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Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

scientificamerican.com

251–260 of 282 posts

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#251

Can we get rid of timse zone and leap seconds too?

"So you want to abolish time zones": * https://qntm.org/abolish * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8902765 (2015)

While the article makes points that would be very good in a different era, if I want to know what time it is in Melbourne, I type "Melbourne time" into Google and it tells me. If I want to know whether it's daytime, I type "Melbourne sunrise" into Google and it tells me. Abolishing timezones is much more doable now than at any point since their invention, however the motivation to do it may also be reduced since I can also type things like "3PM Tokyo time in London" into Google

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#252

> When you’re in standard time, the sun at noon is, in most places, right above your head—you’re really aligned. When you’re in your daylight saving time for eight months of the year, you’re an hour off, and you're getting not enough light in the morning and too much light at night. This seeems silly. "Noon" is a made-up thing, there is nothing in your body that "knows" it's supposed to be when the sun is right over…

Not only that "noon" isn't necessarily when the sun is above your head as we have timezones, but solar noon isn't at the same point in the day throughout the year. You could be dead center in the time zone but the sun will be up to 16 minutes ahead or behind your time depending on the date.

For more - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_of_time

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I want it closer to 1 than to 12. It’d be weird for 1 PM to be less directly overhead of a sun than 11:30 AM. // Pure opinion, formed living in southern U.S., northern Europe, and equatorial Africa. But ... I could get over it.

So you want "midnight" to refer to "approximately one hour from the middle of the night".

Closer to 12:30 or slightly later on average, I think. But since it's a range at least an hour wide it's more like: the middle of the day/night will be as close to 12:00 as possible, but no earlier, anywhere the timezone reasonably fits.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#254
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. And don't forget about an extra hour of light in the winter! It gets dark around 4:30pm in New York during standard time, it's depressing.

What difference would it make if it got dark at 5:30 pm in the winter? That's still too close to the end of the standard 9-5 day to make much, if any, difference in what you can do before dark.

In winter it's not about activities, just about the windows not being pitch black outside while you're still at work.

Sunlight coming in windows during the day improves our mood psychologically. I mean, it's the main reason we have windows at all in office buildings. (Windows are expensive and offices already have the indoor lights on anyways.)

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#255
I am one of those people that is sensitive to the change, I always have been. I wish we just stayed on standard time year round. In the summer, the sky stays light too late and messes with my sleep. In late March and October, the sun comes up too late. I think I must be solar powered.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#256
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not go halfway? AKA DST - 0:30

It isn’t a negotiation over how much to change. It is a debate as to whether it should change at all. And no one seems to be arguing that it should still change. This is just lack of political will to push the legislation.

When the argument is specifically about disruption, you could solve that by shifting the clock in 10 or 15 minute increments, weeks apart.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#257

I know I'm going against the grain but... I quite enjoy it. It breaks up the monotony of life. So I have to work through the occasional csv and update relative time differences? No big deal. Especially when I can just reuse last year's...

Off the top of my head, my recommendation for people who feel this way is go ahead and set your alarm clock an hour earlier during DST to simulate it. You can get the benefits of the schedule change you want without affecting people whose sleep schedules are destroyed for months due to DST. (I’m in this party and biased as a result.)

Sorry, i didnt know it messed with people so much...

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#258
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…

> Just for laughs, Java seems to have its own TZDB so in general your OS and application layer might disagree about zones. Java also ships their own SSL trust store instead of using the system one. Why, just why?! Every system capable of running Java also has its own trust store...

> Every system capable of running Java also has its own trust store

No, they don't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Card

there are also other examples of java running in embedded and semi-embedded scenarios where a TZDB and a SSL trust store would not be guaranteed by the host.

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#259
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be interested in a counterpoint from someone who (claims to) study sleep: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/dwtr0m/matt...

You literally linked to the same article as the parent comment.

Wouldn't that be shocking? But in fact, the URL in question opens a specific reply to that article. How embarrassing!

Re: Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time

#260
I got tired of changing clocks and also having to change my perception of when day/night begin (changes to timekeeping seem to have persistently made night time start earlier) so I set my home clocks to the time that seemed right to me (consistent with what I grew up with) and then use relative time timers to schedule everything else on a phone that runs on local time. A little bit of effort to start with, but it made my personal relationship with time much more coherent. Now I'm free to concentrate till an alarm goes off, and then I switch what I'm doing and my time is better managed. And I can look at my home clocks and have a very good idea of where I am in the day/night cycle that feels most natural to me. Essentially I invented my own personal time that best suites my own requirements.
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