Sometimes I want a portable QI klaxon [entries|reading|network|archive]
simont

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Mon 2010-11-01 08:10
Sometimes I want a portable QI klaxon

I'm in work an hour early today, as partial compensation for the fact that I have to leave two hours early to go home and wait for a boiler engineer.

Of course, it so happens that that's also the time I'd have shown up if I'd failed to notice that the clocks had changed. Naturally this occurred to me; naturally I suspected that somebody would make that assumption; and naturally, as I was sitting down at my desk, someone did indeed ask ‘You know the time changed, didn't you?’.

In such situations I can think of no better response than the QI alarm sound. (Though Stephen Fry pulling a foolish face is optional.)

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[identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.comMon 2010-11-01 08:54
I know what you mean. Although, in actual fact, it doesn't do any harm for them to think that, since I'm the sort of person who's bound to make that mistake eventually (although I haven't yet, it seems increasingly unlikely no-one will notice on Sunday), it might be more productive for me to use the occasion for minor social bonding than to demonstrate that I'm marginally more accurate than my interlocutor :)
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[identity profile] geekette8.livejournal.comMon 2010-11-01 09:38
I got in this morning at my normal time (9:20 ish) to find the office already full of people who do not usually arrive until nearer 10. I asked if everyone had forgotten to put their clocks back, or if I'd put mine back twice, while waiting for the claxon (I had read this post at home before I left for work!).
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[personal profile] simontMon 2010-11-01 09:42
Of course, it's perfectly possible that a fair number of people will show up early the day after the clocks change, not because they forgot about it but just because their body clocks haven't adjusted yet and that's when they naturally happen to wake up.

(Indeed, that includes me. I didn't deliberately arrange to come in an hour early today; I just happened to be awake, and it occurred to me that since I was leaving early this afternoon it wouldn't be a bad idea to use the time this way.)
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[identity profile] geekette8.livejournal.comTue 2010-11-02 13:56
Absolutely. In fact I think in this case there were a couple of people in that boat, a couple who had decided to switch their working hours from 10-6 to 9-5 to coincide more with the remnants of the daylight, and one who had been sleeping elsewhere the previous night and hence made it in earlier than usual.
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[identity profile] samholloway.livejournal.comMon 2010-11-01 09:58
Another horologically-related case where the QI klaxon would be useful: this thing about Oct 2010 being the first October for 800+ years to have five Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. It's been all over Twitter, yet if anybody took a second to check facts before shamelessly retweeting, they would notice that 2004 and 1999 fit the bill...
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[personal profile] fanfMon 2010-11-01 10:20
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[identity profile] samholloway.livejournal.comTue 2010-11-02 17:03
Ah, thank you!
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[personal profile] lnrMon 2010-11-01 11:46
Of course in my case *I* got up in plenty of time and then wondered why the 8:15am alarm on my ipod went off at 9:15, despite my having *checked* that the ipod was set to the right time. Turns out it's a bug in their daylight saving code affecting repeating alarms. Gah!
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[personal profile] rmc28Mon 2010-11-01 12:07
I *thought* there was something up with the iPods this morning.
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[personal profile] lnrMon 2010-11-01 21:07
Apparently sorted if you delete the alarm and set up a new one, I guess I shall see in the morning, when I don't conveniently have the day off work :)
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[identity profile] nandhp.livejournal.comMon 2010-11-01 12:20
Don't forget the Americans...
Don't forget the Americans: A few years ago, the duration of US Daylight Saving Time was changed to have longer duration (It used to be early April to late October; now it's late May to early November). I'm sure that even now there are a few people here with the opposite problem: They remember to change their clocks back, but they do it a week early.
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[personal profile] simontMon 2010-11-01 13:37
Yes, I remember getting lots of email at the time asking me strange questions like 'Is PuTTY DST compliant?'. Almost nobody bothered to explain that 'DST compliant' meant 'compliant with a recent change of DST policy in a particular country you don't inhabit', but fortunately one or two people did...
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[identity profile] sphyg.livejournal.comMon 2010-11-01 13:23
I was in work by 7.45 due to a combination of insomina, jet lag and clock change.
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[identity profile] twigletzone.livejournal.comTue 2010-11-02 01:19
I know very well if I had one I'd wear it out in a week XD
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[personal profile] simontTue 2010-11-02 10:32
A colleague did once suggest that if I had one, they'd have to take it off me almost immediately :-)
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[identity profile] twigletzone.livejournal.comTue 2010-11-02 14:44
*grin* yes, I can see how it would deteriorate rapidly into "Children! Play nicely!"
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[identity profile] pne.livejournal.comTue 2010-11-02 08:06
What's QI, in this context?
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[personal profile] simontTue 2010-11-02 08:21
A UK television show which asks trick questions of its panel, and makes a distinctive klaxon sound if they give the obvious but wrong answer or otherwise say things that are boringly predictable rather than – as the title is short for – quite interesting.
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[identity profile] pne.livejournal.comTue 2010-11-02 08:55
Ah - thank you!
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