Don't forget the clocks go forward tonight

[Norphy]

I used to hate those clocks so much. The college I used to work for bought a whole load of them when they built their new campus. Like all modern buildings, it was concrete around a steel cage, so in effect a giant faraday cage. Nothing would get through, no mobile phone signal and definitely no signal for those things. That didn't stop the teachers asking IT to set the time on them, even though it definitely wasn't an IT problem.

[Katy]

Not sure about GMT all year round. Wouldnt that mean that the sun would come up stupidly early and summer evenings would be noticeably darker? Wouldn't having BST through winter be better than having GMT through summer?

 

tbh the annoyance of adjusting clocks is probably trumped several times over by pragmatic arguments for safer roads and lower energy consumption when keeping DST. DST is less of a benefit at lower lattitudes, I suspect.

 

Always thought we should just move to GMT + 30min/BST -30min, problem solved

[elsiegee40]

Always thought we should just move to GMT + 30min/BST -30min, problem solved

 

Not such a stupid idea. There’s definitely one Canadian state that’s a half hour out.

[jthompson]

Always thought we should just move to GMT + 30min/BST -30min, problem solved

 

Not a bad idea. Maybe we could just move the Greenwich meridian half an hour to the east and stick with something like 'Geneva Mean Time' all year round?

[Rob_D]

You're all anarchists!

 

If we're going this route, I say we have a single globally universal time so everyone's the same, and then people/countries just standardize when they work based on daylight hours. The only possible issue I haven't worked out yet is people who have the 11:59-00:01 rollover during their daytime.

[Norphy]

There's a Lib Dem peer who's suggesting that we change to CET to help reduce energy usage:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/17/double-summer-time-minister-urged-put-uk-clocks-forward-ease-cost-of-living-crisis-john-lee

[jthompson]

Interesting, although I suspect that the proportion of household expenses going towards lighting are significantly lower than even 10 years ago. I'd imagine the savings from requiring less heating in the mornings would be greater.

[6Foot2]

It's that time of year again – the clocks go forward tonight.

 

👍 🕰️

[mavhc]

Every clock I have changed automatically, the problem is solved.

 

This will mean we decide to not change time itself instead of suggesting people arrive at work/school an hour earlier next year

[mikes]

yeah I've made sure to have everything here set up on NTP. It's a shame it wasn't configured with NTP by default seeing as though there are public time servers, but before I'd set up everything on NTP we had the situation of the computer clocks being up to 5 minutes different to the CCTV, to the bell, to the public clocks, to peoples phones etc. (not to mention BST)

Now every clock is accurate to the second and as soon as the BBC clock hits 3:00:00pm our doors unlock (yes I've seen kids stood by the doors checking the seconds waiting for 3pm and if it was over a second or two late you bet there would be complaints!)

[jthompson]

On this, does anybody know of a good reason why a GPS-equipped car can't automate the adjustment to/from daylight saving time? It has a perfect time signal via GPS, so it can know (or work out) the UTC time and date, and will also know where it is in the world. Is it just lazy programming for them to not have coded in all of the various DST profiles in use around the world? If a sub-£100 Casio can do that, why not a £20k car?!

 

Genuinely interested.

Edited April 13 by jthompson

[6Foot3]

On 28/03/2026 at 22:36, 6Foot2 said:

It's that time of year again – the clocks go forward tonight.

 

👍 🕰️

hm

[mavhc]

On 13/04/2026 at 14:47, jthompson said:

On this, does anybody know of a good reason why a GPS-equipped car can't automate the adjustment to/from daylight saving time? It has a perfect time signal via GPS, so it can know (or work out) the UTC time and date, and will also know where it is in the world. Is it just lazy programming for them to not have coded in all of the various DST profiles in use around the world? If a sub-£100 Casio can do that, why not a £20k car?!

 

Genuinely interested.

The 2 other things you need are the tz database about what country changes when, and knowing which country you're in, which the gps system should really know.

 

What car is it?

[jthompson]

On 08/05/2026 at 14:49, mavhc said:

The 2 other things you need are the tz database about what country changes when, and knowing which country you're in, which the gps system should really know.

 

What car is it?

Kia Niro. Latest model. The infotainment system has quite a poor look and feel, so I'm pointing the finger at lazy programming.