Oh god, my laptop followed the daylight saving system while we all here don’t!

Yesterday’s night, when I was going online for a while before sleep, I am shocked over what I saw from the time provided at the bottom right hand side of my desktop. I knew I started online at around 1am in the midnight, and I wasn’t spending a long time there. But after just a short moment, the time shows 3am! Ohh…I immediately checked on my watch as well as my phone, and it’s only 2am. How come my laptop fast forward the time for an hour?

Ahha…it’s the daylight saving system. It occurs every year, but I didn’t notice the change in time on laptop for last year’s daylight saving system. Now only I noticed it, and the laptop disallowed me to change back the time to what it is supposed to be. I don’t think many would know about this daylight saving thingy, and I just knew it after a bit of google search. Malaysia didn’t participate into this system, which would just confuse the people. So now, the time shown on the laptop confuses me, and I can’t say it wrong either! Ahh…

A bit of info on the daylight saving system below from this website, http://www.day-finder.com/daylight-savings-2012.html:

Daylight savings 2012 begin on the second Sunday of March (yesterday’s night) and end on the first Sunday of November.  In March, clocks are moved forward one hour from 2am standard time to 3am daylight savings time (or DST), and in November, clocks are moved back one hour from 2am DST to 1am standard time.  The phrase “spring forward, fall back” is a helpful reminder of these time changes.

The reason for daylight savings 2012, like all daylight savings changes, is to increase the period of light during the afternoon while decreasing the hours of daylight in the mornings. This is why in 2012 clocks will be moved forward an hour in the beginning of spring and set backward an hour during fall. The practice of DST has its benefits and problems. Adding light to the afternoon benefits afterwork activities and also has an economic benefit to retailers that prosper during daylight hours. However, DST can be problematic for timekeeping, travel and sleep cycles.

DST was first introduced in 1895 by George Vernon Hudson, a New Zealand entomologist. William Willett independently came up with the idea of DST in 1905. As an avid golfer, Willett disliked how his afternoon golf round was cut short by early days. During 1916, Germany and its allies in WW1 were the first countries to adopt daylight savings time to ensure consistent railroad times and limit coal usage. Interestingly, not all countries will participate in the daylight savings 2012 time changes. About 70 countries worldwide participate in daylight savings, while some major countries like China will not participate in daylight savings in 2012.

Exactly a year after the disastrous 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami

Exactly a year ago, today, 11th March 2011, is a tragic day for Japan, as one of the greatest earthquake ever recorded in history struck east coast of the nation, which subsequently leads to gigantic tsunami. It was the most powerful known earthquake ever to have hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900. It hits a magnitude of 9.0, and it triggered powerful tsunami with waves that reaches up to 40 metres high. The tragedy caused loss in billions of dollars, nuclear meltdown from the damaged reactors, and almost 20 000 deaths including the missing.

(An iconic image of the tragedy above from http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/images/full/2012/03/08/245419-10-most-iconic-images-of-japan-earthquake-and-tsunami-a-year-after.jpg)

That few statistics presented above are already enough to show how disastrous the earthquake is. I saw quite a number of videos and photographs showing the hitting waves and the aftermath of the tragedy, and I can really feel the strength of mother nature, and I learned that the human as well as the built environment are very fragile. That is the most powerful earthquake I have ever seen after the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake that kills much more people.

Now, earthquake and subsequent tsunami are the most worrying natural disaster that comes to people’s mind. The damage and loss of lives could be enormous easily from this type of disaster. I read some news about it for its one year anniversary, and the cleaning up works are still on going on the affected zones. Everything in the recovery went slow and uncertain.

(Picture above is from http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-year-after-japans-triple-disaster-an-uncertain-recovery/2012/03/05/gIQAcR920R_story.html)

The rebuilding works are only at starting point, and many affected zones remain today as similar to what they appear right after the earthquake and tsunamis a year ago. Really hopes that the recovery works are carried out much better and faster, so that the affected zones would soon get makeover ready for new future of the people. The economic downfall and the nuclear-radiation crisis further worsening the recovery. 2011, a year of troubles for Japan is over, and now let us hope that 2012 would be great for the nation.