{"id":8782,"date":"2018-09-13T09:26:43","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T08:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=8782"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:55:17","slug":"some-common-sense-is-prevailing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2018\/09\/13\/some-common-sense-is-prevailing\/","title":{"rendered":"Some common sense is prevailing"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the UK, the European Union – and in particular our membership of it – is a hot topic just now. I am not going to get into the politics of that [I mostly try to avoid politics here!]. Over the years, there have been frequent stories – some true and others with only the flimsiest connection to reality – of crazy decisions and mad ideas coming out of the EU. I think that is inevitable if you take 28 disparate countries and try to reach consensus, because, although we are all \u201cEuropean\u201d in our perspective, local tastes and sensitivities persist. I was delighted recently when I saw something really sensible being discussed \u2026<\/p>\n

To me, time is always an issue. There is never enough of it. We all have a finite amount of it. I try to make good use of mine. I fail and often waste time with nobody to blame but myself. I try to be respectful of other people\u2019s time [which is why I am not a big fan of telephone calls] and do my best to be punctual and organized.<\/p>\n

Because, in a way, time is an artificial construct, some aspects of it are worth pondering. Time zones, for example, seem [and probably are] a great idea, but they can be annoying. As I work for an international company, time zone issues arise frequently. The other day, for example, someone emailed an invitation to attend a meeting \u201cat 1pm\u201d. As they were in the US, I replied, asking which time zone they were referring to [as they have several to choose from]. It turned out that he did not know and needed to verify it with someone else. I would have thought that this would be second nature to anyone living in a country with multiple time zones.<\/p>\n

My big bugbear is Daylight Savings. I have railed against it on a previous occasion<\/a> and, some years on, still cannot see the point of wasting time messing with clocks twice a year. The great news<\/a> is that it seems that the EU government [and lots of people in Finland] agree with me! Some common sense emerging from Brussels is very refreshing.<\/p>\n

Of course, if Europe abandoned Daylight Savings, I expect the US would continue and I would need to get used to being 8 hours out from many of my colleagues for most of the year and 9 hours out in the Winter [at least, I think it is that way around!]. That is better than have a few weeks either end of the year when the time difference changes.<\/p>\n

I can visualize a worst case scenario: the EU goes ahead with this plan, but the UK has left the EU and our crazy government think that there is something \u201cBritish\u201d about messing with the clocks …<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the UK, the European Union – and in particular our membership of it – is a hot topic just…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[431,302],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-daylight-savings","tag-off-topic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10718,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8782\/revisions\/10718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8782"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=8782"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=8782"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}