European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings • Hacker News Board

Re: European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

#21

Post by 2038AD » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:29 AM UTC

henrikschroder wrote: post #7

paganel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s mindboggling depressing to lose an hour of daylight each day for almost half a year because you’re stuck in an office at work.

How much daylight you lose depend highly on what latitude you are living. In California, daylight savings actually makes sense, it's a noticeable boost of daylight for your office commute in the winter. In northern Europe, it makes absolutely no sense, because the darkness consumes everything anyway. It takes about a week or two for sunrise to be at the same time it was before the clock adjustment each fall. It's pre…

>In California, daylight savings actually makes sense, it's a noticeable boost of daylight for your office commute in the winter.

So the plan is that instead of people working hours which suit and know about it we agree on a weird collective lie and get everyone to perform the clock-adjusting ritual

Re: European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

#22

Post by henrikschroder » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:29 AM UTC

paulsutter wrote: post #17

henrikschroder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rationale for daylight savings in a southern latitude like California is this: People generally wake up, and go to work the first thing in the morning. They would like to travel to work after sunrise. They would also like to maximize the amount of daylight they get to enjoy outside of work. This means that in the summer, all the daylight before waking up is "wasted" so you want to move solar noon forward. But if…

Since it’s getting dark earlier after work, how does this maximize daylight outside of work? > They would like to travel to work after sunrise. They would also like to maximize the amount of daylight they get to enjoy outside of work.

Here's a pretty good graph that illustrates the concept:

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/san-francisco

DST ensure that sunrise is kept at around 6 in the morning, this removes the "waste" of daylight from before most people wake up, and moves it to after work hours in the summer.

Here's the same graph for Stockholm:

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/sweden/stockholm

There's not enough daylight in the winter to cover an entire working day and more, and there's too much daylight in the summer so everyone will "waste" it by sleeping, which makes DST pretty much useless.

Edit: Here's Honolulu for reference: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/honolulu

The band of daylight is almost the same width over the year, so moving it up and down doesn't do anything for people.

Re: European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

#23

Post by Spearchucker » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:32 AM UTC

lsh wrote: post #2

> mandated EU-wide summer time has only existed since 2002 and this repeal only repeals the mandatory adherence to daylight savings. Their next problem is consistency and coordination of the removal of DST among member states. And the Germans seem to be dominating the vote as well, so the really hard work in negotiating with others to remove their DST is the real barrier.

"And the Germans seem to be dominating the vote..."

On what basis are Germany dominating the vote? They cannot. No EU member state can dominate a vote. Germany could at best lobby other member states, as other member states can (and do) lobby Germany.

Re: European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

#24

Post by bonzini » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:37 AM UTC

zanny wrote: post #20

paganel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s mindboggling depressing to lose an hour of daylight each day for almost half a year because you’re stuck in an office at work.

Collectively bargain with your coworkers to work 8-4 instead of 9-5 then. Nothing at all prevents workplaces from independently adopting their own biannual shift scheduling savings time if they want to. That argument against sane time that doesn't constantly change is "we don't have any power in our workplaces to see the change we want in our working conditions" and all I hear is "wouldn't it be nice if we had a unio…

If schools also do not switch biannually (which of course they won't) that simply does not work for families with children.

Re: European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

#25

Post by mhenr18 » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:37 AM UTC

henrikschroder wrote: post #7

paganel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s mindboggling depressing to lose an hour of daylight each day for almost half a year because you’re stuck in an office at work.

How much daylight you lose depend highly on what latitude you are living. In California, daylight savings actually makes sense, it's a noticeable boost of daylight for your office commute in the winter. In northern Europe, it makes absolutely no sense, because the darkness consumes everything anyway. It takes about a week or two for sunrise to be at the same time it was before the clock adjustment each fall. It's pre…

Daylight saving time doesn't apply to the winter though.

Winter time is standard time, and DST is in effect during the summer months to better make use of the extra light available during summer by winding clocks an hour forward. The idea being that you get an extra hour of sun in the afternoon.

Re: European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

#26

Post by bnegreve » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:39 AM UTC

Frankly, I like daylight savings. It contributes to reduce the difference between the sun time and my time.

I wake up more or less when the sun raises and then go to work. Now if I keep doing that I'm going to show up either too late in the winter or too early in the summer.

Re: European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

#27

Post by henrikschroder » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:39 AM UTC

2038AD wrote: post #21

henrikschroder wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much daylight you lose depend highly on what latitude you are living. In California, daylight savings actually makes sense, it's a noticeable boost of daylight for your office commute in the winter. In northern Europe, it makes absolutely no sense, because the darkness consumes everything anyway. It takes about a week or two for sunrise to be at the same time it was before the clock adjustment each fall. It's pre…

>In California, daylight savings actually makes sense, it's a noticeable boost of daylight for your office commute in the winter. So the plan is that instead of people working hours which suit and know about it we agree on a weird collective lie and get everyone to perform the clock-adjusting ritual

It's not so weird, because the question "what time is it?" has a single authoritative source, and it can only be answered by a single authoritative source. (NIST in the US, right?)

But the question "when should we go to work?" doesn't have a single authoritative source, it all depends, it's all culture, it's all customs, everyone is free to do their own thing, but protestant work ethic bla bla bla, and here we are with most people starting work at 9, and if you don't, you're a weird slacker.

Yes, agreeing to start work at 10 in the winter is completely functionally equivalent with moving the clock forward an hour during winter, but it's just mentally impossible to implement because humans are weird like that.

Re: European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

#28

Post by function_seven » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:46 AM UTC

2038AD wrote: post #21

henrikschroder wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much daylight you lose depend highly on what latitude you are living. In California, daylight savings actually makes sense, it's a noticeable boost of daylight for your office commute in the winter. In northern Europe, it makes absolutely no sense, because the darkness consumes everything anyway. It takes about a week or two for sunrise to be at the same time it was before the clock adjustment each fall. It's pre…

>In California, daylight savings actually makes sense, it's a noticeable boost of daylight for your office commute in the winter. So the plan is that instead of people working hours which suit and know about it we agree on a weird collective lie and get everyone to perform the clock-adjusting ritual

> So the plan is that instead of people working hours which suit and know about it we agree on a weird collective lie and get everyone to perform the clock-adjusting ritual

Well yeah. Much simpler to make the adjustment once, at an agreed upon time of year, than to have a hodgepodge of different companies, schools, retailers, bagel shops, etc. all move their hours independently. In that case you have a first-mover problem and nobody adjusts.

It's not a lie anymore than time zones themselves are lies. (i.e. Time zones don't follow strict longitudinal lines, they follow political boundaries instead, and are often wider or narrower than the 15° they "should" be)

Re: European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

#29

Post by ben_w » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:48 AM UTC

bonzini wrote: post #24

zanny wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collectively bargain with your coworkers to work 8-4 instead of 9-5 then. Nothing at all prevents workplaces from independently adopting their own biannual shift scheduling savings time if they want to. That argument against sane time that doesn't constantly change is "we don't have any power in our workplaces to see the change we want in our working conditions" and all I hear is "wouldn't it be nice if we had a unio…

If schools also do not switch biannually (which of course they won't) that simply does not work for families with children.

Are schools also 09:00-17:00 where you live? Where I grew up they were 09:00-15:30.

Not exactly good for commmunters anyway. Why would shifting things by an hour make much difference, when alternate arrangements are needed regardless?

Re: European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

#30

Post by henrikschroder » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:49 AM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #11

paulsutter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If “daylight savings” time is so great, why not keep it all year round? Why change at all?

Please don’t do that. Sleep is really important, and waking up before sunrise is potentially detrimental to overall sleep in the population.

Also do check the daylight graphs I posted in other comments, but here's an example from northern Norway:

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/norway/narvik

For a month of winter, there is no daylight at all. It is literally impossible to wake up after sunrise, because sunrise doesn't happen for an entire month.