Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European Parliament set to end EU-wide daylight savings

dw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 266 posts

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

#141

Post by pmontra »

ggm wrote: post #120
pmontra wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Edinbur…

Thanks, I lack the experience of living in the north for more than a few weeks in summer and a couple of days in winter.

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

#142

Post by sverige »

ghaff wrote: post #75
hcnews wrote: post #8

Someday US will get this too! Right after the metric system. Seriously speaking: I wish US gets rid of the clock change (one way or the other).

It's pretty much up to individual states.

Except there is federal law on this that affects their decisions. [0]

I wish we would at least call it "summer time" instead of the lie "daylight savings time." There's no daylight "saved."

[0] http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/usc.html

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

#143

Post by izacus »

agumonkey wrote: post #118
izacus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

According to Wiki, very small:

   A 2017 meta-analysis of 44 studies found that DST leads to electricity savings of only 0.34% during the days when DST applies.[81][82] The meta-analysis furthermore found that "electricity savings are larger for countries farther away from the equator, while subtropical regions consume more electricity because of DST."[81][82] This means that DST may conserve electricity in some countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, but be wasteful in other places, such as Mexico, the southern United States, and northern Africa. The savings in electricity may also be offset by extra use of other types of energy, such as heating fuel.

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

#144

Post by vixen99 »

Vinnl wrote: post #124
_Microft wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not similar in scale but in nature. That is: asking a lot of ill-informed people for their opinion or vote (who are most likely absolutely oblivious which consequences that will entail). Check the case of the Swiss referendum: people got stirred up against immigration, voted against it, suddenly the freedom of movement agreement with the EU got jeopardized and thereby all of the other agreements which were linked by…

I'm not familiar with the Swiss referendum, but Brexit was a case of asking a lot of ill-informed people for their vote and then blindly doing what they said. I don't think that was the case here; the survey just informed policy, rather than dictate it.

You might at least say why you think your bald statement should carry weight. Plenty of intellectuals support Brexit. https://briefingsforbrexit.com/.

A lot of people understood Tony Benn's five questions about people in power.

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tony-benn-dead-five-questions-powe...

"What power have you got? "Where did you get it from? "In whose interests do you use it? "To whom are you accountable? "How do we get rid of you?". Prior to the Brexit vote a lot of people had trouble squaring these vis a vis the EU - especially the last one. Indeed, this, not immigration (UK is already a highly diverse society) was a significant factor for many voters. Clearly you have no problem with Benn's questions but maybe you could avoid making gross generalizations regarding those who disagree.

Benn's comment about that last question:

"Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system."

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

#145

Post by mabbo »

bnegreve wrote: post #26

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.

So you do you- just don't force the complexity of your life on the rest of us.

We can contribute a measurable number of deaths every year to DST. It's a disaster.

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

#146

Post by bnegreve »

mabbo wrote: post #145
bnegreve wrote: post #26

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.

So you do you- just don't force the complexity of your life on the rest of us. We can contribute a measurable number of deaths every year to DST. It's a disaster.

I say it's natural to wake up when the sun raises, you say it's natural to stick to the same hour all year long.

I'm not forcing anything anymore than you do.

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

#147

Post by mabbo »

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?

I spent a year in Edinburgh. The sun rose after 9am in winter, after I started classes, and set at 4pm, before I got home. DST prevented me from ever seeing the sun for weeks. I went mad.

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

#148

Post by pedrocr »

pmontra wrote: post #32
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…

I agree. I see why countries in northern Europe have little use for daylight savings: they have darkness in the morning in winter and sun well before everybody's awake in summer whenever they use daylight savings or not. In southern Europe it's different (I live there), especially because those countries tend to center their day not around noon but to later hours: lunch starting between 13:00/15:00 and dinner between…

> Spain basically lives with a double summer time.

Spain uses the wrong timezone. It should use UTC instead of UTC+1. The map in the article shows that pretty clearly. That's at least partially the reason people have dinner so late in Spain. It's not them that are wrong it's the clock!

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

#149

Post by nemetroid »

ggm wrote: post #120
pmontra wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Edinbur…

I grew up in northern Sweden. I always found that summers are so bright it doesn't matter either way.

> In winter when it's bloody dark in the morning I found it credible a time shift helps.

Winter time is standard time anyway, and wouldn't be affected by this change.

> In summer when it's 11pm and bright outsides I find it credible a time shift helps.

DST pushes the clock ahead of the sun and makes it bright longer into the night.

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

#150

Post by vinay427 »

sverige wrote: post #142
ghaff wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty much up to individual states.

Except there is federal law on this that affects their decisions. [0] I wish we would at least call it "summer time" instead of the lie "daylight savings time." There's no daylight "saved." [0] http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/usc.html

It affects their decisions in some nominal capacity, but it is still up to the states and territories. Federal laws don't have the authority to supersede local laws whenever they want.

"As of 2014, the following states and territories are not observing DST: Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.[7]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_Un...

Post reply on HN