Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple • Hacker News Board

Re: Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple

#61

Post by asteli » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #41

irrational wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to move to China. Even though the country "should" have 5+ timezones, it only has 1 (Beijing Standard Time).

Or any country, since timezones only have a 1 hour granularity. If you're in Edinburgh (same longitude as Plymouth) this is quite noticable. Be interesting to see the consequences of hyper-local timezones where the sun is always over your head at 12 noon. With modern computing it should be possible to have your watch adjust as you drive east-west ...

Most countries agree to use a 1-hour division, but not all. Iran's offset, for example, is +3:30.

Re: Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple

#62

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #44

Sargos wrote: post #4

I am fully in favor of this. I enjoy having more sunlight after work when I can actually go out and enjoy it.

But why do we need to change the time on the clock in order to have this? Just go into work an hour early, and leave an hour early. If it is a matter of coordination, have an official government statement that summer business hours adjust during x - z months.

> If it is a matter of coordination, have an official government statement that summer business hours adjust during x - z months.

Its a whole lot easier (especially now that clocks can largely set themselves, but even before that) to change the clocks by an hour twice a year rather than every schedule (at least, all business hours and all schedules for everything else that is driven by common business hours, like transit schedules) with similar frequency.

I'm not a big DST fan, but DST is a better solution than your proposed alternative.

Re: Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple

#63

Post by kgwgk » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

svantana wrote: post #49

benrbray wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! I've always thought that we have it backwards. Why do we give ourselves more daylight in the summer when the days are naturally longer? If anything we should move them forward in the winter when we actually need it. That or eliminate it altogether, keeping "daylight-time" the default.

The amount of daylight is not changed by setting clocks. The point is to shift daylight hours away from "sleeping time", but still not having to get up when it's dark. The ideal daylight savings would be to synchronize clocks with sunrise, so that sunrise always occurs when it's time to get up (7 AM or whatever). Here in Sweden, where the length of the day varies from 6 to 18 hours, DST is really useful.

Of course the other option is to get up with the sunrise. Nobody forces you to sleep until 7AM or whatever.

Re: Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple

#64

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #28

> In parts of Maine, for example, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sun sets before 4 p.m. — more than an hour earlier than it does in Detroit, at the other end of the Eastern time zone. Why is the solution "permanent daylight savings"? Why is it not "let's split up the timezones better"?

This problem is inherent to having timezones that are an hour long. You're stuck with it unless you are willing to add a bunch more timezones, e.g. have 7 going across the country in 30 minute increments. I think that might be worse than aberrant sunrise/sunset times at the edges of the existing hourlong timezones.

Re: Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple

#65

Post by golangnews » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #44

Sargos wrote: post #4

I am fully in favor of this. I enjoy having more sunlight after work when I can actually go out and enjoy it.

But why do we need to change the time on the clock in order to have this? Just go into work an hour early, and leave an hour early. If it is a matter of coordination, have an official government statement that summer business hours adjust during x - z months.

This solution makes a lot more sense than time zones.

Re: Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple

#66

Post by stult » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #28

> In parts of Maine, for example, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sun sets before 4 p.m. — more than an hour earlier than it does in Detroit, at the other end of the Eastern time zone. Why is the solution "permanent daylight savings"? Why is it not "let's split up the timezones better"?

Or, why is the solution not "who cares, we have electric lights."?

Re: Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple

#67

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

matte_black wrote: post #7

taeric wrote: post #2

I'm torn on this. Yes, having a shift of a full hour in a week is obnoxious. However, the natural sun up and sun down time changes so dramatically in its own, that it is hard to really complain about it. If anything, I could see society moving to a time more based on when the sun comes up. Yes, there are difficulties scheduling something with someone across distance on the earth. But... I don't see a practical soluti…

UTC everywhere, done.

TAI everywhere, if you don't want to deal with fiddling adjustments.

Re: Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple

#68

Post by jjeaff » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #41

irrational wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to move to China. Even though the country "should" have 5+ timezones, it only has 1 (Beijing Standard Time).

Or any country, since timezones only have a 1 hour granularity. If you're in Edinburgh (same longitude as Plymouth) this is quite noticable. Be interesting to see the consequences of hyper-local timezones where the sun is always over your head at 12 noon. With modern computing it should be possible to have your watch adjust as you drive east-west ...

There are actually a few 30 minute and I think even 15 minute timezones.

Re: Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple

#69

Post by jonknee » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #28

> In parts of Maine, for example, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sun sets before 4 p.m. — more than an hour earlier than it does in Detroit, at the other end of the Eastern time zone. Why is the solution "permanent daylight savings"? Why is it not "let's split up the timezones better"?

It's the tilt of the Earth's fault, not the timezones. All of main is North of Detroit and more timezones isn't going to change that.

Re: Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple

#70

Post by wand3r » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #28

> In parts of Maine, for example, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sun sets before 4 p.m. — more than an hour earlier than it does in Detroit, at the other end of the Eastern time zone. Why is the solution "permanent daylight savings"? Why is it not "let's split up the timezones better"?

I think it would take much more agreement and coordination to reorganize timezones and would also invite more complexity into the system. It requires more effort to change the status quo. While not reverting to standard time / keeping daylight savings requires that Florida basically does not have to change at all, not adjusts the clocks again and keep the current timescale.