Time Change

[DreamTime]

From another moonlight lover...Hear, hear, Mr. Marchbanks!

[Polly]

Like I mentioned yesterday. I guess I am not the only one:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20071024/hl_...avingstime

:-)

[Astrojewels]

I agree Polly, and allow my ‘body clock’ to direct the day and be in tune with nature as much as possible, but the time change puts it out of balance, and starting it on a big ritual week makes sense to me, everyone is out of balance, you do not even feel like eating or sleeping etc and it is only 1 hour. On sunset and sunrise the birds are not as chirpy as usual, my dogs are also affected, nature sends out a frequency for morning, mid-day and evening, but now that is disrupted with a false feeling.
Now you guys are back to normal time, the natural flow of time works at a slow pace of 1 minute per day, so your days become slowly shorter, that is nature.

[Polly]

Hi Karen, we are not back to normal time yet, the day will be Nov. 4th, and I have the feeling it will be a real jolt because suddenly the day will seem really short to many.

[Get Boldened]

"New Federal Law—Springing Forward in March, Back in November
Months after Indiana passed the law that got it in step with the rest of the country, the federal government announced a major change in Daylight Saving Time. In Aug. 2005, Congress passed an energy bill that included extending Daylight Saving Time by about a month. As of 2007, DST starts the second Sunday of March and ends on the first Sunday of November."

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/daylight1.html#new

[GertrudaRose]

DST was a real pain when it was finally implemented in Indiana.  First I had to change all of the computers, etc. at work and home to do the DST thing.  And then just a few weeks later I had to go around and apply the patch to change the dates for the beginning and end of DST.  And then several counties in Indiana changed their time zones.

But, by far, the biggest pain was getting the parrot to change his schedule.  Birds typically insist on (and do better with) very strict schedules and don't like exceptions.  Now that he has finally adjusted, we get to do it all over again.  The stress on him (and us) to do this twice a year is ridiculous!

This also has to be hard on families with special children.  Any child with ADHD does better with a schedule and this will mess them up, too.  I'm sure there are lots of others that find the changes especially challenging.

I think DST is just another ploy to keep us discombobulated.  What do you think - is it worth it?

[AndrewX]

But, by far, the biggest pain was getting the parrot to change his schedule.  Birds typically insist on (and do better with) very strict schedules and don't like exceptions.  Now that he has finally adjusted, we get to do it all over again.  The stress on him (and us) to do this twice a year is ridiculous!

I'm intriqued GB, how does it affect the parrot exactly? 

Personally I love daylightSavings, I wish they'd just leave it like that permenantly.  We'd all have more time for outdoor activities after work before the Sun went down and it  turned dark.  Fishing for instance.:big grin: 

Karen said:

...it is only good when you are a teenager and want to stay out having fun for longer.

That is I, that is I... :big grin:

[GertrudaRose]

AndrewX - Pet parrots simply do not like the schedule changed.  Our parrot is an excellent example of a healthy, happy bird but if he is forced to get up in the morning an hour later than usual, he will begin screaming because he thinks he has been abandoned.  Turned around the other way and try to get him up an hour earlier than usual, and he will bite you for disturbing his sleep time.  In either case, he is then also cranky for the rest of the day because he is not on schedule.  But since our schedule is changed, his schedule must change with it, and he sure doesn't like it.  It took about 4 weeks to get him on to DST.

Also, pet birds do not do well with stress of any kind.  It can lead to behaviors such as feather-plucking, illness, biting, screaming, and other non-lovable things.  Owning a parrot is a big commitment, but we sure do love him.  This morning I was grumpy from being in a lot of pain all night, but he started talking and cracked me up by doing the Twilight Zone theme song at just the right moment.

[AndrewX]

Don't let him bite you, they bite very hard... cheeky parrots...

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=kMGk65UMlMo

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=dITvWtQFIb8

[Richard]

Here’s some interesting statistics. 

Study ties time shift, pedestrian deaths

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer 

After clocks are turned back this weekend, pedestrians walking during the evening rush hour are nearly three times more likely to be struck and killed by cars than before the time change, two scientists calculate.

Ending daylight savings time translates into about 37 more U.S. pedestrian deaths around 6 p.m. in November compared to October, the researchers report. Their study of risk to pedestrians is preliminary, but confirms previous findings of higher deaths after clocks are set back in fall.

It's not the darkness itself, but the adjustment to earlier nighttime that's the killer, said professors Paul Fischbeck and David Gerard, both of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Fischbeck, who regularly walks with his 4-year-old twins around 6 p.m., is worried enough that he'll be more cautious starting Monday.

"A three times increase in the risk is really dramatic, and because of that we're carrying a flashlight," he said.

Fischbeck and Gerard conducted a preliminary study of seven years of federal traffic fatalities and calculated risk per mile walked for pedestrians. They found that per-mile risk jumps 186 percent from October to November, but then drops 21 percent in December.

They said the drop-off in deaths by December indicates the risk is caused by the trouble both drivers and pedestrians have adjusting when darkness suddenly comes an hour earlier.

The reverse happens in the morning when clocks are set back and daylight comes earlier. Pedestrian risk plummets, but there are fewer walkers then, too. The 13 lives saved at 6 a.m. don't offset the 37 lost at 6 p.m., the researchers found.

The risk for pedestrian deaths at 6 p.m. is by far the highest in November than any other month, the scientists said. The danger declines each month through May.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety of Arlington, Va., in earlier studies found the switch from daylight savings time to standard time increased pedestrian deaths. Going to a year-round daylight savings time would save about 200 deaths a year, the institute calculated, said spokesman Russ Rader.

"Benjamin Franklin conceived of daylight savings time as a way of saving candles," Rader said Friday. "Today we know it saves lives."

The risk at 6 p.m. in November, after daylight savings time ends, is 11 times higher than the risk for the same hour in April, when daylight savings begins, according to the Carnegie Mellon researchers.

Fischbeck and Gerard used federal traffic fatality data that they've incorporated into a searchable database for different risk factors. Their analysis was not peer-reviewed or being published in a scientific journal.

But it does jibe with other peer-reviewed studies that looked at raw fatalities.

A 2001 study by John M. Sullivan at the University of Michigan looked at national traffic statistics from 1987 to 1997 and found that there were 65 crashes killing pedestrians in the week before the clocks fell back and 227 in the week after.

Fischbeck and Gerard found the increase in fatality risk after the end of daylight savings time is only for pedestrians. No such jump was seen for drivers or passengers in cars.

Once everyone "springs forward" to daylight savings time in April, there is a 78 percent drop in risk at 6 p.m., they said.

But overall for the evening rush hour, turning the clock back is a killer. In seven years there have been 250 more deaths in the fall and 139 fewer deaths in the spring.

"This clearly shows that both drivers and pedestrians should think about this daylight savings adjustment," Gerard said. "There are lives at stake."

  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071102/ap_o...tIjJQDW7oF