Today we pause to remember those people who have made the ultimate sacrifice over the years so that we have the peace, security and freedom that we enjoy today.

To them and their families I say “Thank you”.

Tomorrow evening, we North Americans (well, most of us) are supposed to turn our clocks back an hour in the vain quest of pursuit of saving energy.

Why “vain pursuit”? Well, because although daylight saving time is promoted as leading to an overall reduction in energy consumption, there hasn’t been any proof that this has ever been accomplished. Check out David Prerau’s book Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time (hardcover: 1560256559; softcover: 1560257962) if you want to learn more about the history of daylight saving time. It’s actually more interesting than it sounds.

If you’re a *NIX system administrator you probably updated your systems a few years ago, but in case you haven’t you probably should take a look at this. The zdump command should give you something like this:

[pastacode lang=”markdown” manual=”%5Bgordon%40seedling%20gordon%5D%24%20zdump%20-v%20%2Fetc%2Flocaltime%7Cgrep%202017%0A%2Fetc%2Flocaltime%20%20Sun%20Mar%2012%2006%3A59%3A59%202017%20UTC%20%3D%20Sun%20Mar%2012%2001%3A59%3A59%202017%20EST%20isdst%3D0%20gmtoff%3D-18000%0A%2Fetc%2Flocaltime%20%20Sun%20Mar%2012%2007%3A00%3A00%202017%20UTC%20%3D%20Sun%20Mar%2012%2003%3A00%3A00%202017%20EDT%20isdst%3D1%20gmtoff%3D-14400%0A%2Fetc%2Flocaltime%20%20Sun%20Nov%20%205%2005%3A59%3A59%202017%20UTC%20%3D%20Sun%20Nov%20%205%2001%3A59%3A59%202017%20EDT%20isdst%3D1%20gmtoff%3D-14400%0A%2Fetc%2Flocaltime%20%20Sun%20Nov%20%205%2006%3A00%3A00%202017%20UTC%20%3D%20Sun%20Nov%20%205%2001%3A00%3A00%202017%20EST%20isdst%3D0%20gmtoff%3D-18000%0A” message=”” highlight=”” provider=”manual”/]

Early Sunday morning, at 2AM, we move our clocks forward an hour in a futile attempt to save energy. As I’ve mentioned in previous years’ versions of this post, daylight save time hasn’t been shown to actually save energy.

Instead of saving energy, there will be an increase in accidents because people are discombobulated by the change in their sleep pattern. As an added “bonus”, there’s a 10% increase the likelihood that you’ll experience a heart attack during the days immediately following the time change. Is it worth it? Not in my opinion. (more…)

Today is the day when we stop to remember those who have fought, sometimes making the ultimate sacrifice, on our behalf so that we may have peace, security and freedom.

To them and their families I say “Thank you”.

@WeAreTheDead is a Twitter feed that posts the names of Canadian Forces members killed in the line of duty, every hour at 11 minutes past the hour. I’ve had it in the sidebar of my blog for a couple of years. I encourage you to look through it, even when it’s not Remembrance Day. It is important not to forget them.

Tweets by WeAreTheDead

Brace yourself! At 02:00 Eastern Sunday morning, we are rolling the clocks back an hour under the pretence of saving energy. Read this to find out why it’s pointless. The Ottawa Citizen published a story about nine solid reasons to hate Daylight Saving Time a few days ago that pretty much captures what I’ve been saying for years. (more…)