Think of the cows: clocks go forward for the last time in Russia

[Viva_La_Revolution]

Source: Guardian


Cows will be calmer, doctors happier and crooks less active.

That's the thinking as Russia puts forward its clocks for the last time this weekend.

Leading the way in an incipient global trend that rejects the notion of changing the clocks in spring and autumn, the Russian authorities believe the move will reduce human – and animal – misery.

It means Russia, which stretches across nine time zones from Kaliningrad in Europe to the Kamchatka peninsula in the Pacific, will stay permanently on summer time from this Sunday, gaining extra daylight in the afternoons during its seemingly interminable winter.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/25/clocks-go-forward-last-time-russia

---

lucky Russians!

[Buzz Clik]

1. I was unaware that cows could tell time.

I always assumed that cows were oblivious to daylight savings time or standard time or Greenwich Mean Time.

Clearly, I have much to learn about cows.

[Maine-ah]

3. I don't know about cows

but it affects my dog. Putting the clocks ahead makes breakfast/dinner an hour later. :rofl:

[Purveyor]

5. I know my dogs can. They are just now starting to adjust to the new schedule. eom

[Patiod]

13. My cat adjusts immediately to EDT

She begins haunting for her 6pm dinner at 4 sharp EST, and somehow adjusted THE NEXT day to haunting at 4 pm EDT. Don't know how, but she did it!

[MikeW]

56. more lighttime in the summer ... im all for it.

[Sal Minella]

16. Here's this about cows:

The cows I've known were milked twice a day. Their bodies let down the milk when they are expecting the milking machine to be attached.

Now. Imagine standing around with a FULL UDDER for an extra hour, waiting for some honyock standing there with a watch in his hand insisting it's not milking time yet. And this goes on for several days until your body adjusts.

Would you be a happy cow?

No, you would not.

Conversely, having a milking machine attached an hour before my body is ready to give up its milk would be an annoying and possibly painful experience.

So.

Cows know when it's time to be milked. No problem there.

It's the idiotic people who can't seem to decide when milking time is.

k?

[Maine-ah]

18. just like breast feeding...

If I was late getting to it, I would feel like I was about to explode...it makes sense.

[Sal Minella]

26. Bingo.

Cows can "tell time" a lot better than some milkhouse idjit who doesn't have the backbone to fight changing the farging clocks twice a year for no good reason.

[Buzz Clik]

36. Very true (and contrary to the article in the OP).

It's not the hour of the day it's the passage of time. Daylight savings, standard time. No difference. When it's milking time, there will be a lot of mooing going on. Time to fire up the machine. Or get a bucket.

[loudsue]

59. I wouldn't want a machine hooked up to my udder no matter what time it was.

Just sayin.

[Sal Minella]

60. If you were a cow who hadn't been milked for several hours,

you'd go for it.

You'll just have to take my word on this, I guess.

[Incitatus]

62. Don't knock it til ya tried it. nt

[Danmel]

43. One of my favorite far sides!

I believe people's and animal's rhythms are disrupted by the time changes, but I can't say the same for my cats- they seem to sleep 80 percent of the time regardless of the time.

[Purveyor]

2. I read a early report on this where the Russians also calculated the costs associated with the

'time change' and included that in their justification for the change.

Made sense to me.

[JI7]

4. i hate time changing.i wish we wouldn't spring foward

[mimitabby]

8. same here

leave it as DST or STD time, either one, but quit going back and forth. I'm still adjusting and it's been two weeks!

[cosmicone]

10. It is better to abolish "fall back" than spring forward. n/t

[Lionel Mandrake]

30. I'd rather do what Arizona does.

They keep standard time all year, not daylight savings time.

I like the idea that noon is (approximately) when the sun is highest in the sky.


Blue: DST observed
Orange: DST no longer observed
Red: DST never observed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time

[AllTooEasy]

34. Rarely do you hear that!!!!...but I agree

[MBS]

49. yup, me too.

Bravo for Sonora, Mexico and AZ (or most of it-- Navajo county goes through the DST dance, supposedly to keep in synch with the rest of the reservation in Utah, etc)

But the main thing -- however the clock is set --is to stop the stupid and pointless switching back and forth.

[mopinko]

51. indiana finally threw in the towel just recently

they refused to change until, iirc, last year. they decided that it was a burden to business to be in a different cycle than businesses in chicago, etc.
i suspect the amish and mennonites there are still going by cow time.

[Quantess]

6. That has to be a tongue-in-cheek joke.

Russian humor? It reminds me of Hugo Chavez' comment about capitalism on Mars.

If Michelle Bachmann had said it, I would assume she was serious, however. :)

[mimitabby]

7. wow, lucky them!

i hope we're next!

[cosmicone]

9. It is a good idea. "Fall Back" is a relic from a past era.

It is not material anymore. A lot of energy will be saved by not falling back because we won't have to turn lights on for 1 extra hour in the evening.

[Quantess]

11. It's all relative, of course, but I would prefer year-round Daylight Savings Time.

Just, pick one and stick to it. No messing with the clocks.

I wonder if there is a conservative/liberal divide on this, simply due to the fact that it means getting rid of an archaic system? I would predict more conservatives would be opposed to getting rid of the time shift, but who knows.

[Patiod]

14. But won't you think about the CHILDREN???!!!

I think the biggest argument for changing back in the Fall is that it's too dark in the morning for children to stand at bus stops - they'll all be abducted or run over.

[Quantess]

21. But, we couldn't just change the time children start school, could we?

Nah.

[Patiod]

22. Too sensible

Plus there's tons of research showing that teenagers biological clocks are all screwed up, and that teens function better if they get up later.

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. And change the time parents go to work, because they try to match the times

and change the times public transport runs, to get the children to school, and ... why not change the clocks to achieve all this?

[UpInArms]

12. whoever dreamed this shit up was the first virus writer - how to screw everyone

with a bad idea - the power of dumbness never fails to disappoint.

[Book Lover]

15. It was Ben Franklin

Just sayin'...

[Wednesdays]

29. Not Ben Franklin

He didn't get all of the colonies to re-set all their clocks. Just his own.

[Book Lover]

31. The question was who thought up DST

and the answer to that is Mr. Franklin.

[UpInArms]

33. knew that

doesn't change the outcome

[fishwax]

53. actually, it was George Vernon Hudson

Franklin didn't argue to change the clocks, but just (amusingly) recommended rising with the sun.

[RC]

17. I want the Sun to be overhead Greenwich at 12:00 noon.

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/what-is-gmt.htm

This so-called daylight saving time needs to stop. It save nothing, anymore than cutting one end off a blanket and sewing it on the other makes it longer.

[hedgehog]

55. We could all just get up an hour earlier and go to bed an hour earlier.

[RC]

58. Exactly.

Why spend 9 months or so lying to our selves and each other?

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. I like daylight savings time - it's an excellent idea

It allows timetables to be kept the same, means you don't have to get up in the dark during winter, while at the same time giving you longer summer evenings to enjoy.

For industrial countries in temperate latitudes, it's a very good concept. It increases human happiness considerably. We could keep the clocks the same, and just change the times we work, go to school and so on at various times of the year (one school I was at did have a winter and summer timetable, to have outdoor sports before final lessons in winter during daylight), but doing it by changes the clocks keeps it coordinated.

[scarletwoman]

23. Sorry, you've got it backward about getting up in the dark in winter.

Permanent Daylight Saving Time would mean MORE dark mornings in the winter, not less.

I live above the 45th parallel and I leave for work around 6:30 am. When we're on Standard Time, it gradually gets lighter each morning after the winter solstice, until by mid-February it's gotten decently light for my morning commute. Then along comes the damn time change and I'm back to driving to work in the dark for another few weeks.

It totally sucks.

sw

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. I like Daylight Savings Time, which happens in the summer

If you change your clocks in the winter to match what you now have in summer, then it's not 'daylight savings time' - it's moving your time zone 15 degrees to the east. France did that, when the were invaded by Germany, and never switched back (though they still put daylight savings time on top of that, so solar noon for much of France, and Spain for that matter, happens around 2pm in the summer).

What I want is the current situation, for the UK and nearly all of the US - being on your actual geographic time zone during the winter, and then using Daylight Savings Time during the summer. I have scarcely ever had to commute before 8am (never as a regular thing), having had jobs and school that start at 9am (which is pretty typical), and so I've always been able to do the morning commute in daylight.

Perhaps Daylight Savings Time is on for a bit too long - if the change was done at the equinoxes, then it would never put sunrise later than 7am (at whatever latitude) if you're on the meridian at the centre of the time zone, or 7:30am if you're right at the western edge. Maybe make it shorter still - say from 2 weeks after the vernal equinox till 2 weeks before the autumnal one. That would mean, for a typical 45 degree latitude city like Montreal, sunrise getting to about 7:30am, and then jumping back to 6:30am - not too bad even for an early riser like you. But that would still give us the long summer evenings, which are fun.

[dflprincess]

37. I like having more light in the evening

I'm more apt to want to do something after work.

I can deal with it being darker in the mornings again.

[BeHereNow]

20. Everyone I know HATES the early darkness- winter is hard enough...

without the misery of darkness descending and the
shortened hours of daylight.

I HATE making dinner after dark- I always feel like it
is ten o'clock at night and I should be getting ready for
bed, not setting the table.

BHN

[sofa king]

32. And I for one hate all mornings, so dark mornings are okay with me.

The real problem for modern society is twilight. Humans are not crepuscular creatures. Bad and inattentive drivers get worse, while those who see better at that time assume everyone else sees as well as they do. I used to sit on a balcony and watch 395 grind to a halt as the sun set (not that it was going much faster before that). Some poor fool ass-ended someone else on that road almost every evening, as regular as the sunset that contributed to it.

Unfortunately, since most of North America is a dark, godforsaken frozen f$%^ing hell* most of the time, our work commuting schedules seem to invariably rub up against dawn or dusk.

* Why yes, as a matter of fact I did commute 35 miles on a clown bike in 27 degrees this morning, in the middle of a formerly beautiful and almost pleasant early spring. My thumbnails still feel like they're being pinched with pliers. I have to wear full winter gear nine months out of the year if I'm driving at night, and I live in the "South." The f%&^ing freezing cold, painful, never, ever going to get warm again South. F*&^ this winter.

[JI7]

38. i'm the opposite, i prefer the dark. i hate when it's light during dinner

[Nye Bevan]

24. I *wish* we would do the same thing.

I hate having to change all my clocks twice a year. And I hate how the time change disrupts me. It takes me a week to adjust to it, both in the spring and the fall.

[thelordofhell]

25. One of the good reasons to live in Arizona

I'm proud to stand with my Russian Commrades in never touching my clock during the year.

Now if we could only do something about the backwards conservative idiots around here.

[erodriguez]

57. Hehe

[OverBurn]

35. Why don't we split the difference?

This Fall when the clocks are suppose to fall back 1 hour, instead change the clocks 1/2 hour and be done with it forever.

[tabasco]

54. I thought of that first!! n/t

[Terry in Austin]

39. It's the daylight losing time that gets to me

On the other hand, you could be like all "I'm not into time, man."

[quakerboy]

40. Wouldnt that be nice

Gaining an hour on the one end has its benefits, but who dosn't just waste that by staying up and watching tv for an extra hour that night. Losing an hour really sucks, and seems to throw pretty much everyone off for a couple weeks.

[Delphinus]

41. Yea!!

Lucky Russians, indeed!

[The2ndWheel]

42. Get rid of the clocks

Problem solved.

[JVS]

44. We need a better solution: winter hibernation.

The entire work day should be cut short in winter and we should spend the dark time sleeping and relaxing at home.

[tomp]

45. i've never heard a reasonable explanation for dst.

and i get pissed off when i lose an hour of morning light.

but that's just me.

[No Elephants]

47. Please see link in Reply 46.

[happyslug]

48. DST came out of the adoption of Standard times zones

Prior to about 1880 every city had its own time based on when the sun was overhead at noon. This could vary a few minutes to hours depending on how far the two cities were. The railroads had a problem, how do you set up a train schedule between two cities using two different time on their clocks? The solution was what we call standard time zones, each about one hour long in duration.

The problem is as you near the next time zone, the less time you have after 5:00 pm (When many people get off work). On the other hand you get almost another hour as you near the previous time zone. Thus most people problem with DST is on these edges of each time zone. DST solved a lot of problems caused by the adoption of Standard time, basically the problem of people refusal to adopt local "Summer" hours to solve the problem of to short a time period after 5:00 pm in the summer.

Just a comment about why DST was adopted, more to solve problems that came out of adoption of Standard time then anything else.

[muriel_volestrangler]

50. Industrialiasation forces us to keep to timetables; if we were independent farmers or hunters

we'd vary the time we start our day by far more than just one hour per year. DST is a way of reintroducing a bit of the 'natural' thing to do - vary the time you get up according to the time of sunrise (not necessarily always exactly at sunrise, but it would be natural to get up a bit earlier in the summer).

[No Elephants]

46. As with the history of so many things in the U.S., big business and war

figure prominently in the history of time in the U.S.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_time_in_the_United_States

[tabasco]

52. I HATE changing the damn clocks.

I like to have natural rhythms and never use a damn alarm clock.

The springtime change really messes me up for a couple weeks.

[brooklynite]

61. I want it light at 6 PM....I don't need it light at 5 AM

[high density]

63. I so wish we would do this

Permanent daylight savings time would be so pleasant.

[DeadEyeDyck]

64. I like it in the fall when you get extra sleep. I thought it would

be a good idea to just change the clocks back every night an hour or three so everyone gets a good night's sleep. What could be wrong with that?