Posted on 11/01/2014 11:14:07 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Back in 1784, hanging out in Paris and heady with Enlightenment, Benjamin Franklin had an idea. Struck by the fact that Parisians were sleeping during sunlight hours and then staying up late at night by candlelight, he calculated the number of candles that were being wasted -- and came up with a very impressive number, 64 million pounds worth of them. Franklin therefore jokingly proposed a massive schedule change, noting that a fortune could be saved through "the economy of using sunshine instead of candles," and even suggested at one point that perhaps cannons be fired at sunrise to get everybody out of bed.
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The paper, published in 2011 in The Review of Economics and Statistics by Matthew Kotchen of Yale and Laura Grant of the University of California-Santa Barbara, took advantage of what the researchers dubbed a "natural experiment" with the effect of daylight saving time in the state of Indiana --
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So what caused daylight saving to apparently backfire (rather than backlight)? "In the spring, you are basically making people wake up in the early morning, the coldest time of day, when they might turn up their heat," explains Yale's Kotchen. "And in the summer, if you take an hour of sunlight and you move it from the morning and put it in the evening, people are more likely to be running their air conditioner harder in the evening." That's because heat from the sun builds up over the course of the day, making that particular hour of sunlight hotter than it would have been if it occurred in the morning rather than the evening. So the "Benjamin Franklin effect" -- people using less artificial lighting -- turns out to be overwhelmed by heating and cooling choices.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Best answer is to retire. Go to bed when you want... get up when you want and don’t worry about the clock. :)
I’m living in Russia. Last year, we didn’t observe daylight savings time. This year we’ve gone back to observing it. I’ve already noticed the difference. The extra hour of sleep is great. Let’s see how the rest of the winter goes. Last winter was a little depressing...so far this year I’m a little more energetic!
I’ve always HATED the time changes with a PASSION.
The way it is during the Winter is how it SHOULD be. The days naturally get longer and shorter all on their own. Just LEAVE IT THE HELL alone!
What the Pelosi Congress and Bush did with a few years ago screwed it up even more!!!!
It will never get better. When have you EVER known our government to correct or reverse course on a bad idea? (I can’t think of any)
“Only the government”? The correct wording is “only the white man.” Some PC police got to your graphic.
We had 240 trick or treaters last night. I'm in a neighborhood people drive too for the event. It's crazy...
Split the difference. Turn them back 30 minutes and leave them at that.
Odd that they didn’t change the Old Indian into a Senior Native American.
I had seven this year -- two cute little kids, and a gang of five black "youths" pillaging the white neighborhood together.
Thank you for the reminder!
Yes Cheney Haliburton should be blamed too!
Additionally, daylight savings Improves productivity and economic output.
I doubt it. There is a lot of productivity wasted in the twice yearly turnover.
Obama should sign an XO that it is the same time everywhere in the world.
I’m surprised he hasn’t signed an XO to declare there are 100 hours in a day and 100 minutes in every hour and 10 months per year all starting with Zero thru 99.
He could then spend billions of dollars changing all the calendar’s and clocks in the world. Clocks are easy just put a new face on them.
He could kick back billions and billions of dollars to his cronies that way.
It was literally 240. I counted and marked them down while Mrs Kjam22 handed out 10 bags of candy. Me and Bentley the dog sat in the office where we could watch the door. Bentley wasn’t packing but I was :)
I refused to change my wall clocks last spring.
So tomorrow, I’m good to go
I work outside. Sun comes up, sun goes down. I work in between
Wow. A ritzy neighborhood where the homeowners can’t spell. Sorry I just couldn’t resist. No harm intended.
Good for you and Bentley!
:) Its all good...
without moving the clocks back it is...i never liked fall back until this year as I drive my daughter to the bus stop for school at 7:20AM and its dark and dangerous...
the youngest kids have to wait at the bus stop at 6:30am here, it is full darkness
No, that is the point of time zones.
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