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Benjamin Franklin's Essay on Daylight Saving Time: Every morning, as soon as the sun rises, let all the bells in every church be set ringing; and if that is not sufficient?, let cannon be fired in every street, to wake the sluggards effectually, and make them open their eyes to see their true interest. http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin3.html
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It seems like this is no different than the current situation. Today, you look up what time it is in Hong Kong. In UTC world, you look up what hours are business hours in Hong Kong.
It is really. 'Business hours' isn't scientifically defined. If I say to Google, 'time in Melbourne', I'll see it's 3.11AM. And if I need to know what time it is in three of my offices, I can save those cities in my clock and swipe between them at any time.
> I can save those cities in my clock and swipe between them at any time.
The Director General McAdoo mentioned in the OP was the head of a US governmental agency that had taken control and ownership of the US railroad network. According to the Wikipedia article [1] "it was possibly the largest American experiment with nationalization," and it was reversed after WW I. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Railroad_Adminis...
What blows my mind is the collective amount of "news" articles we get twice a year, every year for DST The American public (and world public for that matter) is obviously 100% apathetic. If you really want this to change then you have to goad politicians and tell them how the USA is stuck in the 20th century and going backwards. But good luck with them caring about that either.
I prefer that we keep "DST" all year long. Its more pleasant leaving work while its still daylight. And I suspect that many US citizens think the same.
The Director General McAdoo mentioned in the OP was the head of a US governmental agency that had taken control and ownership of the US railroad network. According to the Wikipedia article [1] "it was possibly the largest American experiment with nationalization," and it was reversed after WW I. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Railroad_Adminis...
Passenger rail was never reversed.
There's a long history of railroad involvement in time changes, e.g., the "Day of two Noons". Adjustments for railroads are why we have time zones, and why Date.toLocaleString has weird minute and second offsets for pre-1800 dates: http://curtisautery.appspot.com/5779342353235968
The alternative would be for everyone to use something like UTC, which means that while their relationship to the sun changes depending on location, the actual value is the same everywhere. I find this especially useful when scheduling online meetings with participants from many countries.
http://kybernetikos.com/2012/11/26/modern-times-a-new-clock/
or just the clock
http://kybernetikos.github.io/UIT/
You need to share your location so that it knows how to rotate the numbers on the face and how to draw the sunrise/sunset times on the dial.
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I prefer that we keep "DST" all year long. Its more pleasant leaving work while its still daylight. And I suspect that many US citizens think the same.
How about we keep standard time all year long, and you just leave work an hour earlier?
(The real issue is that the legally-regulated opening hours for e.g. banks are too late in the day)
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Right, but if you only use UTC then you can't tell when it's appropriate to call people or schedule meeting in various parts of the world. ("OK, this person is in Hong Kong and I want to schedule the meeting at 11:00 UTC. What time does the sun rise in Hong Kong?")
It seems like this is no different than the current situation. Today, you look up what time it is in Hong Kong. In UTC world, you look up what hours are business hours in Hong Kong.
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You propose moving timezones east by one hour?
I certainly think New England should move a time-zone to the east in the winter. The least disruptive way to do that would be to get on DST one year and never get off. This solar time vs. standard time map [1] indicates that most of the world prefers to slightly bias their daylight hours to the afternoon, and I'd be happier if we joined them. [1] http://blog.poormansmath.net/how-much-is-time-wrong-around-t...
In Spain, there are in `the wrong' timezone, ie they are on German/Polish time. As a result, life still happens at reasonable solar times, but at late wallclock times.