Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time • Hacker News Board

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#61

Post by imglorp » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

app4soft wrote: post #26

imglorp wrote: post #12

Social issues aside, the software perspective of keeping up with DST is very costly. Every time any government entity anywhere on Earth changes its mind about what zone they're in and when, the IANA needs to reissue the TZDB. Then every OS and platform vendor needs to patch up to a new TZDB. Just for laughs, Java seems to have its own TZDB so in general your OS and application layer might disagree about zones. This i…

> the software perspective of keeping up with DST is very costly. To be clear, the software perspective is to use Unix time instead.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time

Not really.

Most machines use UTC internally (with varying epoch dates to represent it). And this is absolutely great until you need to interface with meatbags, ie local time. It's not just display of time either: think about anything Cron does in localtime, eg backups or open building door locks, or send an ACH payment file; then ponder all the corner cases of DST switches. Eg do you do something twice, or never? What if you reboot somewhere in the DST switch period? etc. All these shenanigans are dictated by the TZDB.

Oh, and UTC also contains leap seconds.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#62

Post by mannykannot » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #50

I think permanent DST makes more sense. The best hours of the day are in the evening. Folks are off from work, kids are home, the heat of the day is gone. It’s a great time to get out to a park or a stroll.

I too hate the idea of losing an hour off summer evenings. Of course, the rational solution is for society to adjust its schedule, but that will never happen.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#63

Post by Hnrobert42 » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

What will it take for this to ACTUALLY happen? Every time change, I hear folks talk about how we should move to permanent DST, but nothing changes. I am tired of getting my hopes up.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#64

Post by dahart » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

someguydave wrote: post #57

laurent92 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is natural that work is shifted towards the morning and people have time after work in the evening for personal matters. People do what is most important in the morning, because we can focus better. Therefore worktimes need to follow the sunrise, especially beyond 45° latitudes where the sunrise shifts by more than 3 hrs between winter and summer.

I can see this as an argument for year-round DST. Now defend falling back one hour in the winter, when by your own admission a one hour shift will be insufficient to align with sunrise.

If you stay on DST through the winter, most places in the US will have a morning commute in the dark. The reason we switch is to keep the sunrise just slightly more even. The annual swing in sunrise time is just under 3 hours. With a DST switch, the swing becomes less than 2 hours, at the cost of switching twice.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#65

Post by projektfu » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

reidacdc wrote: post #15

The article is mostly suitably modest about mechanisms, focusing on the epidemiology of the observed effects, and it's more or less obvious to me that the transitions are disruptive to everyone, and especially so to sensitive individuals. But there's also a bit in the answer to the fourth question (about long-term vs short-term impacts) that mentions effects of "chronic circadian misalignment". I've seen this a few t…

I’ve discovered that here on the western edge we simply arise later and work later. It’s not uncommon for people in New England to be awake at 5:30 am and starting their day.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#66

Post by thdrdt » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

new_realist wrote: post #44

It’s time to go beck to solar time; optimal for health, and in the age of digital assistants, totally doable.

With so many analog clocks this is not going to be a realistic option.

That's why UTC is fine. It is based on the sun time.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#67

Post by Jabbles » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #12

Social issues aside, the software perspective of keeping up with DST is very costly. Every time any government entity anywhere on Earth changes its mind about what zone they're in and when, the IANA needs to reissue the TZDB. Then every OS and platform vendor needs to patch up to a new TZDB. Just for laughs, Java seems to have its own TZDB so in general your OS and application layer might disagree about zones. This i…

That won't go away, software will still be needed for when states inevitably change their timezones.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#68

Post by mjlee » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

SahAssar wrote: post #56

imglorp wrote: post #12

Social issues aside, the software perspective of keeping up with DST is very costly. Every time any government entity anywhere on Earth changes its mind about what zone they're in and when, the IANA needs to reissue the TZDB. Then every OS and platform vendor needs to patch up to a new TZDB. Just for laughs, Java seems to have its own TZDB so in general your OS and application layer might disagree about zones. This i…

The West Bank has (had?) timezones that are based on ethnicity, not geographic location: https://www.972mag.com/the-worlds-only-ethnic-time-zone/

Every time I consider this I'm reminded of an incident where 3 Israeli Arabs blew themselves up instead of their target, probably due to daylight savings time.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/clocks-change-kille...

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#69

Post by tom_ » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #50

I think permanent DST makes more sense. The best hours of the day are in the evening. Folks are off from work, kids are home, the heat of the day is gone. It’s a great time to get out to a park or a stroll.

I like DST too. (I'm at 55.4° N.) It would probably be a bit much in the winter for many, though, as daylight here would end up something like 9 am-6 pm. Very dark in the mornings, and you don't get much in the way of extra useful evening times.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#70

Post by notsuoh » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

I'm curious of what one would speculate would be the effect of Apple and Google and Microsoft just not observing daylight savings time. All computers and phones with operating systems just don't change times in accordance with DST.