If someone walking by asks you what time it is, he’s probably asking for the local time, so if you casually glance at your watch and reply that it is nine o’clock in the morning, that’s fine. But what if this person had been on the other side of the globe, and speaking to you over the phone? You’d have to qualify that with the time zone: it is nine o’clock in Seattle. Or whatever. It is not unrea­son­able to expect the other guy to figure out the time in his little town based on what you tell him.

(By now you’re probably wondering why this guy across the globe doesn’t have a clock of his own, but that’s besides the point.)

Now imagine that some all-powerful body declares that the time in Seattle shall be arbitrarily moved forward or backward by an hour at different times of the year. Now, when you tell that guy the time is nine o’clock in Seattle, he’d have to reckon that actual number of hours based on the time of the year.

People with power to declare the time are seldom satis­fied with creating mild confu­sion. The more the merrier, they say. So imagine that they convene a committee every year that gathers together in an expen­sive hotel, with over-priced dinners and spectac­ular service to decide when to move the time forward or backward. Sometimes, on a whim, they decide not to do it at all.

Of course, the guy on the other end of the phone would be pretty confused by now. Sure, he would have this little book that he would keep updating every year, so as to figure out the right time based on what you told him — but at times he would forget. He doesn’t sound like the brightest, you know.

Now I’ve forgotten what my original point was, and besides, this story sucks, so — “The End.”

Tags: DST, Time

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 21:30 and is filed under Daily Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.