41–50 of 266 posts
I really hope this doesn't happen. I don't want to have darker mornings than they already are. Daylight in the morning is important to wake you up and to adjust your circadian rhythm.
> 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If “daylight savings” time is so great, why not keep it all year round? Why change at all?
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…
I think the big screw up from EU was that after the poll (to which pretty much only Germans answered) they just said they would remove DST altogether instead of recognizing that different geographical regions have different needs.
They just wanted a no-cost change to say "see? we listen to people"; but pretty much everyone in southern Europe heard "see? Germans decide for everyone!", and nationalists party marched on it.
From the article it looks like they backtracked on it and they'll allow countries to choose to keep changing time twice a year; I sure hope so.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
" 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.
Doesn't seem you were paying attention. Germany carrot and stick smaller states while engaging in favor exchanges with France, de facto dominating the European Parliament. Go check where art. 11 and the austerity protocols come from.
In before "Let's all switch to UTC to solve this problem once and for all!" Anyway, it's so weird to me that daylight savings is such a new concept, it didn't exist where I was born when I was born, but it feels like a thing that ought to have existed for a hundred years at least. And yet, despite it being so new, people are actually defending it? Mindboggling.
"Who is this?"
"Hello Uncle Steve!"
"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Uncle Steve asks, sounding as if he is still asleep.
"Of course I do, and so do you! It's 04:25 on Saturday... everywhere." I add a dramatic emphasis to the last word.
"But do you know what 04:25 on Saturday signifies in Melbourne?"
"Breakfast time?"
I can actually hear him rubbing his eyes.
"We don't centre our waking/sleeping cycle on solar noon, fool nephew," Uncle Steve explains. "We centre the school day on solar noon. In countries above and below certain latitudes, where seasonal variation in the amount of daylight is significant, it's important for there to be the maximum amount of light when children are going to school in the morning, and coming home from school in the afternoon. Here in Melbourne, solar noon is about 10:30 Standard Time, so the average school day is timetabled from 07:00 to 14:00, and a typical working day runs from about 07:00 to 15:00. That means that on a working day, I get up at 05:00, at the earliest."
"Ooogh. Sorry. That's about two hours later than I reckoned," I tell him.
"I know," he replies.
"I didn't know you did that in Australia," I say. "That deliberate misalignment of the diurnal routine. Does every country do it?"
"No. Equatorial countries don't, because they get plenty of light all year round. Temperate countries do, though. The technical term for it is 'daylight saving'."
I blink.
"And 05:00 is when I get up on a working day," Uncle Steve continues. "On Saturdays, I like to lie in. Until solar noon, if possible. That's more than five hours from now."
I'm beaten. "I guess I have no idea what 04:25 on Saturday signifies. It used to be pretty universal, but now where I live it signifies a time to go out and get drunk..."
"And where I live," Uncle Steve says, "it signifies a hangover."
"The same time of day on the same day of the week means many different things to different people all over the world," I say. "Too many to remember them all."
"Yeah," Uncle Steve grumbles. "It would be neat if there was a lookup table for that kind of thing."
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…
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.
Is the full colorization of Cyprus a result of a political statement or just ignorance?
The graphic would seem to indicate that the UK and Portugal observe a time zone of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC±0). This is nonsense, of course; UTC is not a time zone. I believe the UK observes GMT (UTC±0) and Portugal uses Western European Time (UTC±0). It's also worth looking up the story of why Coordinated Universal Time is abbreviated UTC and not CUT, if you haven't heard it. Time zones are great.
> I believe the UK observes GMT (UTC±0) That's correct, with BST in the Summer. It can get confusing when working with people from different countries who aren't aware of BST and who schedule meetings explicitly in GMT, thinking that it automatically includes daylight saving.