Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Halley Suitt noticed that lots of the clocks in her home adjust themselves these days. I noticed this too, though my cell phones did not correct themselves. I also noticed, as I do twice a year, just how many devices I have that tell time. There are clocks (digital and analog), phones, televisions, VCRs, light timers, cars, watches, and computers. I've probably even forgot some things. We have between two and three clocks per room, and in some rooms I have to remember that my wife sets the time ahead by a few minutes so that we can all be ready early.

What is even more bothersome is the fact that no two items have the same method of changing the time, meaning that I must remember how to change the time for each one twice a year, or try to recall where I put the manual. Digital clocks are not new by any means. Why is there no international standard for how to set the time? At this point I'd even be happy to only be dealing with three competing standards.

This is an awful lot of work for millions of people to go through. Let's just assume there are roughly 300 million people in North America, so perhaps 75 million households, at just 10 minutes per household, this comes out to about 1426 person-years of effort twice a year. All so that we can pretend we have an extra hour each day? Seems like a lot of effort to me. I'm looking forward to having a little atomic clock in all of my stuff so I never have to change the time again.