Daylight Saving Time Might Become Permanent in the USA

Daylight Saving Time is a rather recent concept; While proposed already in the 18th century, it was introduced in countries around the globe at the beginning of the 20th century. 

The concept is simple: Since the days get longer in summer, and the sun rises earlier and sets later, we should advance our clocks by one hour to “gain” more light in the evening.

Sadly, this doesn’t really work because moving the clock back and forth really messes with our circadian rhythm (that “internal clock” you’ve heard about) and creates all kinds of health hazards.
The U.S. now made a significant step into making DST permanent and stop switching back and forth twice a year with the “Sunshine Protection Act” (catchy title, huh?) passed by the Senate.

If the House confirms it, and it gets signed by President Biden, the United States could switch to permanent Daylight Saving Time as soon as 2023, creating lots of work for all the maintainers of time and date based software libraries.

 

Great Tool to Explain Mystery Traffic Jams

I’m sure you’ve experienced these mystery traffic jams, when you’re driving on a highway, and suddenly the traffic slows to to a (nearly) complete stop, and then after some time starts to speed up again, with no visible sign of the reason for the jam, like an accident or a construction site.
Why do those happen?
Here’s a great tool that explains the reasons behind it that allows you to play around with its parameters.
 

How Astute are You (Really)?

Michael Cohen created an intriguing “Changing Room Illusion” video. Just watch it, and then watch it again to check how many changes you managed to spot. Confession: I did really poorly.

Thanks for subscribing to Let’s be Fwends, I hope you enjoyed this slightly different content mix. Next time we’ll be back with some more traditional programming. 🎒