Thread: Permanent summer time

Before the Industrial Revolution most of the population lived on farms and work on the farm dictated when you got up, ate your meals and went to sleep. No one need a clock.

When the Industrial Revolution came factory owners needed employees to be on time and pushed watch and clock makers to make models everyone could afford.

As far as time itself goes the earliest civilizations had a way to measure it and it's even thought Chimpanzees have an awareness of time. It seems to be a pretty basic thing.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

When they did it when Carter was President to save fuel folks loved it at first. Then little kids going to school in the morning were in the dark and kids were being run over cause cars couldn't see them and accidents increased and all of a sudden folks hated it and they undid it.

The kids must finish school earlier her than in Britain because the big argument I rememmber was that during winter time(standard), the kids were in danger walking home from school in the dark.

All animals have a basic understanding of time but that is largely based on photo period and, at least with wild animals their activities are governed by the lunar cycle. When hunting I follow a solunor calendar and base my hunting periods according to it. If you are stand hunting you will notice everything is still and almost nothing is active as if waiting and holding it's breath. As an active period approaches everything starts to stir as if dawn had broken in the middle of the day then suddenly the entire forest is abuzz.

It is an equation of how the sun and moon interact at their peek and ebb. You get to where you can judge it pretty closely by looking at the chart.

Edit:
Clocks on the other hand judge only what you tell them to judge and pay no mind to anything else. So, more accurately put they are an arbitrary instrument.

Nothing is going to change. Look at the current house. They're incapable of doing anything. Just another media ploy to get people worked up about nothing that matters.

He went thataway

Actually when you get into astrophysics the workings of the Universe involve time and it has its own "clock".

You can buy a watch that has a moon phase display and will guide you to all the phases of the moon. You can also buy a watch that calculates "The equation of time" (the difference between solar time and the mean time).

One of my peeves is that Tom Hanks created an analemma without a functional time piece in castaway. Totally wrecked the movie for me.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Actually when you get into astrophysics the workings of the Universe involve time and it has its own "clock".

You can buy a watch that has a moon phase display and will guide you to all the phases of the moon. You can also buy a watch that calculates "The equation of time" (the difference between solar time and the mean time).

Assuming all these things are true does the universe's astrophysical clock change twice a year to accommodate school children? I'd say it doesn't. AND that would s all the more reason to quit changing it.

Even if a watch does track time it does not affect time. Deer and birds and other animals couldn't care less what you call that moment in time. They only care about the moment itself and how it affects their habits. You could call midnight noon and noon half past a monkey's @$$ as far as they care.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Assuming all these things are true does the universe's astrophysical clock change twice a year to accommodate school children? I'd say it doesn't. AND that would s all the more reason to quit changing it.

Even if a watch does track time it does not affect time. Deer and birds and other animals couldn't care less what you call that moment in time. They only care about the moment itself and how it affects their habits. You could call midnight noon and noon half past a monkey's @$$ as far as they care.

Until we find a way to go forward or backward in time nothing changes time. Time is defined as the progression of events from the past to the present into the future. All we humans are doing is finding a way to relate to this phenomena in a way that makes sense to us all. No, a deer couldn't care less about hours and minutes and years however we are not deer. When you shoot a deer what do you think a deer thinks just happened to him? Probably wow what just happened to me and he drops. But, you know what happened to him.

All I'm saying is humans as (supposedly) intelligent creatures want to relate to our environment and make sense of things and the concept of a clock helps us to do this.

But I think we have ventured far from the original subject of this thread.

Oh I don't disagree with that. In fact I don't disagree with any of the other stuff so much. Just making the point that we act as though (or some in the world do at least. Not so much anything said in this conversation) the clock somehow makes a difference to anything except how we meter our activities.

No we are not deer but I often think we get a little over-impressed with ourselves. We are not the same as the other animals but we are ourselves an animal. Just because we understand things better does not mean we are not affected by them. We are simply able to change our circumstances by manipulating our surrounding and conditions. Sunrise is still sunrise and our bodies follow the photo period in a natural setting. The world we have created for ourselves has removed us from the natural order to where night can be day and summer can be winter. Just go to a hockey game in Florida some night in October when it is still in the 90s outside and you walk out of a summer night into a winter day inside the arena.

Problem is that a lot of our activities are still outside not manipulated by of lights and climate control yet we maybe forget sometimes that the sun doesn't get the memo that we are now calling noon a time that is not solar mid day. Why then are we surprised when it doesn't ask our permission to come up when it is ready to?

Add to that that we can change our habits to be less diurnal and more nocturnal but our bodies are naturally inclined toward the former our eyesight and our sleep rhythms tend toward it and the changing of our measurement is disruptive to our systems. We are not just talking about one guy starting a new routine. We are changing it for the entire world.

I honestly think it would be less disruptive for us as a whole if we decided to follow the photo period and if necessary alter the natural time we do things. If kids are walking to or from school in the dark then change the time they go there. That is the effect of what we are doing now so why not just be honest with ourselves and call it what it is and change our habits to accommodate it? Besides, if the kids and their families have the issue then they should work it out, not have everyone on God's green Earth change to suit them.

I'm not trying to be callous but that is the reality of what is happening now. I'm just a big believer in personal responsibility and that we do a disservice to children by not teaching them such. Perhaps that is why in front of the University of Florida college kids...chronological adults will step right out into traffic without even looking. Yes the cars may be supposed to stop but that doesn't mean they will. My Dad had a little rhyme. "Johnny was dead right they said as he drove along. But now that Johnny's just as dead as if he was dead wrong."

I know that was a rant. I hate when I do that.


This is just a sore spot for me. If kids walking to school have a problem then kids walking to school should make a change not most of the rest of the world who really hates the time change, is disrupted by it and wants to stop doing it. Unless someone has another reason to change it because that's the only one I keep hearing.