If you haven't succumbed to lugging around a BlackBerry device ora Palm TX handheld, Sunday will be your day to gloat.
On the other hand, if you're a high school student, you may thinkyou're catching the bus at an even more ungodly hour than usual nextMonday.
At 2 a.m. Sunday, we'll be switching to daylight-saving time,three weeks earlier than in previous years. The good news: Sunlightwill last longer, with sunset at 6:54 p.m. on Sunday instead of at5:54.
The bad news: No one told the computers that run our lives thatthis will be happening. You'll be showing up an hour early to yourappointments if you don't upgrade your electronic calendar.
On Aug. 8, 2005, President Bush signed into law a broad energybill, Energy Policy Act of 2005, that will extend Daylight SavingTime by four weeks this year. Although some argued against extendingdaylight-saving time, the measure's advantages include that it couldsave 100,000 barrels of oil daily, people will have more time toenjoy outdoor activities and the many farmers who work part-timewill have an extra hour to work after they arrive home.
William Adams, associate professor of computer science at theUniversity of New Haven, teaches a course called "Human-ComputerInteraction" and says all of this hassle is a result of our desireto have computers do as much work for us as possible -- heavenforbid we should reset our own clocks!
"We design the program so it does it automatically, but thatrequires that we build in rules," he said of the various operatingsystems, such as Windows, that tell our computers what to do. Theproblem is, the rules written into all those zeroes and ones statethat daylight-saving time starts on the first Sunday in April, notthe second Sunday in March.
That changed with the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which includedtax credits if you buy hybrid-electric vehicles and energy-efficient appliances. It also extended daylight-saving time. Besidesstarting earlier, it will end later too, on the first Sunday inNovember.
Adams was chief information officer at UNH during the lastcomputer-generated snafu, Dec. 31, 1999, when computers designed tokeep track of the year in two digits, needed to be told how to dealwith '00.
"It was an issue," Adams said. "We spent quite a bit of time andeffort on that problem. This isn't going to be that bad."
Adams teaches his students to think about writing programs thatmake computers work "effectively and efficiently and easily for theuser."
Part of the lesson of Y2K was not to program so many hard-wiredrules, Adams said, which is why, if you have Windows XP or Vista andturn on your automatic updates, Microsoft will instruct your PC tochange your clock via the Internet. The clocks on cell phones andcable TV boxes are similarly set from headquarters. But Big Brotherwon't be able to change your Palm or your PC clock if you're stillstuck in Windows 2000.
On Monday, the sunrise in New Haven will be at 7:09 a.m. Sincehigh schools start as early as 7:30, many kids will be yawning attheir bus stops at dawn or earlier.
"It's not uncommon for us through the winter months" for highschoolers to board the bus in darkness, said John Brady,superintendent of the Amity Regional School District. "Right now,fortunately, we've got daylight, but we'll be going back todarkness."
The middle and high schoolers who attend Amity from Bethany,Woodbridge and Orange will hear announcements about the time change,but Brady doesn't see it as a big issue.
He also doesn't see the change as an argument for starting highschool later, which many contend would fit teenagers' biorhythmsbetter.
"The argument you would get is you got first- and second-graderswaiting in the dark ... so the high schoolers can sleep," he said.
So there's not much that can be done for students, at least thisyear, but computer users -- and by computers we mean cell phones,laptops and the growing number of e-mail devices and so-called"smart phones" -- are another story. Either Microsoft or your cellphone company will send an update, or you'll have to download oneand install it yourself.
Howard Goldberg, who oversees the computer systems at Yale-NewHaven Hospital, doesn't foresee big problems -- "no one's going towake up in the middle of an operation" -- but it's been a hassle forhim to put patches on 3,500 PCs and 450 servers. "Some of oursoftware packages have to be upgraded as well," he said.
"I've been having people work overtime for the past monthupgrading PCs to make sure they all conform," Goldberg said.
He estimated the job has taken 200 man-hours but couldn'testimate the dollar cost. "It's more of an opportunity cost," hesaid. "What are we not doing?"
To avoid the "risks of not upgrading the BlackBerry environment"as Research in Motion's Web site warns, go to blackberry.com todownload a patch. Other manufacturers offer the same thing. It's asmall price to pay to get more of that late-afternoon sun next week.
One thing's for sure, though. If you have one of those VCRs thatblinks 12:00 all the time, it will still be blinking 12:00 onSunday. Not even Congress can help you there.
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