So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Zombie_61]

You have an ally to the north:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/brit...bye-to-changing-clocks-says-premier-1.5049234

I thought that article made more than a bit of sense by saying it would be best to have all of the jurisdictions and states on the west coast of North America stop changing the clocks at the same time in order to preserve the Pacific time zone as it currently exists. If that ever happened Nevada and part of Idaho would have to be on-board as well, or they'd probably have to change the time zone map.

 

[GHT]

The idea of daylight saving was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin during his sojourn as an American delegate in Paris in 1784, in an essay, "An Economical Project."

 

[Zombie_61]

View attachment 159797

The idea of daylight saving was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin during his sojourn as an American delegate in Paris in 1784, in an essay, "An Economical Project."

I find the history of Daylight Saving Time interesting. Benjamin Franklin does indeed get the credit for being the first to conceive of the notion, but his suggestion was simply that people get out of bed earlier during the summer months in order to make the most of the available daylight, and it was meant as a joke. These days, I think the joke's on us.

 

[GHT]

George Vernon Hudson (20 April 1867 – 5 April 1946)
Born in London, England, on Easter Saturday, 1867 Hudson was the sixth child of Emily Jane Carnal and Charles Hudson, an artist and stained-glass window designer. In 1881 Hudson moved with his father to Nelson, New Zealand. He worked on a farm, and in 1883, aged 16, he began working at the post office in Wellington, where he eventually became chief clerk, retiring in 1918.
Hudson is credited with proposing modern-day daylight saving time. His shift-work job gave him leisure time to collect insects, and led him to value after-hours daylight. In 1895, he presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society proposing a two-hour daylight-saving shift, and after considerable interest was expressed in Christchurch, he followed up in an 1898 paper. In 1933, Hudson was the first recipient (together with Ernest Rutherford) of the T. K. Sidey Medal, set up by the Royal Society of New Zealand from funds collected to commemorate the passing of the Summer-Time Act 1927
It would be interesting to find out if the science community were aware of Franklin's proposal. Curiously it wasn't New Zealand that first implemented daylight saving, but Germany, in 1916.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Year-round DST has been a thing a couple of times in US history -- as "War Time" from 1942-45, and as a purported energy-saving measuring during the fuel crisis of 1973-74. Walking to school in the pitch dark of January was not a patriotic sacrifice I particularly cared to make, but hey, they issued little pieces of reflector tape to put on the back of your coat, and if they were willing to go that far, it would have been churlish to complain.

DST in general doesn't bother me at all. Seasonal depression is a very real thing here on the Maine coast, especially from November to March, and watching the sun set at 3:30 in the afternoon often has me pondering my pistol. I look forward to the return of DST all winter.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meanwhile, the Boys have come up with something new...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...ying-habits/qNN4bCb7NYhhE7TE3GjxwK/story.html

In keppitalist Amerika, beer cooler opens you!

 

[Bamaboots]

Working midnights (11P-7A) during DST, there would be stretches where I wouldn't see daylight.

 

[Zombie_61]

...I look forward to the return of DST all winter.

This would likely be another controversial issue if the practice of Daylight Saving Time were to be discontinued--would we leave the clocks on DST or Standard time? I don't really care one way or the other, I'm just tired of having to change all of our clocks and watches twice a year and having that extra hour of sleep stolen from me when it's time to "spring forward".

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Most proponents of doing away with the spring-forward/fall-back routine advocate for making what is now DST year-round time. Most of ’em I’ve read about, anyway.

FWIW, I’m in that camp. I couldn’t help noting how dark it was when I dragged my falling-apart self out of bed a few minutes ahead of 0600 this first workday of DST 2019. But it was plenty light by the time the dewy-eyed bride and I hit the road. And I’ll be happy for that extra hour of daylight this evening.

 

[Zombie_61]

^ We're currently on Daylight Saving Time longer than Standard Time anyway, so that would be fine with me. And our current PotUS posted on Twitter just today that "Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is O.K. with me!", so what are they waiting for?

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's a lot of talk here about Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts seceding from Eastern time and joining the Atlantic time zone. I'm for that -- sunset at 10pm in June!

Now if we could just take it a step further and join Canada outright. I'm tired of having to pay import duty on poutine gravy mix.

 

[GHT]

Now if we could just take it a step further and join Canada outright.

Somehow I just can't see you dropping a curtsy to the head of state. There again would it stick in your craw if that happened to be Megan Markle?

 

[tonyb]

Got a robocall this morning, a woman’s voice identifying herself as an IRS agent and instructing me to call a phone number right away lest I get arrested and have my property seized.

Then I check my email and find an extortion attempt from some POS claiming to know my search history (I have my predilections, but none resembling his descriptions) and, further, he claims to have video of me engaging in acts of autoeroticism as well as all my email contacts to whom he will send this phantom video of his should I not deposit $2,000 in bitcoin in his account.

I’m left to assume that maybe one person in several thousand actually falls for such transparently phony scams, and, seeing how it costs next to nothing to place these calls and emails, I suppose it pays.

 

[3fingers]

Got a robocall this morning, a woman’s voice identifying herself as an IRS agent and instructing me to call a phone number right away lest I get arrested and have my property seized.

There was a recent one hereabouts where the victim was instructed to go to Walmart and purchase gift cards. The scam varies between previously unknown unpaid IRS bills to bail money for family members. Senior citizens seem to be the targets for that one. I am considering putting Walmart gift cards in with my tax return here shortly just to see what happens.

 

[Zombie_61]

Over the last couple of years my wife has received countless robocalls from "organizations" offering her thousands of dollars for student loans; she, of course, has no plans to go back to school. And over the last few days she's received two or three robocalls daily with a woman's voice offering legal assistance so she can get approved for her Social Security Disability Insurance, even though she hasn't applied for SSDI. I'm sure these con artists make enough calls like this to find people who might actually need such assistance and fall for their ploys, but really?

 

[LizzieMaine]

So much for the "Do Not Call" list. I've gotten pretty good at recognizing robots, and they don't get to complete a sentence before I hang up. It's the people behind them I'd like to see complete a sentence.

 

[MisterCairo]

Then I check my email and find an extortion attempt from some POS claiming to know my search history (I have my predilections, but none resembling his descriptions) and, further, he claims to have video of me engaging in acts of autoeroticism as well as all my email contacts to whom he will send this phantom video of his should I not deposit $2,000 in bitcoin in his account.

This scam has been going on for years. It often works because they have acquired usually older passwords which they reveal. I was hit with this last year - they had a password and my user name, the password was legit, from about four years ago, which is what put the shivers in me.

Same MO - do not block, do not advise the cops, but send a couple of grand in bitcoin, or "proof" of website access and webcam footage would be sent to all my email contacts. Knowing no such footage existed, I researched the issue, and the RCMP in Canada had been tracking it a while.

Their advice - If these dolts had what they say they did, they'd provide an image and ask for much more. Delete, block and change your password regularly!

 

[Hercule]

Being an SOB by nature, I have become ruthless when it comes to phone solicitations, such that I can usually get them to hang up on me. For local calls/organizations a "what was your name again?" will quite often do it, if not, "May I speak to your supervisor?" will. This works especially well with the FOP where they try to suggest that their sticker will get me out of a ticket.

 

[LizzieMaine]

This scam has been going on for years. It often works because they have acquired usually older passwords which they reveal. I was hit with this last year - they had a password and my user name, the password was legit, from about four years ago, which is what put the shivers in me.

Same MO - do not block, do not advise the cops, but send a couple of grand in bitcoin, or "proof" of website access and webcam footage would be sent to all my email contacts. Knowing no such footage existed, I researched the issue, and the RCMP in Canada had been tracking it a while.

Their advice - If these dolts had what they say they did, they'd provide an image and ask for much more. Delete, block and change your password regularly!

I figured out exactly where they got my old password from -- the LinkedIn data breach of a few years back, which information has been circulating for sale on the "dark web" for quite a while. I don't use that particular password anywhere anymore, so when the "You Are My Victim" spam showed up I had a nice laugh and moved on. Besides, I don't have, have never had, and will never have any kind of a webcam.

I do find the tone of voice in that spam a bit amusing -- "Now let's consider your options please..." Obviously the spammer sells used cars or mortgage insurance from his secret hideaway in the Ukraine along with the porn-scamming.

 

[Zombie_61]

So much for the "Do Not Call" list. I've gotten pretty good at recognizing robots, and they don't get to complete a sentence before I hang up. It's the people behind them I'd like to see complete a sentence.

We received so many more calls after we put our number on the "Do Not Call" list that I'm convinced the only thing it did well was to provide companies a list of valid phone numbers to call.

Being an SOB by nature, I have become ruthless when it comes to phone solicitations, such that I can usually get them to hang up on me. For local calls/organizations a "what was your name again?" will quite often do it, if not, "May I speak to your supervisor?" will. This works especially well with the FOP where they try to suggest that their sticker will get me out of a ticket.

I don't know how true this is, but I've read the actual purpose for some of these robocalls is simply to get a recording of the callee saying "Yes" or some other form of affirmative response so the caller(s) can digitally insert that into some kind of audio contract that the callee will ultimately be responsible for paying for. That way, if the callee/victim questions it or tries to deny any knowledge of it when pressed for payment the caller(s) can allegedly say, "But we have a recording of you agreeing to our terms."