Times are Changing

On October 30 2011 Russia awoke to find itself with a timing problem. Russia officially lives in a summer time but woke that morning to find many machines had switched to an hour later - winter time

Earlier this year, President Medvedev announced the country would not to switch to winter time beginning with the autumn of 2011.  No-one told the machines though and electronic appliances, gadgets and gizmos automatically changed their time on October 30.

The results were mildly spectacular. One of Russia's TV channels was broadcasting the wrong time for a while. Many mobile phone service providers which receive time data from also worked to the wrong time too.

            All this resulted in some confused Russian workers arriving one hour late for work on Sunday because there alarms went off at the new time. Others found themselves late for appointments trains and planes where those who had managed to avoid the switch and were operating on official time. Fortunately, the time was switched on Sunday, when activity in the country is low.

The question is who is the master, machines or their owners, who tells who what to do? Cork Monkey has often wondered how the world would work if there were sustained power cuts – now it appears that even fully powered we are too reliant on these machines.

CM