Live data from Hacker News

In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

gizmodo.com

121–130 of 140 posts

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite. California is going to UTC-7 year-round. The East Coast varies between UTC-5 and UTC-4. California is effectively going to be in the exact same time zone as Arizona, which is in Mountain Standard Time and does not recognize DST. Honestly, we should just abolish the Pacific time zone and then abolish DST on the West Coast. Rename Mountain Standard Time to Western Standard Time.

I can't imagine people in the northern reaches of Mountain time would be pleased about never having DST. They'd likely be better off moving to CST (so no DST).

Sure! Or they could still have DST in the former Mountain zone and not in the former Pacific zone.

US law allows for states to opt in or out of DST. (Also, Indian reservations, because they're treated as quasi-sovereign nations in some ways.) A WST would probably entail WA, OR, and CA opting out with AZ while MT, ID, WY opt in.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no particular reason work should start so early, either, other than the perpetual punctuality pogrom promulgated by lark against owl.

idk about you, but I get to pick my hours, as long as they add up to forty. even with this freedom (and being a night owl), I find myself wanting to get to work by 9:00 anyway. any later and I just get home too late in the evening. if anything, I sometimes try to get to work half an hour to an hour early. I can't imagine there are too many parents who want to shift their schedule to get home even later.

Given the same option I ended up with 10:30 to 7pm, but then again I don’t have kids.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#124

From [1], which is much better and more on-point, if still short: "Opponents of the proposition argue [...] the sun wouldn’t rise until 8 a.m. during some winter months, forcing children to walk to school or buses in darkness" Maybe school shouldn't start so early then? Starting at 8:30-9 would reduce a lot of that, though not all of it. Also, as a Canadian and Vancouverite... so what? Darkness is a fact of life, get…

This has always been an odd argument to me. Does abolishing DST also abolish flashlights, streetlamps, reflective clothing...? What did children do before DST came around to save them? Children have been attending school longer than DST has been around.

The argument about students walking in the dark (however you feel about it) is in regards to the _winter_ months, when there has never been DST. Asking what they did before DST came around to save them is asking what happens right now. That is, it's not dark when they walk to school. It'll only be an issue (if you think it's an issue) if and only if DST is enacted _year round_.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under this system, either some minutes will be longer than others, or we'll have leap minutes every night. This sounds more complicated, not less. It might achieve the goal of having a sunrise at the same wall clock time every day, but I don't really see a purpose for that. Sunsets will still vary.

I made no claim of it being less complicated, and I am not aware of the general public's primary issue with the time changing being one of complexity. If the clocks are automated, nobody really notices the gradual change. My perception is the public's major complaint is the jarring disturbance to their lives an overnight +-1-hour change has.

As a person who works on software that cares about what time it is, and already struggles with the existing DST rules, I think I would change careers if this were adopted. Measuring the elapsed time between two instants would become extremely difficult.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#126
post #69
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Teachers unions would never agree to have to start later in the day.

Why?

Good question. My wife was a teacher and they like getting off early. Hard to change something that’s entrenched.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#127

From [1], which is much better and more on-point, if still short: "Opponents of the proposition argue [...] the sun wouldn’t rise until 8 a.m. during some winter months, forcing children to walk to school or buses in darkness" Maybe school shouldn't start so early then? Starting at 8:30-9 would reduce a lot of that, though not all of it. Also, as a Canadian and Vancouverite... so what? Darkness is a fact of life, get…

Overall it would be better for the students and it fixes safety concerns, which I agree is a weak argument but 'for the children' is always a great political card to play. The issue is I don't think making the school day start later will ever get support from teachers, so it won't be considered for most school districts even if its better for the students.

> I don't think making the school day start later will ever get support from teachers, so it won't be considered for most school districts even if its better for the students.

Package it with pay increases and/or shortening the day (also good for students) so that teachers still get off at the same time, and it'll go over fine.

Even aside from that, teachers aren't the majority of the electoral base for either local school boards or state lawmakers, so if it's important enough to non-teachers, it will get mandated whatever teachers prefer.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made no claim of it being less complicated, and I am not aware of the general public's primary issue with the time changing being one of complexity. If the clocks are automated, nobody really notices the gradual change. My perception is the public's major complaint is the jarring disturbance to their lives an overnight +-1-hour change has.

As a person who works on software that cares about what time it is, and already struggles with the existing DST rules, I think I would change careers if this were adopted. Measuring the elapsed time between two instants would become extremely difficult.

We're already in a world where you really need to rely on external date+time libraries to apply a locale-specific temporally-varying offset from UTC.

I don't see it as being a significant implementation difference if that offset changes a smaller amount at midnight on a short sequence of days vs. a larger amount at midnight on just one of those days.

Either way you need to be leap-aware.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#129
post #89

All of this is patently silly. The sun will rise and set at exactly the same times it always has. All you are doing is changing your clock and deciding when to do things based on what the clock says. Farmers don't care- they get up and work based on when it's sunny, not based on what the clock on the wall says. If you want children to be in school during daylight hours, modify the school schedules. If you want to get…

Unfortunately 9-5 is deeply ingrained in our culture as the "standard working hours", despite the 8-hour workday being a relic of the past.

Re: In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving

#130
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It passed 60-40. The legislature would be foolish to ignore the electorate's clear intent. CA has only a single timezone, the Pacific Timezone.

I don't think the voters intent is clear. The question was whether the legislature should be able to make the change not whether they should. If I lived in California I would have voted to provide them the option but that doesn't necessarily mean I think they should. I would expect further debate around the subject at the time legislation is introduced. Let's accept your premise that a vote for the referendum was in…

Yes, this is kind of the issue with a lot of things (props/measures) we get on the ballots. Some are worth a direct vote, others should be phrased in the way you're describing as "this is an issue we'd like you to take up, research, and debate".

I personally find it annoying that sometimes we end having to vote directly on things that really fall under the job of our representatives.

Post reply on HN