Read to the end for A Great Typo.

👋🏻 Welcome to this week's edition of TimeMachiner. Thanks for subscribing and checking out my work. I'm so happy you're here.

A quick note: Due to the time change and a quirk with my newsletter system, this issue may have some repeat content from last week. If so, sorry about that.

I hate Daylight Saving Time. I hate Standard Time. To be more specific, I hate the change between the two. One hour of change to the structure of our days is something that messes with our body clocks. In the words of The Doctor: I don't like it.

It was last year that I was somewhat hopeful there would be an end to this stupidity. Here in the US our elected officials unanimously passed a bill to do away with it all. And in the tradition of the government, it went nowhere. Color me surprised.

So now we're in the middle of March and dealing with complete readjustments to our days. It is darker in the morning, our sleep cycles are screwed up, and when we get used to it it'll be time to switch back once more.

There can be a debate on which time we should lock things into if that bill ever was passed. However, locking it into permanent DST would save lives. As I wrote in the aforementioned article last year, the "fall back" change makes it darker earlier, and more people are on the road when it's dark. A study in 2004 showed an increase in deaths by drivers and pedestrians during the Standard time months.

Daylight Saving was founded on the idea of making the days longer and "saving" energy. It does none of those. Yet we still collectively agree to all switch our clocks twice a year because someone thought it was a good idea.

Shocker: it's not.

Knowing our history helps us from repeating past mistakes. A permanent change to DST ended up being rolled back in 1974. In the spirit of learning a lesson or two, I propose we have six months of DST, and six months of Standard Time and then we simply choose. Nobody will completely agree on which to settle on, but we could all agree to stop the insanity.

For now, that is all I have. I hope you have a great week.

-Aaron

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TODAY'S RANDOM FACTOID

Smallpox is the only infectious disease that affects humans to have been eradicated. Source