This is a copy of an email I sent at work. I'm not sure Ishould be making noise about this here, feedback welcome.This is your bi-yearly reminder that time is changing soon! October 25thin Europe, November 1st in North America. Less people in Canada arechanging this year, with BC, Alberta, Manitoba and NorthwestTerritories getting rid of DST.What's happening?Some places in the world implement what is called Daylight saving timeor DST:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_timeNormally, you shouldn't have to do anything: computers automaticallychange time following local rules, assuming they are correctlyconfigured, provided recent updates have been applied in the case of arecent change in said rules (because yes, this happens, and happenedthis year, and yes, you need to upgrade your software!).Of course, appliances like your microwave oven will likely not changetime and will need to adjusted unless they are so-called "smart", inwhich case they are part of the skynet botnet and should be destroyed.If your clock is flashing "0:00" or "12:00", you have no action to taketo adapt to this change, lucky you.If you haven't changed time in six months, congratulations, your clockwill be accurate again!In any case, you should still consider DST because it might affect someof your meeting schedules, particularly if you set up a new meetingschedule in the last 6 months and forgot to consider this change.If your location does not have DSTProperly scheduled meetings affecting multiple time zones are set in UTCtime, which does not change. So if your location does not observertime changes, your (local!) meeting time will not change.But be aware that some other folks attending your meeting might havethe DST bug and their meeting times will change.Be kind to those poor souls which might be missing meetings by a fullhour because time flies backwards for them.If you do observe DSTIf you are affected by daylight savings, your local meeting timeswill change for UTC meetings. Normally, your meeting times arescheduled to take this into account and the new hours should bereasonable.But now is a good time to verify that. Take a look at your schedule forthe next couple of weeks and reschedule meetings before the daylightsaving come up to avoid too much disruption. You have only a couple ofweeks to do so right now.When do times change, how, and and where?As regular readers will remember, the rule of thumb is:Spring forward, fall backwards.That is, during the season of Spring, the clocks move forward, andduring the Fall (like right now), they move backwards. That is in thenorthern hemisphere, but then the southern hemisphere is often saner anddoesn't switch anyways.So time will move backwards which means an extra hour of sleep. Unlessyou have children or bad sleep, in which case your body doesn't careabout what the clock says and will wake up one hour earlier than what itshould.And of course, this doesn't happen everywhere at once, so let's see whenit happens where.EuropeThe dance starts in Europe.The change happens on the last Sunday in October at 01:00 UTC (not localtime!), that is October 25th. If you are in the central Europeantimezone, also known as Amsterdam, Berlin, or Paris time depending onyour national affiliation, that essentially means that at 2:59 local theclocks will fall back to 2:00 instead of going to 3:00.Concretely, set your watch back one hour before going to bed, go to bedat the normal time, and enjoy an extra hour of sleep or leisure.If you have kids, you might want to start getting them to bed slightlyearlier every day for a week before the change so they take time gettingused to the change. If you have trouble sleeping in the morning, findyour inner child and do that to yourself as well.USA / CanadaThen it's the US[1] and Canada[2] joining the dance, on the First Sunday inNovember at 02:00 local (not UTC!), that is, I believe, November 1st2025.This means that, at 1:59, the clocks will flip to 1:00, instead of 2:00.Concretely, do like the Europeans and tweak your clock before going tobed.That is a little less than four weeks from now.[1] except Arizona (except the Navajo nation), US territories, andHawaii[2] except Yukon, Saskatchewan, (newly) British Columbia, (newly)Alberta, (newly) Northwest Territories, (newly) Manitoba, one island inNunavut (Southampton Island), one town in Ontario (Atikokan) and smallparts of Quebec (Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent)Other places with DSTThis time again, I must apologize to the people of Cuba, Lebanon,Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand, as you finefolks all have your own DST rules that are omitted here for brevity. Irely on this page from Wikipedia to be updated by time nerds accuratelyfor this message, and it should provide you with a rough idea of what'scoming:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_by_countryIn general, changes also happen in October, but either on differenttimes or different days, except in the south hemisphere, where theymight happen in September (oops, sorry NZ folks, I'm late!).Places without DSTEveryone else, enjoy, you're on the right side of history, and we thankyou for the good example you give us.Changes since last timeThere's been lots of changes since last time:British Columbia moved to permanent -07 on 2026-03-09, that is itwill not change to normal time in NovemberAlberta moved to permanent -06 on 2026-06-18, similar to BC above.Canada’s Northwest Territories moved to permanent -06 on 2026-08-21,matching Alberta.Manitoba moves to permanent -05 on 2026-10-31.Morocco moves to permanent +00 on 2026-09-20.Moldova has used EU transition times since 2022, but the tz databaseonly noticed in 2026This is my interpretation of the changes announced on the tzdata mailinglist here:https://lists.iana.org/hyperkitty/list/tz-announce@iana.org/latestIf the eastward trend continues, Canada should adopt country-wide "nodaylight savings" rules by 2027, although there's actually no sign ofthe other provinces (Ontario, Québec and so on) currently running billsto change those rules just yet. Poor Canadians like me confused abouttime in their countries can refer to this section of Wikipedia fordetails:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_Canada#By_province_and_territory... and particularly the image featured there:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canada_time_zone_map-en.svgIt also seems like the US government might finally adopt a permanentdaylight saving change bill in 2026, as the "Sunshine protection act"pass the house in July:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Protection_ActTrue to form, this was associated with absolutely ridiculous pressurefrom Donald Trump against republicans (his own party!) objecting to thechange:On July 14, 2026, the House passed a Sunshine Protection Act billbacked by President Trump. Nevertheless, the bill was opposed in theSenate by Republicans, including Senator Cotton. In response, onOctober 3, 2026, Trump shared a post on Truth Social urging Cotton toapprove the bill, where he revealed Cotton's personal cellphone numberand called on people to call him.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/03/trump-tom-cotton-daylight-saving-timeGiven that the last time the US did a major change to the daylightsavings policy (in 2005), Canada followed suit to stay in sync, it'squite possible Trump's mad dash might actually finish getting rid of DSTin North America:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005#Change_to_daylight_saving_time