Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

aol.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 221 posts

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#161

Post by wirrbel »

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…

Your idea has precedent. "Babylonian hours" or greek hours (don't know if there is a common english name for them, "Babylonische Stunden".

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#162

Post by TeMPOraL »

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…

Interesting, but holy shit, how it would break everything.

Having a day defined as a period of constant length of 24 hours is, I feel, a feature, not a bug. It allows for scheduling, for easily mapping between hours and days in your head. The system being anchored at the point more-less in the middle between sunrise and sunset is elegant, IMO, because - as you say - "the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening". This synchronizes the day period with our circadian rhythm (based on day/night cycle), which allows for easier dealing with other people.

Variable-length day sounds like an ongoing chaos full of manual corrections and constant recomputations. I feel it would be a step back for our civilization.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#163

Post by gumby »

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…

Your theory is inconsistent with the history of timekeeping:

> I think that in the days before clocks, when the sundial was the most sophisticated timepiece, this could have worked quite well.

Actually it's quite hard to figure out when "sunrise" occurs: it's not an instantaneous event, plus it's hard to calculate as an abstract (when would the sun peek over the horizon on an ideal billiard-ball planet); in the real world there are atmospherics, mountains etc. Plus for all these reasons it's hard to measure when you're close.

On the other hand noon is easy with a sundial as that's when the shadow "disappears" (really: "is shortest" on most of the planet) except of course on rainy days. You can see the shadow shorten, see noon, and see it expand again. It's literally a 0 in the curve.

The use of a nighttime sextant (or astrolabe that was on HN recently) is a way of transforming that calculation (known fixed angle) to other stars or times.

So it was the clock that made the time of sunrise work: if you could synchronise your clock to noon on D0 you could then use the clock to index into your ephemeris to figure out times of other celestial events post D0-noon.

Also, pre-clock, hours were not fixed duration, they were 12 divisions of the day. Minutes and seconds were post-clock inventions.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#164

Post by bostik »

tjdalaska wrote: post #156
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)

Go north enough (or south enough) and you get this as part of your winter time weather forecast:

Sunrise: January 29th

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#165

Post by NotSammyHagar »

racer-v wrote: post #71
tzs wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If kids are a concern, what about the problem of DST in winter in northern areas meaning kids go to school in the dark? For example I see kids walking to school at around 7:15 AM (6th-8th grade and high school) and around 8:30 AM (K-5th grade). This is at latitude ~47.7° N (same latitude as the city that is part of your name, in fact). Here is what various DST options would do in terms of kids going to school before…

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?

Everyone agrees that the schools start too early, but there are so many idiots who throw up reasons why they are afraid to change. It's like a mark twain novel of a small town in Misssissippi in the 1800s. In my town, the latest reason why we couldn't start later was "we'll mismatch for athletic events for schools from nearby towns". Then the other nearby school districts switched, and our asshole district said, its still too scary, and waited one more year, and now we are 40 minutes later. We should go another half hour later.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#166

Post by NotSammyHagar »

secabeen wrote: post #136
tzs wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Athletics should obviously start early if they need the time - why hold the whole school hostage for them?

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#167

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr »

rconti wrote: post #109
Koshkin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in English, you can't say "16 o'clock", can you? You can only say "sixteen hundred hours" (which sounds terrible, if you ask me).

how about "16 hours" or "1600"

“hours” denotes a duration. Times and durations should be distinguishable to avoid ambiguity. 16 o'clock = time, 16 hours = duration.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#168

Post by deathanatos »

racer-v wrote: post #71
tzs wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If kids are a concern, what about the problem of DST in winter in northern areas meaning kids go to school in the dark? For example I see kids walking to school at around 7:15 AM (6th-8th grade and high school) and around 8:30 AM (K-5th grade). This is at latitude ~47.7° N (same latitude as the city that is part of your name, in fact). Here is what various DST options would do in terms of kids going to school before…

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?

> Although isn't the idea of "permanent DST" an oxymoron?

It's slightly different from no-DST in that "the sun is directly above" is no longer approximately noon, ever; the TZ is effectively 1 hour off of what is should be and DST is abolished. (The sun would be overhead at ~1pm year-round.)

(It would also mean that during winter, in some locales, the sun would not rise until after 9am. I personally like seeing the sun in the morning.)

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#169

Post by toast0 »

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)

Book a standing meeting on your calend/ar to leave at 4 (or whenever). For exceptional meetings, make an exception and stay late. Probably come in early, or some how signal that you're not a slacker, just running a different schedule. This obviously doesn't work in all environments, but it can in many.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#170

Post by deathanatos »

chrisabrams wrote: post #10

I really hope NY get on board as well. Being in Manhattan during the winter, the sun is gone many days by 4pm, sometimes earlier depending which part of the city you are in (which skyscraper is blocking the last bit of sunlight). As a native Texan it's tough to adjust to :O [edit] my grammar

> the sun is gone many days by 4pm

Nowhere in Manhattan is that true (though perhaps I'll grant that a building might occlude the sun, but you're exaggerating). Conservatively, if we pick Albany, NY as the "northernmost extent of Manhattan", the earliest sunset is ~4:21pm.

Post reply on HN