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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

#211

Post by zeveb »

WalterGR wrote: post #210
zeveb wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And you'll be doing the same thing, but in the opposite (and wrong ;) direction.

No, I'll continue arguing that clock noon should be solar noon. Midnight should be the middle of the night. Nothing more nor less.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#212

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

racer-v wrote: post #99
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.

As long as we're trying to fix all the world's problems, I'd submit that the ideal domestic partnership has one parent able to focus full-time on childcare and home life. It doesn't have to be the same parent all the time, but I find the expectation of dual incomes to be one of the great rip-offs of modern life.

We should start a political party :-)

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#213

Post by austincheney »

racer-v wrote: post #45
kemiller wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good God, no. The time isn’t just an arbitrary number to help coordinate meetings, it communicates what time of the day/night cycle you’re experiencing, to a reasonable approximation. Having separate time zones may be annoying, but it forces you to think about others’ experience. If I say I was up last night til 4 in the morning, that tells you something.

Agree. Noon should be the moment when the sun is at its highest altitude in the sky, or a close approximation thereof.

Why? Noon is just a number on a clock. Midday is when the sun is half-way between dawn and dusk.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#214

Post by austincheney »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #52
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.

Why? You would still need to create a system to keep track of local time of day. Hey, guess what, we already have such a system, people already use it and are familiar with it, let's keep using it.

No, you don't need that. Many people think you need it, but only because they have never experienced the alternative. Once you try it you won't want to go back.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#215

Post by normaljoe »

austincheney wrote: post #213
racer-v wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Noon should be the moment when the sun is at its highest altitude in the sky, or a close approximation thereof.

Why? Noon is just a number on a clock. Midday is when the sun is half-way between dawn and dusk.

Noon literally means midday. It predates clocks and solar noon would drive your sundial.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#216

Post by tzs »

idbehold wrote: post #17
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.

https://qntm.org/abolish

That's greatly exaggerating the difficulty of deciding if it is OK to call your Uncle who is about 165° east of you in a single time zone system compared to the current multiple time zone system.

In fact, the procedure is the same in both systems:

1. Look at your clock.

2. Add 11 hours to clock time.

3. Ask yourself if it would be daytime at your location when your clock says that time.

4. If yes, call your Uncle.

• Under the current multiple time zone system that works because clock time is close to local time. Step #2 computes the clock time at your Uncle's location, which gets you close to the local time at his location.

Daylight hours are approximately the same in his local time as in your local time, aside from the seasonal variation which you can ignore if you allow yourself a reasonable margin of error (e.g., aim for calling him a couple hours or so after sunrise rather than shooting for the crack of dawn), so you can use your local time as a proxy for his [1].

• Under a single worldwide time zone system it works because your local time is about 11 hours behind his local time. The time you get in step #3 is what the time will be on your clock (and on his clock, and on everyone else's clock) when your local time is the same as his local time is right now. So if that clock time will be a good time for you to receive a call, now is a good time to try your Uncle.

Of course, you probably wouldn't actually have to do any of that. Just as in his first example with the current time zone system where he Googles "time in melbourne" rather than looking at his clock and adding 11 hours, in the single worldwide time zone you would Google "local time in melbourne". In such a world, where local time can be quite a ways off from clock time, Google would surely recognize such queries and do the right thing.

Heck, it might even assume you mean local time if you just did "time in melbourne" because in the single time zone there would be no need to Google for the clock time for a particular area. I'd expect "time in melbourne" to probably give something like "The local time in Melbourne is X at world time Y". That covers everything.

[1] If you really are aiming for crack of dawn calling, then you will have to take into account the seasonable variation in sunrise relative to local noon, but you have to do that in both the multiple time zone system and the single worldwide time zone system.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#217

Post by eli_gottlieb »

grzm wrote: post #13
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

Thinking a little bit more about this, I'm wondering how much this would really help. Yes, there would be more daylight in the evening, but given the latitude, how much longer in the morning would it be dark? I found this handy tool to get a feel for it: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/new-york And here's Boston: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/boston

>https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/boston

Well that explains why I feel like winter nights are somehow worse and darker than summer ones. In summer, it's mostly not night at all: the twilight periods eat half the clock-nighttime. In winter, twilight gets cut in half and combines with the losses of daylight to extend nighttime.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#218

Post by BrandoElFollito »

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

In French : 16 hours (seize heures) In Polish even simpler: 16-th (szesnasta)

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#219

Post by photojosh »

tzs wrote: post #142
grzm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. We have that now. But it also wouldn't be the same along the same longitude. Yes, 6AM would be the same, but now sunrise, midday, and sunset would all vary. At least with noon-based time zones, midday occurs at the same time along longitudes. People have an expectation that noon occurs midday, which is why the system is set up the way it is. This is how it was before we had time zones. It's a human-interface th…

Intuition depends on experience and context. My guess is that what is intuitive for time keeping has changed over time (no pun intended). Consider back when most people were living directly or nearly directly off the land in single families or small groups, working very hard to grow enough food or catch enough fish or game to keep alive. I think that they would use three references for time: sunrise, noon, and sunset…

Slow response from me due to an intervening weekend... this was quite the epic post, and I enjoyed your elaboration.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#220

Post by tjdalaska »

bostik wrote: post #164
tjdalaska wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh, and November 19th in Barrow would be ~1,560 hours long, and you would you just skip those 65 days? Or you could have November 20th in Barrow while it is different dates in other parts of the world?
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