All this clock chatter reminds me that my Art Deco clock is at the menders, and hopefully will be back with me sometime this month.

Because I understand it’s not good to wind the hands of a clockwork clock back, I’ll be stopping the cuckoo clock over night and restarting it at a time when I can move the hands forwards a bit.

It's not just clocks on the wall that need changing. It's the clocks in electronic systems that control pretty much every aspect of modern life. Transport, communications, environmental systems and a gazillion other things.

Many of these systems were designed and installed prior to the Internet, and more importantly prior to the UK deciding a rigorous mathematically determined date on which to change them. They have to be done manually. All at the same time, ideally.

Monday is going to be a busy day for me because, believe it or not, a hell of a lot of companies rely on the phones coming on at the correct time of day and most SMEs don't think about it until it's too late. There's nobody in their company with the job title of "change the time on the phones twice a year" so they call up in a panic every single time. I'll give them instructions or do it remotely, and then they forget about it until the next time...

Personally, all my clocks are on UTC

It's all rather amusing that we can get so wound up (pun intended) about this.

I'd be happier if we just stopped worrying about it. It's a solution to a made-up problem to my mind. If the Powers That Be decide we need to monkey with timepieces twice a year, so be it.

If an experimental +2 GMT is foisted upon us, I will probably resist just to be awkward. I'll make it known that I work to UTC, and everyone else will have to work out what time I'm supposed to be arriving at.

You know better than this. Or at least, you should.

This is the message of all western government and the brainwashed western societal machine.

As for the clocks, I let you know next week what it's like to drive to work in the dark on a tropical island when it's sunny and warm an hour or two later. Intrigued doesn't cover it...

Although JJ has one point that I agree with. I've been the mug getting endless phone calls from SMEs who don't know how to change the time on their PBX, so I know how annoying and time consuming it is. But it's far from the only example of that in our lives.

Brilliant. I'll join you on that one.

+1

But by then, I should have worked out a decimal clock and will be using that instead.

I can confirm that the clock in the town clock tower, next to the harbour, had been changed early. I strolled past with friends at approximately 11.20pm, and noticed the clock reporting 10.20pm.
Presumably, some chap had gone up inside the tower during the day and wound it on a bit.

If they can make it work in the 'Bay, there's no excuse for anywhere else.

ION, I used my extra hour to drink more and talk to girls. Win.

Has everyone altered their digital camera clocks?

I usually forget. Another reason to dislike the whole shifting time about game.

Think I may just leave it on GMT come the spring.

Why does it matter?

If you use two different cameras on the same day then it pays to have them synchronised when viewing files by time taken. If they're synced but set to GMT/BST it shouldn't matter much.

Nick Miners complains if I post them to my Flickr account.

Actually, Matt has the right of it. I have two cameras, the contents of which both end up in the same projects in Aperture. If the clocks are out of sync, then closely associated images don't sit next to each other under some sorting conditions.

Leaving the clocks on one setting is what I'll be doing from now on.

Yeah, but assuming you've set them up reasonably accurately first time around, they will be more or less in sync anyway. I can't really see the need to go changing them unless you're likely to providing evidence in court.




I'm confused as to why though.
Bah, stick to film. Much less hassle.

(EDIT - I'm in a grumpy mood because I've been wanting to get out all week with the Rollei and the Bronica and shoot some film, but the back pain's not allowed it, and now, this afternoon as I was getting ready to go - I get roped in to clearing gutters. And now it's dark. *grump*)

True, aside from the copious notes you might take to remind you of settings and stuff. If you're bothered about it.

Which reminds me of an amusing problem last spring; the local speed cameras all needed manual clock-changes. Can you imagine the confusion in court if they presented a photo time-stamped from early this morning, and no one could prove if the clock had been set back to GMT. I suspect this is one of the reasons they were all decommissioned when they were

Personally, for stuff where it's only log files that are time-stamped I stick to UTC. Our routers for example. If I need to use them in evidence, it doesn't matter what the time format is provided I can say definitely which one it is using.