Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for March 10, 2024

Uh, no. If he’s waking them up in the morning, it’s a Lost hour of daylight with sunrise an hour later.

Daylight Saving time is like cutting one end off of a blanket and sewing it back onto the other end. It’s useful from about the middle of April until just past Labor Day. After that, it’s pretty much of matter of whether you want your darkness in the middle of the morning or the middle of the evening.

Uh-oh. Here comes the barrage of DST haters.

To kill off an idea that dumb you need a much bigger rock.

Thank you, Mr. B Franklin – NOT.

But we aren’t actually getting more sun. Friday and Saturday we had about 12 hours of sun. Today and tomorrow we will still only get about 12 hours of sun. We won’t get ‘more sun’ for another month or so.

Thanks for the reminder. I totally forgot.

I set my clock too far ahead and had to do it over.

I’ve changed the time on 3 devices, the clock in the car, tomorrow!!

The “extra hour” comes at the end of the day (sunset) instead of the beginning (sunrise).

I like saving thyme along with marjoram and parsley and sage and basil and oregano etc etc etc

I know we’re in Wiley World when the guys set their clocks backwards … or did he move the sun forewords … or did this make sense to anyone who’s sitting in the dark at an hour that –just yesterday– gave some hint of daylight despite the rain?

I hate DST but I hate messing with the time twice a year even more; yet nobody is willing to go with my idea of a permanent 30 minute compromise. It’s like living in DC.

Sorry, I thought he invented the tampon.

I get up in the morning to walk. It will be dark again for about a month.

I do have to admit that since I like to barbecue my dinner, that the extra hour in the evening is more useful to me than the extra light in the morning. I can eat at 6 or 7 instead of 5:00.

I’m going back to bed now.

Hey, when we want the sun to rise later, no problem. We set our clocks ahead an hour, because we’re Americans and that’s what we do.

Wiley can use this again in October by changing the punchline to “The curse of being behind the times.”

It is now 8:37 DST and I just remembered to set my car’s clock to DST.

I only hate changing the clocks. DST or Standard, just stop the switching.

Problem is at least in Texas it is too hot (90+) between 6-9 (the daylight saved hours) to be outside/take an after dinner walk with the dogs.

…and God saw that it was good, and early.

We d

We don’t have DST in The Cayman Islands however it still screws me up because I cannot figure out what time it is when I phone friends & family in the US.

Love the torch instead of a lightbulb as a meme for a bright idea. No anachronism there Wiley! Clever!

There’s not much difference year-round in the sunrise & sunset times where I live, because we’re close to the Equator. We, sensibly, keep Standard Time all the time!

It only feels that way.

I read somewhere about a native American who, when someone tried to explain how DST give an extra hour of daylight, responded “only a white man would cut a foot-wide strip off the bottom of a blanket, sew it to the top of the blanket, and think he lengthened the blanket”.

People have been needing to know ‘the time’ since civilizations began. The sky has always been an important timekeeper: the sun and the moon divided the day into two parts. Easy – wake up and work in the light; sleep in the dark. Then lamps and candles became common and people could do more stuff in the dark. Ancient Egyptians set up shadow clocks dividing the days into hours. For both work and religious purposes. The problem was that shadow lengths varied over the course of the year. Diagonal star clocks, which made use of the movements of the constellations, had a religious function: with their help, the deceased should be able to ascend to heaven more easily. The Egyptians also invented the water clock in the 16th century BC [Amenhotep III]: water draining from a vessel showed the time completely independent of the season or light.

Similar water clocks were also used a bit later in Babylonia and China. And in ancient Greece, water clocks were used in court to limit speaking time. “Time has run out” refers to the water clock.

The Romans adopted the principles of water clocks and sundials from other cultures. The Moors and Arabs also used them. When the Roman Empire collapsed, the knowledge of ancient timekeeping perished. Time-telling pretty much stood still.

During the Middle Ages, improvements were made to sundials and water clocks and the candle clock was developed around 900 AD. But the most important time indicators were bells on the town and church towers. In 1335, the wheel clock was invented and in each town the doorman or “watchman” was responsible for keeping time for everyone — “9 o’clock and all is well.” At least until the tower clock was developed and everyone could hear the hour rung.

During the Renaissance, time marched on, getting more accessible and complicated, more useful, more demanding. Hourglasses, home clocks, pocket watches, wristwatches . . . no longer just people telling time, but time telling people.

Time is an artificial construct invented by man. Neither the sun nor the Earth care about it. Pick one and stay with it so we know when to leave to arrive at work, for the airlines and trains to have definitive schedules and to give teachers a reason to mark someone “tardy.”

We don’t have DST which, by the way, I like. Even so, and much to my chagrin, we had to restart our phones this morning because they insisted on running with the lemmings, and woke us up an hour early.

I’m with the ‘pick one and stay with it’ group. While I am retired so there is no ‘work schedule,’ I would prefer EST, which is where I began 88 years ago, but I will adapt as I have since this ‘mankind playing with the solar calendar’ thing began.

Typically, it began with a congress that just couldn’t help mess with something out of their mandate, while they were totally unable to handle the many ordinary problems already on their menus. Just like the congress that now is kneeling to His Lordship, Buttercup The Indicted.

Today is the shortest day of the year. 23 hours.

Don’t need DST in 2-Sun AZ.

each town had their own time before railroads, ah, the really good old days!

I can’t be ahead of my time. The hour moved up!

I actually was able to sleep well at the start of Daylight Saving Time for once in how I planned things. That said, I would love to be rid of it for good.

Move it 30 min. and leave it alone.

I am ahead of my time. I set my clocks ahead yesterday evening.

Standard Time is God’s Time.

And God’s Time is America’s Time.

Daylight Stupid Time should have been abolished decades ago. It serves no purpose. It doesn’t “make the days longer,” or “save energy,” or “help the farmers,” or any of the other misconceptions that continue to circulate.

The extra sunlight during the spring and summer months is the result of the Earth tilting on its axis, not because people have messed with their clocks. The Sun doesn’t move. With DST, you are merely getting up one hour earlier, which creates the illusion of a “longer day.”

Standard Time is the true measure of time and should be permanent. Anyone who wishes to continue pursuing that mythical “longer day” is free to get up an hour earlier during the spring and summer months.

Daylight Saving Time is perpetuated by guys in suits who want to play an extra round of golf in the evening. It is demonstrably hard on the body. The Sun makes the time. Exercising in the morning is better because it gets your body going for the day. It is much, much harder getting up in the dark to do that for a couple of extra months.

“Only a white man would cut 2 inches off the top of blanket, sew it to the bottom of the blanket, and say the blanket was longer.” ~ Chief Whitefeather

Yep! That be me. I realize that time is an artificial concept, but pick a time and %&*$ing STICK WITH IT!

My sundial still reads the same.

This is the worst day of the year when they steal an hour of my sleep, made up only when we switch back on my favorite day of the year. Would someone get me some coffee?

Wiley is an inspiration!

Why don’t they just split the difference, move the clocks ahead 30 minutes and leave it there?

I love the fractured ‘Zs’ that Wiley uses as a waking-up.

but… that hour is in the evening…

I don’t have time to find out what anyone else thought about the “lightbulb” idea! I thought it was clever!

I used to do rotating shifts. Seven 12 hr shifts per fortnight. First group: Mon, Tues 06;00-18:00; then three nights 18:00-06:00, Starting Wed evening. Next group started at 06:00 the following Wed. Third group was a 3 day-shift weekend and two nights. We laughed at people complaining about DST one hour time changes. We had a twelve hour time change twice per fortnight. It takes about a year to get over living that way! I survived my long commute and long shifts by getting a nap on my lunch breaks.

In the end we’re all still cavemen.

One of the dumbest ideas ever. A lot of the world has moved away from it.

Ummm, it doesn’t work that way. The “extra” daylight is supposed to magically appear at the end of the day, not the beginning. No wonder they reacted so badly!

They showed great mercy by not flogging him before crushing.

What is this ‘hour’ of which you speak?

Just pick one and stick with it. But apparently we’re incapable of even agreeing on that. No wonder we’re so screwed up.

Since I retired, and now live in Arizona, this doesn’t affect me at all. Rise when I want to, ignoring what the clock says. I imagine that those that work in agriculture and other activities not tied to an artificial schedule, also use the sun as their guide, and ignore the clock on the wall.

He’s ahead of his time because he moved the clocks forward

That idea has lost momentum.

Thanks – always blamed Ben Franklin for making it popular

No wonder so many ReichPublicans love Daylight Savings time.

They get to Lie about what time it is for 6 whole months.

My favorite day of the year…nice driving home from a movie tonight in twilight.

Don’t you think it’s time for our illustrious (or is it illustrated?) Federal legislators buckled down and got some real, serious work done? DST was good for its time (That’ a pun, son!) and its place BUT it ain’t down on the farm — just ask any cow waiting to be milked (which is udder foolishness as cows don’t talk to humans!) … Sorry, boys and girls … it was yuust to good to resist. Also sprach Zarathustra! They (cows) don’t watch no clock no how!

And, of course, we all realise that sleeping time is wasted time, DON’T WE?

Two-step process for actually enjoying watching a sunrise: 1) Watch sunset. 2) Replay it backward in your head.

Summer time impacts those closer to the poles more than those who live near the tropics. The local time of sunrise and sunset doesn’t vary as much near the equator, no matter the season days are around 12 hours long. I can understand why AZ and TX may not see the value. But DST does mean that daylight isn’t wasted on sleep. Sure, there are those outliers who get up at 3am every day, but DST or not, you’re still going to be getting up in the dark. For all the cries about the impact on the body and sleep – it’s one hour twice a year! Surely everyone can get used to the change within a week – that’s 50 weeks where sleep should not be impacted. And coming into winter, we get a lovely extra hour in bed :-)