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European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

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

#111

Post by pmontra »

diminish wrote: post #107

The `daylight saving` purpose is intriguing. I'm very curious why people long time ago, decided to change clocks, instead of work/school start and finish times. Like we start in April at 8:00 am, and in November, at 9:00.

I believe the reason is that it costs less to move the hands of a clock than to print and distribute new timetables for trains, buses, etc.

That could cost less today because we use much less paper, but updating web sites and databases is still a large amount of work. It's far easier to communicate to all the country when to move the clock and keep everything else the same.

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

#112

Post by skrause »

henrikschroder wrote: post #4

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.

> 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.

It is a more than 100 years old concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time#History

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

#114

Post by JdeBP »

ptah wrote: post #98
timthorn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

BST is all year, just it is the same as GMT for (roughly) half the year

The "S" stands for "Summer", and I strongly recommend reading things like https://infiniteundo.com/post/25509354022/more-falsehoods-pr... and http://creativedeletion.com/2015/01/28/falsehoods-programmer... before confidently making statements on this subject.

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

#115

Post by ghaff »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #83
tirpen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no natural law stipulating when rush hour happens or when buissness hours should be though. Shops will just start to open at 10 instead of 9 and workdays will start at 9 instead of 8 in those areas where this is a problem.

You're forgetting some "laws". Let me list them in order of priority: 1. Business hours must be kept in sync with the important countries next to them. This is important for communications between companies. When business hours are off by 1 hour, there is 1 hour less to communicate with your neighbour countries at business hours. That is 12.5% of the business day you cannot reliably contact another company in another…

re: 1 and 2. Yet lots of businesses in US states communicate with other businesses (and company locations) in different time zones including those in adjacent states in some cases. To say nothing of other countries. Dealing with timezone differences is routine for many people (and fortunately something that computers mostly handle pretty well except when you forget to provide them with timezone info).

There's a good argument for not proliferating timezones beyond a certain point. But, given they exist for good reason, you're always going to have lines that people need to communicate (and even commute) over.

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

#116

Post by collyw »

Tharkun wrote: post #62

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Getting rid of DST sounds like a good thing. Not messing time is patently good. But a bunch of countries on the western side of the EU ought to be on GMT instead of GMT+1. And appparently a majority of people want to make that worse, by making a permanent switch to GMT+2. This will make for fun winters, with the sun rising long after rush hour. This is stupid.

In Spain, and I prefer having the light in the evening and I kind of appreciate the fact we are in the "wrong" timezone.

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

#117

Post by ghaff »

diminish wrote: post #107

The `daylight saving` purpose is intriguing. I'm very curious why people long time ago, decided to change clocks, instead of work/school start and finish times. Like we start in April at 8:00 am, and in November, at 9:00.

Because, even to take the simplest case of just considering workplaces and schools, unless all workplaces and all schools shift their hours by the same amount on the same day--along with all the transportation systems associated with them--they'll be out of sync when some change and some don't. And, even if you assume that such perfect synchronization is possible and perfectly communicated (by everyone having different summer and non-summer hours), why not just make the change centrally instead?

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

#118

Post by agumonkey »

izacus wrote: post #69
_Microft wrote: post #54

All of that because of a stupid survey in which the ones who wanted to abolish daylight saving time were overrepresented because it gave them a platform while the majority who doesn't, didn't bother to make themselves heard. That's not quite Brexit-level but maybe Swiss immigration referendum -stupidity.

DST has demonstrated negative health effects on humans and animals alike, so framing this as a caprice of preference is very misleading. Not to mention the, also confirmed, negative side effects on economy due to required technical investments and bugs involved in constant time changes. There's also nothing natural about it - it was enacted in wartime for now obsolete reasons.

What about energy savings ? (genuinely curious)

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

#119

Post by pmontra »

ggm wrote: post #105

A change which may be rational closer to the equator, but which makes less sense in Edinburgh or further north surely?

Actually the closer you get to the poles the less you benefit from DST. At the poles you get 6 months of daylight and 6 months of night no matter what. The same at the equator, 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night (this doesn't take into account the inclination of Earth's axis, but you got the idea.) The places that benefit most from DST are the ones in between, especially around 45 degrees latitude.

Then there are cultural factors, like those countries that like to spend their day time between 9 AM to midnight. It's easier to change the time on the clock than the minds of millions of people. For example, in my country there is a saying that only hens have dinner at 6 PM. It's not socially acceptable to get into a restaurant before 8 PM, friends will laugh at you if you suggest doing so. It's best to have dinner 9 or 10 PM, unless you're a tourist with different habits.

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

#120

Post by ggm »

pmontra wrote: post #119
ggm wrote: post #105

A change which may be rational closer to the equator, but which makes less sense in Edinburgh or further north surely?

Actually the closer you get to the poles the less you benefit from DST. At the poles you get 6 months of daylight and 6 months of night no matter what. The same at the equator, 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night (this doesn't take into account the inclination of Earth's axis, but you got the idea.) The places that benefit most from DST are the ones in between, especially around 45 degrees latitude. Then there…

In Edinburgh, during the miners strike in the seventies we went to double summer time. In winter when it's bloody dark in the morning I found it credible a time shift helps. In summer when it's 11pm and bright outsides I find it credible a time shift helps.

I think your 'less useful the further to the pole you are' line may be the inside the arctic circle story. I definitely think summertime made sense in the Edinburgh from personal experience. I now live in Brisbane around 600k of the tropic of Capricorn and it makes no sense at all, except economically because the southern state neighbour (NSW) does summertime, as does Victoria and Tasmania both significantly further towards the pole.

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