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Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

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Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#131

Post by graywh »

rconti wrote: post #121

The major problem here is that far too much effort was put into accommodating everyone by including them in the eastern time zone. Last time I looked, I think something like 48% of the US population lives in it, and it's just unnecessarily large. Obviously there are benefits, but it creates a ton of perverse consequences too. Realistically, the eastern time zone should probably stop between OH/PA, west of West Virgin…

4 time zones is enough to cover the 48 states unless you want half-hour zones or radically different sunrise times on one coast or the other. Just need to reduce the sizes of Eastern and Central to better match the longitude lines.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#132

Post by romanovtexas »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #127
romanovtexas wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good suggestion, however, it might not be useful globally. People in the tropics/around the equator get so much sunlight that they would not want to trade the convenience of our current time systems with having to adjust it based on the sun just for that extra daylight.

People on the equator get no more sun time then anybody else. It's just that theirs is evenly distributed, they get ~12 hours of sun every single day of the year. They'd be completely indifferent, their current clocks would still work, they'd just be annoyed at the other time zones moving around on them.

Fair enough, although my statement was more about the amount of sunlight they get per day, for all days of the year versus someone closer to the poles having to adjust to constant fluctuations.

You're right when you say that they get ~12 hours every single day, but their clocks would still have to account for the slight changes (by a few minutes) in time for the sunrise. Which means changing their clocks everyday/every few days, based on the sunrise. But for what? They anyway get ~12 hours sunlight, so it's not a worthy tradeoff for them, compared to someone in Massachusetts.

If only humans worked like batteries, soaking up the summer sun to use it in winters..

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#133

Post by wickberg »

Animats wrote: post #3

Unless all the states east of New York switch, this is a non-starter.

It's even more subtle than that - about half of Connecticut is heavily involved with business in NYC, and would probably be quite unwilling to jump an hour over.

To a lesser extent, south-western Vermont is economically linked to the Albany metro area, and would also likely vote against a shift.

Were you to poll on support for moving New England over to Atlantic time, I'd bet you'd wind up with a map closely matching that of local support for the Boston Red Sox vs New York Yankees: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/23/upshot/24-ups...

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#134

Post by SiVal »

tzs wrote: post #81

One of the main purported benefits of DST is that it in effect moves some of the extra sunlight from the longer days of summer from the morning to the evening, where most of us are in a better position to use it. That's because without DST as the day lengthens the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening. But WHY does it split evenly? It's because we historically use noon as our reference. We think…

You say you would still have timezones, and timezones are approximately the area (all points) of the globe where it is approximately the same time, say all points where it is closer to 8am than to 7am or 9am when the centerline is 8am. With the current system, that makes the edges of time zones perfect north-south meridiens of longitude (which are then tweaked, of course for local reasons.)

Sun rises at approx 6am and sets at 6pm every day on the equator. Go straight north to another point, and in the northern summer, it's sun rises before it does at the equator, and in northern winter it rises after the equator. So, with your system calling sunrise 8am, the edges of a timezone would drift with the seasons and would only be north-south meridiens twice a year at the equinoxes.

If you decided to define the timezones with fixed (non-drifting) boundaries, your system might require a 2-dimensional grid of small timezones with boundaries not just on the east and west but on the north and south, with behaviors relative to their neighbors that would make timing a phone call to another time zone pretty much require computer assistance.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#135

Post by [deleted] »

mattferderer wrote: post #27
poulsbohemian wrote: post #2

Personally, it would be brilliant if we'd just go to permanent daylight savings time nationwide. The transition is hard on the kids and living in the northern part of the country, the extra daylight is appreciated.

As a parent of young children, we dread changing the clocks & curse the evil people who came up with this terrible idea. If Dante's Inferno were to be written today, their would be a 10th Circle for those who came up with daylight savings time. It would involve the sound of screaming children, important appointments & clocks that change at random.

[deleted]

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#136

Post by secabeen »

tzs wrote: post #88
racer-v wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a problem of schools starting too early. You can't fix stupid. Although isn't the idea of "permanent DST" an oxymoron?

I agree that middle/high school is arguably starting too early (especially since research has shown, I believe, that teens really should be sleeping later). In the case of elementary school, though, you are dealing with kids young enough that they probably cannot reliably be counted on the get ready and leave for school on their own, and so you need to fit school times in with their parent's work schedule.

Middle/high does start too early, but if you started later, there wouldn't been enough time after school for those precious athletic team practices and games.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#137

Post by DerekL »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #2

Personally, it would be brilliant if we'd just go to permanent daylight savings time nationwide. The transition is hard on the kids and living in the northern part of the country, the extra daylight is appreciated.

What is the point of making it permanent? If you want to increase the daylight after the workday, then just make working times one hour earlier, instead of changing the clock.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#138

Post by Steko »

asavadatti wrote: post #76
zeveb wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a lot to gain from an extra hour of light in my evenings. May I suggest leaving for home earlier? And a child comment of yours wants an extra hour of light in the mornings. You can't have it both ways! There's a finite amount of light in the day: not everyone can have everything he wants. So why not just settle for making noon be noon, rather than taking an hour from Spooky23 and giving it to you, or taking…

Not always possible to leave for home earlier (with meetings and such)

But you’re not actually leaving earlier, it’s the exact same point in time whether you call it 6pm EST or 7pm EDT.

Not trying to be patronizing as I realize you are not dumb and know this but I’m explaining the disconnect between sides of this argument.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#139

Post by foobarian »

KGIII wrote: post #37
QAPereo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would probably take quite some time to prove, but I suspect depression, alcoholism, etc would improve a bit with more “access” to daylight. No one enjoys seeing the sun set by 5, but it probably has a more profound impact on a further subset.

We have SAD here, quite a bit of it. The missus suffers from it a bit, so I plant her under special lights and feed her tasty food until spring. I'm pretty sure she is part bear. She hibernates for the winter. I, of course, love it. But, yeah, there are real mental health impacts from the loss of sunlight. It causes actual harm.

LED bulbs have been a godsend for me. About 12W of LED light roughly replaces a 100W incandescent bulb. This means that given a light socket rated for a 300W maximum, I can plug in a tree of Y-splitters and 25 LED 100W equivalent bulbs. The amount of light is glorious :-)

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#140

Post by JackMorgan »

tzs wrote: post #81

One of the main purported benefits of DST is that it in effect moves some of the extra sunlight from the longer days of summer from the morning to the evening, where most of us are in a better position to use it. That's because without DST as the day lengthens the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening. But WHY does it split evenly? It's because we historically use noon as our reference. We think…

I like that idea a lot, but obligatory: (You advocate a ________ approach to calendar reform https://qntm.org/calendar)
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