Let’s play the Daylight Savings Time game

As suspected, I had to change the time zone on my BlackBerry 8700g again today.

Last weekend, I had to change the handheld from Eastern Time (GMT-5) to Caracas Time (GMT-4), because it erroneously “auto-adjusted” for Daylight Savings Time on Oct. 28. The device didn’t know that the U.S. Congress changed the DST shift date to today, Nov. 4.

I received several letters about my call to repeal Daylight Savings Time. Whatever minimal benefits it might have are offset by the needless confusion of having to adjust clocks twice per year in this anachronistic holdover from an agrarian age. It was bad enough when we could really just adjust clocks. Increasingly, however, the clocks are embedded in software or firmware.

Even were DST a constant, wherein it always changed on the same dates every year, that adds significant complexity (= cost) to any timekeeping algorithm.

With DST being a variable (as demonstrated this year), that complexity explodes tremendously. I’m sure that the cost of having to test software, and issue firmware or software patches, for Congress’s DST change was very significant for software makers, hardware makers and customers.

Only one person wrote in favor of keeping DST:

I agree DST can be a pain to work with in technology but the idea of getting rid of DST for this reason just seems silly to me. We should be improving the technology to better support our lifestyles not the other way around.

The person said DST gives him more daylight after work for outdoor activities. I suppose that’s a benefit.

>> Update: My wife was talking about DST with a friend this morning. Her friend’s car clock adjusts to/from DST automatically — and it was wrong all week, and only “fixed” itself this morning.