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

nytimes.com

191–200 of 282 posts

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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a distinction without a difference, though. If the government says, "Between x and y months, all work start and stop times will shift earlier by one hour", it has the same effect as moving the clock itself. I should rephrase my comment: "That's effectively what DST is"

Not even a little bit the same; timezone are extremely crucial for communication, if people outside the state don't have to look up the current timezone to understand "3:00 PM" means exactly the same one month from now that's a win all round. Also, now that everyone has a powerful computer in their pockets its extremely useful to register the times without changes based on regional laws.

What does "3:00 PM" mean? Serious question. If the government is shifting work hours at different times of the year, then "3:00 PM" will mean different things. It will be before school lets out sometimes, and after school lets out during other months. It'll be 2 hours before work ends, or only one hour.

I'm no fan of DST, I think we should pick a timezone and stick with it. My argument is that DST is better than having a massively coordinated change in work schedules, because that's even more complicated than just moving the hour hand twice a year.

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

#192
post #137
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. As a parent, I would love to have daylight after work so that I can enjoy some time with my kid outdoors. It is depressing to pick up your child when it is already dark outside.

And I can get behind that, which is why I say we can be either PST or MST, I don't really care which. (MST being functionally equivalent to PDT.) Frankly, I just want us to choose something and lock it in. PST, MST, UTC, or whatever. Just don't make me change my timezone ever again.

UTC is a terrible choice, I don't even know what time I would wake up in UTC. My family in NC would never know what time to call. I'd be OK with PST or MST/PDT. I'd prefer more light in the evenings though, I work an early schedule and don't actually care if it's light when I go to the office.

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

#193
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tra…

That doesn't make sense; why clocks can change themselves but business schedules don't? Pretty sure there are more clocks than schedules.

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

#194
post #87
post #17

I wouldn't mind everyone moving to UTC. Sure, only people in Greenwich would be able to eat lunch at 12 noon. But at least it would simplify my life as a programmer.

As nice as that would be for code, people would still be left with trying to answer "is this a reasonable time to contact someone?" across great distances. The utility provided by time zones is a function for us to take our local time and determine whether or not we're interrupting someone's evening or sleep. Not to mention, travel alarm clocks everywhere would need to be sold with a book of "reasonable waking times"…

Time zones don't fix the issue of knowing a good time for something. You have to look up your different offsets and then math it out, which is exactly what you'd do even if the time zones didn't exist.

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

#195
post #10

Yes! Bravo to Florida. I don't care what timezone California wants to be in—PST or MST—as long as we stop the nonsense of changing between two timezones every year. This coming Sunday is another DST change, and with it will come countless small nuisances, immeasurable drowsiness and lost productivity, and a non-trivial number of injuries or worse. Just pick a timezone and stick with it!

Since I work remote for a company in Arizona I actually get an hour back on Sunday, I lost an hour when it went back my first meeting at 745am now it's going to be a more reasonable 845am.

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

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Vary opening hours now the time. Makes sense to me.

You'd end up with the official calendar day either flipping in the middle of the day, or at a different time in every locale.

This is a really good, simple, reason I had not even thought of. Thanks!

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

#197
post #87
post #17

I wouldn't mind everyone moving to UTC. Sure, only people in Greenwich would be able to eat lunch at 12 noon. But at least it would simplify my life as a programmer.

As nice as that would be for code, people would still be left with trying to answer "is this a reasonable time to contact someone?" across great distances. The utility provided by time zones is a function for us to take our local time and determine whether or not we're interrupting someone's evening or sleep. Not to mention, travel alarm clocks everywhere would need to be sold with a book of "reasonable waking times"…

The question you ask now is "what time is it in X place?" if you want to know if its reasonable to call someone.

But that is insufficient knowledge. You also need to know their work schedule, when they prefer to sleep, if they are busy that day. You call people regularly who are preoccupied or who just aren't in the mood.

I have two cousins who share a time zone apart from mine, but one works the night shift. So one sleeps 10-18 and works 22-06 their time and the other sleeps 23-07 and works 09-17. If you call one in their in between hours one is just waking up while the other is tired, in the same time zone.

You cannot even just assume "people everywhere wake up at 7 and go to bed at 11 within their timezones" because timezones are not consistent between countries, within countries, or across continents. Different cultures have different daily routines and schedules.

This is why people have just gradually, especially in newer generations, gravitated towards asynchronous communication as a default.

On the flipside, if you wanted to ask the question "we are on the same universal time, is it safe to call X?" you are asking a better question anyway since you need to know the regular available schedules of people where that person lives, just not on your presumed "normal" timetable.

Travel alarm clocks are a great topic, because they already require manual intervention for all the aforementioned time zone inconsistencies. To build a working "automatic" travel clock you need a full computer with GPS to do precise location to map you to the TZ database and then to also look up sunrise and sunset because those aren't consistent even with timezones.

An "everywhere is UTC" clock requires just as much hardware, but only one question - when is sunrise here? Because you just set your wakeup time near that if you are diurnal. Which not even everyone is. Especially in the hacking space where there are plenty of night owls.

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

#198
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we're all familiar with the article in the constitution that gives the federal government the power to decide for states how to set their clocks, i assume. i guess you can always count on the times to advocate for centralized power

The Commerce Clause: >Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: [The Congress shall have power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; Here's an example. Suppose I'm driving down the highways, and I arrive at some town and I decide to stop for lunch. I see a parking space, but it says I can't park there at certain times. But every city in the country sets its own cl…

That's quite a stretch. (Of course, the Commerce Clause has been stretched far beyond sanity before...)

And standard time was not instituted by the government, using the powers of the Commerce Clause. It was instituted by railroads, who found the exact issue you described to be a pain when trying to schedule trains.

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

#199
post #10

Yes! Bravo to Florida. I don't care what timezone California wants to be in—PST or MST—as long as we stop the nonsense of changing between two timezones every year. This coming Sunday is another DST change, and with it will come countless small nuisances, immeasurable drowsiness and lost productivity, and a non-trivial number of injuries or worse. Just pick a timezone and stick with it!

DST can make sense if you're sufficiently far north/south, but definitely doesn't if you're closer to the equator. And for Florida DST probably never made sense.

Hi I live in the relative north and DST is actually worse here. And go much further north than me and it doesn't really matter either way. I would kill to have it gone.

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

#200
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PDT FOREVER!

This. As a parent, I would love to have daylight after work so that I can enjoy some time with my kid outdoors. It is depressing to pick up your child when it is already dark outside.

Not so fast. Having grown up in a permanent DST on the 63th parallel, I can say that waking up and walking to school in constant darkness is also quite depressing. So much so that health officials in Iceland are now debating towards moving Iceland back closer to the solar noon (GMT-0100 from GMT) citing public health reasons.
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