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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

#151

Post by kw71 »

asveikau wrote: post #147
skykooler wrote: post #5

The sun sets around 4 in the winter even in Philadelphia. This would imply that basically all of New England should move to Atlantic Time.

Philadelphia is not in New England. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England Also the article says Massachusetts wouldn't do it without the rest of New England also joining: > A majority of other states in New England would have to jump on the time-zone train, too. Edit: Must have been downvoted by west coasters who don't know what new england is ...

If New England is North or East of Philadelphia, then shouldn't the situation for New England be worse, iow, sunset earlier?

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#152

Post by brewdad »

mattferderer wrote: post #20
mejin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it that no matter where I live I can wake up at 6, stores open by 9, and lunch is at 12. Imagine every time traveling having to ask the locals what time things happen. Also, I don't think any politician will allow their state to be the state that doesn't have the same time as other countries in the same longitude

Most places I've visited vary from business to business. With all due respect, I don't know of anywhere that fits your 9 & 12 mold. When I travel I always need to look up the hours of businesses. Many also pick a day or two during the week to close or prepare. Many also operate dramatically different depending on the day you go.

Ok but they do operate at a reasonable approximation. Sure a shop may open at 0800 in one town and not until 1000 in another but are there really places on earth where the shops tend to open at 0100 and close by 0900? Certainly there can't be many.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#153

Post by KGIII »

foobarian wrote: post #139
KGIII wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :-)

I get her specialty spectrum lamps. She knits and crafts and lives under them until spring when, I kid you not, she goes out and forages in the woods. (Fiddleheads.) She isn't really a bear.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#154

Post by QAPereo »

KGIII wrote: post #153
foobarian wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :-)

I get her specialty spectrum lamps. She knits and crafts and lives under them until spring when, I kid you not, she goes out and forages in the woods. (Fiddleheads.) She isn't really a bear.

...Does she like salmon? Does she start to eat lots of berries in fall?

I’m not saying that she’s a bear though!...

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#155

Post by ghaff »

rconti wrote: post #112
penagwin wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean, here in Michigan a large chunk of the school year (maybe 50% ?) the highschool/middleschoolers go to school in the dark. It usually dark for another hour or more.

Well, Michigan is also insanely far west in an insanely large timezone, not to mention northerly.

And Massachusetts, especially Boston, is insanely east in the same time zone. Hence the discussion. Not as Far East as the upper coast of Maine but relatively few people live there.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#156

Post by tjdalaska »

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…

Live in Fairbanks, Alaska. There is no way this system would be feasible at northern latitudes. The days get longer/shorter at a rate of ~7 min. a day. Instead of an hour time change twice a year, it would be equivalent to an hour time change once a week. (and in december, it would get dark at 11:30am)

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#157

Post by dredmorbius »

Retric wrote: post #85
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…

Calibrating a sundial to noon is a one time effort. Calibrating a sun dial to dawn requires an update every single day. Further, dawn depends on local geographic conditions making it an ambiguous term.

Largely true, though at fine enough resolution, noon shifts a bit as well, for various reasons (I believe it's precession, inclination, etc.).

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38270/why-is-the...

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#158

Post by AlotOfReading »

selectodude wrote: post #150
osteele wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of Arizona doesn’t participate in DST [1]. [1] “Daylight Savings Time explained”, CGP Gray. https://youtu.be/84aWtseb2-4 . Skip to the 5 minute mark for Arizona.

Is Navajo Nation technically in Arizona, though?

For some purposes yes, for others no. The state has jurisdiction in matters not involving the tribe that take place there and the residents can vote / participate in civil government as Arizonians. However, the nation does have sovereignty in tribal affairs on the reservation and a few outside it.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#159

Post by dredmorbius »

pmurT wrote: post #65

I wish we'd get rid of timezones all together - is there really much point aside from tradition?

Yes, there is, and it ties into a whole mess of interrelated standardisation, information, and control capabilities. Beninger's book is a fascinating exploratiion of this.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674169869

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#160

Post by asveikau »

kw71 wrote: post #151
asveikau wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philadelphia is not in New England. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England Also the article says Massachusetts wouldn't do it without the rest of New England also joining: > A majority of other states in New England would have to jump on the time-zone train, too. Edit: Must have been downvoted by west coasters who don't know what new england is ...

If New England is North or East of Philadelphia, then shouldn't the situation for New England be worse, iow, sunset earlier?

It's both north and east. And I think that was the point of the article, that New England has it particularly bad for this.

Most people think that east coast cities are on a north-south axis, but as you go up I-95 (the major highway connecting these cities) you are actually traveling northeast. It was a head trip for me being from DC when I realized I could drive straight north for 5 hours and end up in Rochester, NY, or drive "north" on 95 for 5 hours and end up in New York City, but the distance between those two points was also itself a 5-6 hour drive.

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