And compared to using the internet, every one of those alternatives is either more expensive, more time consuming, or both. As time goes on, the brick and mortar method will become 'depricated' as anyone still catering to that group will be less cost effective than their online-only counterparts. Obligatory car analogy: Once upon a time, people could get anywhere they needed to go via public transportation or by simply walking. Automobile travel enabled the 'big box retailers' model, and local businesses in small towns evaporated.

Same thing with cell phones: People once used a combination of pagers and pay phones. Now there's very few pay phones, so that model is no longer viable.

Why not? A clock's purpose is for humans. It's relation to the sun is of no importance. The simplest tweak to everyone's routine to improve things is is to pin them to DST, to correct a problem that is only present for four months a year (and caused directly by returning to standard time).

Retraining would be required for Windows 8, so no cost difference in that area.
The cost of google apps can be compared against buying new office licenses for 2300 new PCs.

Nothing fishy at all, this actually looks like a good idea.

I think you missed what I was getting at... that the time zones are more often than not, "off by one" while in standard time during the winter months. I am agreeing that we should stop messing with the clocks, and just pin them to DST. Since we spend 8 months out of the year in DST and 4 in ST, it is already almost there. The net result could very well be a national shift of time zones "to the left".

What you are suggesting is that during the winter months, people change office hours to start earlier, to counteract the meddling with the clocks. How is that better than my solution of not meddling?

Did you read my post? Work is starting at 8 and it's *still* too dark at the end of the day during the four months of EST... I've noticed this problem in other time zones as well (JST, AST). I am guessing that the pre-alarm clock "up with the sun" mindset is why the time zones are the way they are, but if you poll people with a simple question "do you prefer sunlight before work or after" the answer is a resounding after.

During EST, my upstate NY city has hardly any sunlight after 4:30 PM. As a result, it seems the local businesses are all on a 8-4:30 work schedule. A few weeks ago I overslept and was amazed at how freely traffic flowed when trying to get to work at 9.

And, we *still* want it to be EDT year round. I don't care if it's completely dark on the drive in to work, but driving home in the dark is depressing (it's dark because "the day is already over" versus "the day hasn't begun yet").

It does make the situation worse; by adding sources it drives down the price of the weapons, allowing the cartels to to be better armed for less money.

And to pre-empt any response that says "flying is not a right", you can't take a bus to Hawaii and the U.S. Territories...

In sortof agreement with what you said: this seems to be a simple case of jury nullficiation, but in the opposite direction /. seems to desire. People here like to advocate it as a way of getting someone who was arrested under an unjust law out of trouble. But the truth is, far more often it is used in a matter that results in convicting those who exhibit scummy behavior, regardless of the evidence.

More, a drunk passenger is safer than a sober driver. Pity the intercity buses in the US disallow consumption of alcohol...

This is a very good point, replying to hopefully make it more visible.

If he wanted a hip, trendy city Seattle would have worked nicely, while not as cheap as Portland it's still a better bang for the real estate $ than SF... hell, any city would be better, even NYC (outside Manhattan)...

The cost is because it is "on an airplane" meaning it needs to be certified by FAA and other alphabet soup agencies around the world. And forget about firmware updates...

You can use downforeveryoneorjustme.com, though it will use its own DNS and routing so it will still require you to figure out which of those is the problem.

The side effect of the rule is perpetuating no longer correct information. For example: a wikipedia entry states that a building is slated to be demolished, but the demolition hasn't begun, since that is what the last cited source has. However, looking out my window, I can see they have finally started demolishing it. Even if I provide a picture of the demolition, I cannot update the article and be within the rules, until the local paper is bored enough to run a story about it (which may never happen).

They once added an extra 19% discount to my bill. Remarkably, after about four bills, they fixed the error without me having to call them.

Ah well, it was nice while it lasted... and at least they never asked for the money back. That "billing errors in your favor" are honored was enough to keep me as a customer...