Les Jones

Home Life > Standard Time

The time change is this weekend. I started thinking about which clocks I'd have to change. It turns out all of our high-tech stuff sets its own time.

Windows XP computers - Automatically adjust for Daylight and Standard time unless you've changed the default setting in the Date and Time control panel.

Cell phones - Automatically get their time from the cell tower.

TiVo - Automatically gets time when it dials in to download new program data to help ensure that recordings start and stop in more or less in sync with the broadcast. I think it automatically adjusts for daylight savings time.

Circa-1997 Magnavox VCR - Automatically gets time from the PBS channel almost every hour. (There are some hours it doesn't; I forget which ones or why. I've slept since 1997.) It's pretty cool to have a VCR that doesn't flash "12:00" every time the power goes out.