DST, PDA’s, DVR’s and other sources of confusion
By Charles Miller, March 17, 2007

I start off the column this week noting that your computer, VCR, or coffee maker might be confused right now, but it could be worse.

For anyone who has not been keeping up with the news, some US politicians have been tinkering around with Daylight Saving Time again. Here in San Miguel de Allende all is as it should be, but in most of the United States and Canada they started DST three weeks early this year.

This date change was brought about by the US Congress and the Energy Policy Act of 2005. In the hopes that Americans might cut energy consumption, for three extra weeks the clock is being pushed an hour ahead so the sun can be up later.

For technophiles like me this is a “mini Y2K.” Microsoft has already made software updates available for Windows XP and Windows Vista to accommodate the new DST dates, so if you have your system up to date you should not have any troubles. Microsoft no longer supports older operating systems such as Windows 2000 or Windows 98 and so there will be no updates for these versions.

For the next three weeks, expect confusion to reign for any electronic device with a clock. This includes most PDAs and most video recorders and DVRs.

About the worst that is going to happen is that your alarm clock might go off an hour early, or late; I am not sure which. You might also miss some broadcasts because radio, television and satellite schedules are going to be a little uncertain. Luckily it is more of a nuisance than a catastrophe.

Now to top it all off, we do this all over again in the fall. Daylight Saving Time is being extended from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November.

Now just to make things worse, we had better not get used to this new schedule because according to the Energy Policy Act, the US Congress has the right to revert to the old schedule if the new method is unpopular. This new schedule would seem to already be unpopular in Arizona, Hawaii and Saskatchewan where they are not observing it.

I stated earlier that it could be worse. It would be worse if the powers that be were monkeying around with the calendar.

Very few of us in our lifetimes have never had to go through a change of calendars. This did happen a few places and a few times in the 20th century, but not lately.

Starting in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII promulgated the Gregorian calendar, most Catholic countries made the switch. Two centuries later in the British Empire including its American colonies adopted the current calendar. Wednesday 2 September 1752 was followed by Thursday 14 September and ten entire days went missing. That is nothing though.

Two millennia ago the Julian calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar. In order to align the new calendar with the seasons, the year 46 BC was 445 days long. This was accomplished by adding 10 days to the months of the regular calendar then two extra days were added to January, July and December, and one extra day was added to April, June, September and November. Just in case there might have been some unconfused Romans left, the dates after the Ides (15th) of the month counted down towards the start of the next month.

46 BC became known as the “year of confusion.” Obvious to me is that not even today’s most modern computers could have kept up with all of that.

Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044-415-101-8528 or email FAQ@SMAguru.com.