What is Daylight Savings?

Have you ever wondered exactly why we gain an hour in November? Wired has a great write-up of Daylight Savings and why it exists:

The simple answer is that during the summer hours of daylight, the clock is shifted so that the sun rises at 6:30 a.m. instead of 5:30 a.m. This also makes the sun set at 7:30 p.m. instead of 6:30 p.m. Is daylight actually saved? I guess you could say that. If there is sunshine at 5:30 a.m. and no one is awake to use that sunlight, it would be wasted. Shifting the clock time by an hour saves this sunshine. I still don’t like the term “daylight saving”. I prefer daylight shifting.

 If you’re wondering, we will be moving our clocks back 1 hour starting Sunday, November 4th at 2:00am.