, I'm against manipulating
- the cows also are
- and I'm a member of an association against DST
- that holds it's general assembly on the day in spring when we leftponders shift to DST
- and it takes place from 2AM to 3AM

Let's have coffee - or tea - with that, lawrencehardin

Lawrence, I don't think there is any such thing as "The Truth" (tm) about DST. Though, admittedly, I have heard quite similar rumours. Namely that DST indeed had a positive effect in the 1970s during the oil/energy crisis. But then, the world changes all the time. And what might have had positive effects 30 or 40 years ago might not be the case anymore. Who knows. Not me, for sure...

Personally, I don't mind DST that much. I usually have no problems whatsoever in making the shift from/to DST. My clocks are mostly radio-controlled (or use the internet to adjust themselves) and need no supervision. And I actually like the extra hour of sunlight in the summer evenings. (I'm also aware of the cows' problems, though, as the little mermaid mentioned).

Nevertheless, I have a feeling that DST is not going to survive in the long run. But that's my very personal opinion and not backed up scientifically

I agree that it is a sort of inconvenience. But here is how I have managed this to be a minimal inconvenience.

All our alarm clocks (5 in total) are automatically adjusted because they are synchronized every hour with the time signal sent by an atomic clock from the outskirts of Frankfurt in Germany. I can tell you that my alarm clocks are of an unparalleled precision, in fact I have the precision of an atomic clock.

The car clock has also a DST function that has it adjusted automatically.

The Iphone, Blackberry etc. are also all automatically adjusted through the time code received from the net.

The TV decoder/recorder date and time are also automatically adjusted through the date/time code received through the cable network from my provider.

All the computers, laptops, Ipads etc. are also automatically set.

Finally yes remains the oven and microwave and my wristwatch.

My wristwatch has a simple function where I can switch from DST on or off and it will move the needles one hour back or front. It is a double digital and analogic watch. For me that I travel a lot this watch allows me multiple time zone switches so DST in fact is a simpler function.

Here we come to the oven and microwave. They both have digital displays and have a very simple time adjustment function. But I have to synchronize them and this takes time.
I hate to have the oven displaying a different time, even one minute difference, with the microwave one. The reason is that I see both displays, and as a good swiss I simply cannot accept that they do not display the same time.

This is why I decided that next time I will buy both oven and microwave, either connected to internet or with an atomic clock time signal receiver and I will definitively forget what DST is or means.
DST will become completely transparent.

My father, in his spare time, repairs mechanical clocks - and, with that, he's got a very sizable collection (well into double digits in total, with up to a dozen clocks in each of the main rooms). When the clocks go back, it's a simple task of stopping them all for 1 hr (boy, does the house seem quiet then), whilst when they go forward, he's got to manually move all the clocks on 1 hr.

This, as I'm sure you can imagine, can be, and is rather a pain - particularly so, as Friday night is his "wind-up night", and that's normally the time he adjusts all but 1 of them (my mother insists on him leaving at least 1 prominant clock at the 'proper' time, until the morning of the official clock change...).

Many years ago, about 1964 or 1965 I believe, Minnesota had politicians fighting about whether or not to accept daylight savings time. It was so bad because it was fragmented from city to city and rural to metropolitan areas. The only reason I remember it is because I had a medical appointment in St. Paul and it was on a different time from the suburb in which I lived. What a mess ! Later on the state adopted a uniform time across the state. Most of the farmers hated the idea of the time change because they worked, not by the clock, but by the sun. This was especially true of the dairy farmers because of their milking cycles. Cows can't tell time but are used to getting milked at the same time every day. The move to extend daylight savings time to a greater portion of the year means for some school kids, instead of getting picked up by the school bus when it is light, they get picked up when it is dark in the morning.

For anyone who lives north of the 45th parallel, it does not make any difference between mid November and mid January anyway because the amount of daylight is so low. It is dark when I leave for work and dark when I get home. I do not have trouble adjusting to the changes, but I can understand how the changes impact others who may not be able to adjust easily.

Cheers