Sep 8, 2013

The smartphones that are not so smart

Many Israelis woke up this morning not knowing what time it was. Including me.

Originally the clocks were scheduled to be changed last night, reverting from DST to "winter time". About 6 or 7 weeks ago, after years of haggling, the government gave final approval to extending DST until the end of October. Somehow, the notice never got sent to the smartphones so pervasive around Israel. They were still programmed to revert off of DST last night at 2 AM.

While some people knew to change their DST settings in advance, having been warned by their mobile service providers, many did not, or ignored those messages. Personally I had heard something about the need to change one's location on the phone to Athens, but I figured by the time it becomes relevant they would figure out how to sync the correct time to the phones, the same way the clocks on the phones are normally synced - after all, we are living in Start-Up Nation, aren't we?

I "suffered" by waking up about 25 minutes later than planned and had to daven in a later minyan than planned. What we call "First-World Problems". In what way did you suffer from the smartphones not being so smart?

It was brought to my attention this incident from 14 years ago that happened as a result of DST confusion. It is amazing how such a simple thing can have such a major impact on events.

From the Hebrew Wikipedia page about DST in Israel:
בשנת 1999 הסתיימה תקופת שעון הקיץ בישראל ב-3 בספטמבר, לפני המועד ברשות הפלסטינית. יומיים לאחר מכן התפוצצו בו-זמנית שתי מכוניות תופת בחיפה ובטבריה, והרגו שלושה מחבלים תושבי ישראל. תחקיר האירוע העלה, כי המחבלים, אשר לא היו מודעים לשינוי השעה, היו עדיין בתנועה בכלי הרכב לעבר יעדם‏ בעת הפיצוץ. ההערכה במערכת הביטחון הייתה כי שולחיהם הפלסטינים כיוונו את הפצצות לפי שעון הקיץ ‏[6]. בגין האירוע הוענק להם פרס דרווין‏ ההיתולי‏[7].
In 1999, DST in Israel concluded on September 3, earlier than it was to conclude in the Palestian Authority territories. Two days later, 2 car bombs exploded simultaneously in Haifa and Tiberias, and three terrorists, Israeli residents, died in the explosions. From the investigation it was discovered that the terrorists had not realized that the clocks had been changed off of DST. As a result, they were still in traffic on the way to their destinations when their cars exploded. The security officials understood that their Palestinian handlers had scheduled the explosions according to DST. The terrorists were awarded the Darwin Awards posthumously.






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