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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

#201

Post by rocqua »

racer-v wrote: post #102
rocqua wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the sunrise is a better fixture socially, and maybe the sunset is a better fixture biologically. Noon is just an easy to measure compromise for the above two. Social life and timing mostly revolves around how early you get up. "Its late" kind of means "I am behind schedule to get enough sleep before waking up". Biologically, we are programmed around sunlight. Whilst our mornings aren't really controlled by th…

I agree, but sunrise and sunset have the disadvantage of not being fixed (unless you live on the equator).

Ah, yes. The time between sunsets isn't fixed but the time between noons is.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#202

Post by rockostrich »

tzs wrote: post #68
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.

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…

On the 47th parallel there's only 8.5 hours of daylight around the winter solstice so you pretty much have to choose one or the other. My high shcool's first bell was at 07:40 PM and final bell was sometime around 2:40 PM, but around 60% of the class did extracurriculars during the week that would get you out at 4-6 PM.

As other have pointed out, starting school later (around 8:30-9 AM) would have students coming in after sunrise, but then school would go until ~3:30 PM and you run the risk of all students getting home after dark during December and January.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#203

Post by luckroy »

mnw21cam wrote: post #188
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.

That'd be "Daylight saving time", not "Daylight savings time". Not sure why so many people get this wrong.

I'm with you, but we're fighting the losing fight.

As an aside, what a brilliant marketing name. Daylight is in peril and we all adjust our clocks to save it from the treacherous grasp of morning. We're heroes!

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#204

Post by Asooka »

mejin wrote: post #9
austincheney wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better would be to go to a single Zulu timezone nationwide. You just go into work an hour later in the central area compared to the east coast.

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

Yeah, I can wake up at 6, except in winter, when it's 5 and my biological clock has absolutely refused to adjust for the last 30 years, so I wake up at 7, and the stores open at 9 except when it's 10 and some open at 8, and lunch is, of course at 12, except in winter, when it's at 13, or maybe it's at 11, because I skipped breakfast, no wait there's an early meeting and corporate provided snacks, lunch is at 14 today.

I'm happy that you can set your life to the digit displayed on the clock no matter what that digit actually means in real time, but please spare a thought for those of us whose biological clocks can't readjust and help us abolish DST.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#205

Post by PeterisP »

zeveb wrote: post #54
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.

Why permanent daylight savings time? Why not just permanent real time? Clock noon should be roughly the same as solar noon, all year round. 'Daylight savings' is an impossibility.

Because we'd want the standard waking hours to be roughly aligned with daylight, but due to historical reasons (during the transition from an agricultural society to industrial one?) our standard waking hours, determined by our standard working hours, are significantly shifted to the afternoon.

As a rule, people don't go to sleep in 20:00 to wake up at 04:00 (anymore - in the agricultural era that was quite common), and midnight is not even close to the middle of our nighttime; in the same manner, noon is not in the middle of our days, we're spending much more of our time after noon. Changing all of that is hard and difficult compared to changing a time zone - so we'd want a timezone where the astronomical midnight is at 1:00 or 2:00 local time, it would better align the daylight with our activities.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#206

Post by PeterisP »

comicjk wrote: post #95
pointytrees wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you have written here is what I came to logically myself as well. However, it would then be more difficult for someone in Sacramento to ask someone in San Francisco what time the train leaves. Plus, all sorts of similar issues. Mental math of "train arrives at 3pm, takes me 30 minutes to walk there, fifteen minutes to pack. Gotta be sure to be out of my meeting by 2:15" but if you live 30 sunrise minutes west, y…

You could still have sunrise-based time zones the same way we have noon-based timezones now.

The timezones would have to be much, much more complex than now.

The noon-based timezones change on the east-to-west axis; and the difference between two locations is static; i.e., if my noon is one hour later than your noon, then it's always one hour later than your noon.

However, sunrise based timezones would depend also on the north-south axis, and shift during the year! If my sunrise is one hour later than your sunrise, then at a different month my sunrise might be at the same time as your sunrise, or two hours later than your sunrise (depending on our locations) - and cities moving between timezones every few months is a bit inconvenient.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#207

Post by mitchty »

tyingq wrote: post #198
mitchty wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing, get enough people saying it and it will become the thing. I'd vote for sixteen hour or something similar.

That's how they say it in Germany...sechzehn uhr

Yep, thats why I'm voting for it in English too. Just use the German method and keep it simple.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#208

Post by zeveb »

PeterisP wrote: post #205
zeveb wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why permanent daylight savings time? Why not just permanent real time? Clock noon should be roughly the same as solar noon, all year round. 'Daylight savings' is an impossibility.

Because we'd want the standard waking hours to be roughly aligned with daylight, but due to historical reasons (during the transition from an agricultural society to industrial one?) our standard waking hours, determined by our standard working hours, are significantly shifted to the afternoon. As a rule, people don't go to sleep in 20:00 to wake up at 04:00 (anymore - in the agricultural era that was quite common),…

I think you'll find that it's like euphemism creep: in a few more decades, you'll be arguing to slide the time over another hour, and in another few decades, you'll do the same thing all over again.

Better to just stick with real time and be done with it. We're adults, are we not? Have we not the tools at our disposal to take responsibility for our lives?

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#209

Post by inanutshellus »

ranit wrote: post #194
inanutshellus wrote: post #190

Everyone whines about DST, but I love the DST "timezone" in summer. I leave work in the sun. It feels like I still have time to play and have fun after work. It's great.

People don't whine about DST, people hate the one hour change every year.

I mean... you can't have DST if you don't change. DST is the fake time. If you get rid of it, you're in normal time.

Sooo...

The options are

A) Complain about 1-hour change and about how it was made for farmers 100 yrs ago

B) Complain how you miss DST because the summer hours were so wonderful and man can't we just stay in DST--you know, that fake time we just made up--all the time?

I opt for the first option--the constant whining from others one--because the alternative would be constant whining from me. :D

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#210

Post by WalterGR »

zeveb wrote: post #208
PeterisP wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we'd want the standard waking hours to be roughly aligned with daylight, but due to historical reasons (during the transition from an agricultural society to industrial one?) our standard waking hours, determined by our standard working hours, are significantly shifted to the afternoon. As a rule, people don't go to sleep in 20:00 to wake up at 04:00 (anymore - in the agricultural era that was quite common),…

I think you'll find that it's like euphemism creep: in a few more decades, you'll be arguing to slide the time over another hour, and in another few decades, you'll do the same thing all over again. Better to just stick with real time and be done with it. We're adults, are we not? Have we not the tools at our disposal to take responsibility for our lives?

in a few more decades, you'll be arguing to slide the time over another hour, and in another few decades, you'll do the same thing all over again. ... We're adults, are we not?

And you'll be doing the same thing, but in the opposite (and wrong ;) direction. Non-DST isn't some heavenly ordained moral high ground.

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