2008 Woodie Awards
Daylight-saving time to wreck the country?
Matt Cook
Issue date: 3/6/07 Section: Technology
- Page 1 of 1
Don't you just love the U.S. government? I do, I really do, but more often than not lately our elected officials make silly decisions.
My observations: Y2K didn't turn into enough of a computer-nightmare crisis situation. Therefore, let's come up with one more way to mess with our tech people.
In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll explain: about two years ago, the U.S. Senate passed the 2005 Energy Policy Act that has moved the date daylight-saving time begins from the first weekend in April to the second weekend in March.
No big deal, right? Everybody saves in the end because, for two additional weeks, we can depend on the sun to heat our houses more and use less electricity to do the job.
Wrong. For the last month, IT professionals have been scrambling to make patches that update how your computer and mine, as well as the more important computer mainframes across the country, will change to daylight-saving time two weeks early.
So what's the problem? Say, for example, your bank uses a computer mainframe to process when money leaves your checking account and is transferred to the German bank that has an account for the online store you just supported.
Say that the bank is supposed to send the money at a very specific time to avoid a late fee being added by the German bank.
Now suppose for a two-week period at the end of March your bank's computers have the wrong time.
Perhaps now you understand: You, and any other American depending on a computer for accurate time, were just deceived. See the problem now?
Thanks to the tireless efforts of hundreds of IT professionals across the country who have coded hundreds of lines during the past few weeks, you and I probably have nothing to fear.
As was true with Y2K, I don't suspect too many people will stay up shaking this weekend, but if you should run across someone who writes computer programs for a living, thank that person for saving you time and money.
My observations: Y2K didn't turn into enough of a computer-nightmare crisis situation. Therefore, let's come up with one more way to mess with our tech people.
In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll explain: about two years ago, the U.S. Senate passed the 2005 Energy Policy Act that has moved the date daylight-saving time begins from the first weekend in April to the second weekend in March.
No big deal, right? Everybody saves in the end because, for two additional weeks, we can depend on the sun to heat our houses more and use less electricity to do the job.
Wrong. For the last month, IT professionals have been scrambling to make patches that update how your computer and mine, as well as the more important computer mainframes across the country, will change to daylight-saving time two weeks early.
So what's the problem? Say, for example, your bank uses a computer mainframe to process when money leaves your checking account and is transferred to the German bank that has an account for the online store you just supported.
Say that the bank is supposed to send the money at a very specific time to avoid a late fee being added by the German bank.
Now suppose for a two-week period at the end of March your bank's computers have the wrong time.
Perhaps now you understand: You, and any other American depending on a computer for accurate time, were just deceived. See the problem now?
Thanks to the tireless efforts of hundreds of IT professionals across the country who have coded hundreds of lines during the past few weeks, you and I probably have nothing to fear.
As was true with Y2K, I don't suspect too many people will stay up shaking this weekend, but if you should run across someone who writes computer programs for a living, thank that person for saving you time and money.
Be the first to comment on this story