Daylight Savings Patterns 2025

 In 2025, Canada, except for her province of Saskatchewan, started Daylight Savings Time (DST) on 2 March.  Nearby Nuuk ( Greenland, part of Denmark) also uses DST.

This was followed a week later on 9 March in the USA, except for the states of Hawaii and Arizona, which opted out of DST.

Small portions of Mexico bordering the USA implement DST, but not for the majority of territory in Mexico.

The UK this year began daylight savings on Sunday 30 March, like the European Union.

Several portions of the Middle East adopt Daylight Savings Time arrangements.  They are Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza, West Bank and Israel.

In the Southern Hemisphere, south eastern states of Australia, Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island and South Australia will end Daylight Savings Time on Sunday 6 April.  Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland do not use DST.

Unusually, New Zealand will do so on the same day  6 April 2025 (they often do so a week earlier than Australia).

Chile, including Easter Island in the eastern South Pacific, are exceptions in South America which otherwise do not implement DST.

The Antarctic uses DST.

There is no practice of daylight saving in Russia, Asia, Africa ( except Ceuta and Melilla), the South Pacific ( except for the Chatham Islands of New Zealand) and most of Central and  South America.

Specific Caribbean Islands, even with tropical weather, do use DST - Cuba, Haiti, Bermuda, Bahamas and Turks and Caicos.

There are nations which are on permanent DST and so do not bother their residents to move their clocks forwards or backwards. Examples are the Falkland Islands ( British Overseas Territory), Syria and Jordan.

Countries with warmer weather tend to not bother with DST - and vice versa. 

Smart devices like screen gadgets auto change time for users in areas subject to daylight savings changes twice a year. 
Just be more mindful when you are catching scheduled transport on the affected days.   Most governments change rhe time at 2 or 3 am in the middle of the night.

One gets an extra hour of sleep when daylight savings ends.  The reverse applies.  Some territories apply the change on long weekends, but it is always on an early Sunday morning.

All of these DST complications come from human intervention.  Countries which have cancelled DST include Russia, Brasil and Samoa.

#yongkevthoughts

Church

 Igreja is the Portuguese word for a church.

In Malay and Indonesian, it is Gereja.  The Galician word is Igrexa.  The Sundanese islanders in Indonesia term it "kareja".

The Spanish call it an Iglesia. In Catalan, it is Esglesia.  Scots Gaelic term is Eaglais.

The French word is Eglise.  In Irish, it is "Eaglais".

Italians call a church a Chiesa.

Notice the almost similarities.  Latin has a different twist - Ecclesia.

The Samoans refer to "Ekalesia".

The English of course refer to a church, and the Telugus in India call it "charchi".

#yongkevthoughts

Outsourced to Poorer Experiences

 Outsourcing in various forms can illustrate its inherent disadvantages, lack of quality and disservice to paying customers.

Outsourcing is now a pervasive option by government, businesses and providers to firewall themselves, in their self centred reasoning, from higher costs, responsibilities and liabilities.  By contracting, not just once or on a temporary basis, the growing army of such providers, now beg more questions than answers.  Outsourcing is growing to be a mixed bag of a solution.  

Are contracts for tasks or series of deliverable outcomes performed by people who know what they are doing?
Is due diligence carried out on selected contractors?   Are contractors actually qualified or technically capable to successfully carry out what they promise or supposed to do?

Do people, who are given the outsourced contracts,actually doing the work?  Many are just brokers or middle men who then engage another layer of staff to do the work.   Think of solar panel installation  businesses, mortgage outsourcers, child care operators, medical  and aged care services.    Huge amounts of money received from government often attract operators with insufficient knowledge or experience to deliver.  Taking the grant first is a priority.

Are such lower level hired outsourced staff given proper levels of training, customer service and related skills? 
Are such staff in contact with customers really specialised in their niche work or do they really work in several different roles throughout the week?

Are the outsourced providers monitored in their performance, or the entities granting the contracts do not have much contact with them after agreeing to the outsourcing?

Members of the public are the ones interacting directly with such outsourced people.  We do not get to see the presence of the entity which has contracted them. 

Several years ago,  when we were  asked to connect to NBN, we never saw any NBN employees or managers.   We dealt with individual contractors, often recent migrants, who knocked on our door - such contractors told us they have to maximise the number of installations per day.    When some problems ensued with the NBN installations,  NBN was adamant they did not want us to contact them but we had to enquire our retail providers of wifi.

Even a simple experience of catching a railway bus at Central Station Sydney can bring out the down side of experiencing outsourced staff in action.

It was Saturday 29 March 2025, a dreadful weather time of sudden heavy showers, gusty winds and slippery surfaces.   Not that I like to use public transport on weekends to go to and from the Big Smoke these past few years - transport schedules are changed, delays are common and sudden changes often occur.

That Saturday no old style commute trains were running from Central in Sydney cbd to the South Coast of NSW.  Ah, I was grateful to have replacement buses instead.  Coming to the correct tent for me to catch the right coach to where I wanted, I was surprised that the staff told me they do not work for Sydney Rail, as they are contracted employees under outsourcing.

Even more fascinating was the conviction by this outsourced guy that he does not report to Sydney Rail.   He said he has another different outsourced job at night and he has no idea of how to answer various questions from commuters.  He only was working for a few hours in the Rail bus tent and only does what he was told.

There was also no indication of where the set up tents to catch the replacement Rail buses were when one came out to the Concourse - but that is another problem of lack of communication  by Sydney Rail top management to commuters.

Back to outsourcing.  Outsourced employees tend to work in silos and are unable to give a holistic understanding or appreciation of the bigger process to customers.  Not my problem.   When asked who next to approach, usually is they do not know.  And I really do not blame them.   Customers are left on the lurch. Check online, but the app or website does not have the information.

Paying customers are increasingly asked to self manage.    Entities selling them services or goods do not want to physically meet or communicate with other human beings who are providing the revenue.   Head Office tells us they have contracted out that part of process we are having problems with.  Outsourced staff tell us we have to resolve our problems with someone else.

When we face matters with outsourced providers, it may not be serious.  When significant issues arise with physical, financial, health and infrastructural consequences, do really ponder.

#yongkevthoughts

Repeating and Rhyming

 "History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes."

Whoever is attributed to have first made that quote, Mark Twain or someone else, does not really matter.

More important is what seems to rhyme again, after historical lessons are not learnt.  Do events seem to occur again in varying forms, more because human beings as a society are embedded in their ways, mindset and political behaviour?

History seems to repeat when we reflect on the fall of massive empires.   We are told that such political behemoths were not eventually sustainable due to rebellions, food insecurity, loss of trading hegemony, religious change, collapse of governance, etc.

The things that made empires great no longer exist when such entities begin to collapse.   Borders have been transgressed,  militaries have been gutted, foreigners have made incursions and the last generation of rulers were not made with the same guts and talent as the empire founders.

The rules, checks and controls that made an empire great in its heyday no longer exist by its end.   Rome was an ideal when it was managed by Senators - then came dictatorship and disorder. 

The last Chinese dynasty rotted and collapsed when it looked inwards rather than adapt and adopt the challenges of a new world order.   The Ottoman rulers could not hold on to various and diverse corners of their vast lands.  The last vestiges of the Soviet Union promised better political freedom but not economic opportunity.  The Japanese imperialists ventured out beyond their islands on a hunger for natural resources available in the rest of Asia, but floundered when it got hit with the early version of terrifying nuclear war.

The Moghuls did not survive the onslaught of colonials who came with better technology, divide and rule strategies and a sweeping rush of the growing British Empire ( where once the sun never set upon her colonised lands).  The British Empire became a shadow of itself by the 1970s but still holds the allegiance of Canada, Australia and New Zealand through Governor- Generals.

So which next contemporary empire is gradually destined to fall?

And then there are corporate collapses.  East Asian thinking notes that businesses do not last beyond three generations of ownership.   When a successful idea is over run by competition, contrition, conviving of narrow mindedness by its Board or top management and lack of capability, its inability to change often overwhelms its outdated structures held on and modus operandi.

If customers and suppliers are berated or not appreciated, the foundations of a business are quickly torn apart, unless one dominates the market. 

When channels of sale and delivery or nature of market are significantly changed, inflexibility and lack of innovation are sure doom sayers.   Think of Kodak, Tupperware, the taxi industry, television channels, etc.

Rhymes of history affect us in parts of our everyday lives.

Why are infrastructure like highways and railways built with generous contracts given to private equity with the public taxpayer holding the repayment liability?

Why are casinos encouraged and thriving with not much concern about the social costs?

Why is priority given for immediate profits rather than concerns for environmental or public health?

Why are so many aspects of life privatised by government, with lack of monitoring of the performance and behaviour of those given public grants to run a service?

Even when there is obvious grief, disappointment and underperformance from those privatisation exercises, most Governments carry on in the same way, Australian Royal Commission hearings and recommendations or not.

Why are unhealthy foods allowed to lure, captivate and be consumed by individuals based on convenience, with lack of disclosure of balanced information and low cost driven with turnover emphasised revenues?

Despite the obvious sufferings incurred from outbreaks of war and use of aggressive weapons, the "civillisation" of human societies and geopolitics thrive on division, aggression, arnaments and conflict, rather than more seriously embrace shared values and moral practice.

Human selfish tribal mores over ride many alternatives - that is essentially driving the repeat of historical human behaviour and outcomes.

The specific players on the world stage can change, but not the acts, drama and memory.

What is the point of knowing and understanding history?  To know the past is to prepare for a better future - in theory at least.

History can rhyme but stand out leadership can break or reduce the cycle.   Such a leadership need not be from the political or religious field.

#yongkevthoughts

Breaking News

 I have an amused laugh when the term "breaking news" is used daily, whether online or on retro television.

Often when the details are finally revealed, it is not breaking or that important.

The misuse of exagerrated labeling or reference does cheapen words, descriptions and their meanings or implications.   No wonder many people I know do not bother to keep up with the news, or the overloading transmission of news.

Concurrent with the use of such terms as breaking news,  the news industry is observed to lure and bait readers, watchers or listeners with falling standards of integrity, rising sensationalism and agenda backed selection of what to report.

Trust by consumers of news holds it all together.  News that are increasingly seen or understood to be politically massaged lose their attractiveness.  On the other hand, some have argued that groups of believers take comfort in being reinforced and embedded in what they honestly reckon is their way.

News delivery that try to balance opinions and explain the diversity of views are getting hard to find.  The choice of words in headlines can also reveal the sell of the news provider.  Less we see are non prejudiced descriptions and more we see the obvious bent towards what they want us to be convinced about.

If you only know about news on channels of social media, you also do not escape what I mention above.  

Communication media seem to be categorised according to political colour.   We are less encouraged to maintain an open mind.  I do not want to take sides and can only see the ridiculousness of a circus of news transmission.

The world of newspapers, screen media and video clips have such a significant volume of material that any individual cannot handle.  Even if I want to be cocooned away from this calvacade of over kill, I get news in my personal or group messages online.

This information overload does test our intelligence, sanity and mental vibrancy.   The worst scenario to me is to subscribe for a fee or not.  Reaction to this can be to shut down, get sucked in or to be more cautious in what we hear or read.

"Breaking news"?  If this is followed by interviews or opinions that want the masses to toe the line, there is a canary in the coalmine.

Promotions for a product, service or opinion are also blatantly parceled as news.  The commercial communication industry needs funding and there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The upside is that the most discerning amongst us can see and understand better, sift the corn from the cob and spare our minds from poor quality stuff.

#yongkevthoughts