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The Waste of Daylight

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Re: The Waste of Daylight

#161

Post by eru »

bloak wrote: post #151

As I see it, in the summer there's plenty of daylight so it doesn't matter very much how you set your clock, but in the winter it does matter: children would be cycling to school in the dark if you moved the clocks forward (and they'd be cycling back from school in the dark if you moved the clocks back). Therefore, if you want to abolish the clock changes, which seems like an excellent idea to me, the safe and conser…

> Therefore, if you want to abolish the clock changes, which seems like an excellent idea to me, the safe and conservative way to do that is to use today's winter time all year round.

Please take into account that people will settle into their own equilibria.

Ie just because the government suddenly calls noon 3pm, doesn't mean people will change what 'real' time they get up at. Especially not in the long run.

You can see a bit of that in Spanish vs Polish habits.

'Nominally' Spanish people dine very late, but that's partially because they share the same timezone with Poland.

Measured by 'real' time, they differences aren't nearly as crazy.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#162

Post by eru »

richrichardsson wrote: post #159
bloak wrote: post #151

As I see it, in the summer there's plenty of daylight so it doesn't matter very much how you set your clock, but in the winter it does matter: children would be cycling to school in the dark if you moved the clocks forward (and they'd be cycling back from school in the dark if you moved the clocks back). Therefore, if you want to abolish the clock changes, which seems like an excellent idea to me, the safe and conser…

> the safe and conservative way to do that is to use today's winter time all year round What are the points that lead you to this conclusion? Personally I'd prefer if DST was abolished by staying on Summer Time permanently, as I dislike the lack of light in the evening, and couldn't care less about the dark mornings, but mine is a purely selfish reasoning.

Just get up earlier? Moving around what we call the hours of the day doesn't change anything real.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#163

Post by eru »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #160
hourislate wrote: post #23

I would vote for any Presidential Candidate and House Representative regardless of party on the promise of leaving the clocks on DST all year around. That's all they would have to do to get my vote....nothing else.

Really? That's a really low bar for a political candidate to win your vote. The cynic in me thinks that perhaps you don't deserve to vote after all. I'm sure I will get downvoted by some / many HNers, but seriously... Do you honestly think that this is the right approach to use your right to vote, considering that many people in the past gave their life to give it to you?

> That's a really low bar for a political candidate to win your vote.

Actually, I think it's a fairly high bar. At least in my interpretation:

>> That's all they would have to do to get my vote....nothing else.

I interpret this as the candidate in question should not make any other promises.

> I'm sure I will get downvoted by some / many HNers, but seriously... Do you honestly think that this is the right approach to use your right to vote, considering that many people in the past gave their life to give it to you?

Eh, voting is a waste of time, if you goal is to change anything. (It's a good use of your time, if voting makes you feel good, or helps you with your tribe.)

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#164

Post by eru »

bloak wrote: post #155
arethuza wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I vastly prefer more light in the evenings" Strong agreement - the clocks going forward in the spring pretty much marks the time here in Scotland where you can start doing things outdoors in the evenings during the week - also helps that the weather usually starts being less miserable about this time as well.

This comment perhaps illustrates the most likely explanation of why people keep on suggesting we should have permanent "summer time" rather than permanent "winter time": they genuinely believe or subsconsciously imagine that the government can legislate for better weather. Unfortunately, here in England, there is no flexibility for adjusting our timetables in the winter: the length of the school day is roughly equal…

Sounds like someone should run some randomized trials of shorter school days in winter.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#165

Post by eru »

csydas wrote: post #111
dahart wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love to hear more about why this issue is more important to you than any other reason to vote. Is the time shift causing you serious problems, or do you have a business that is hurt by it, or anything like that?

Not the GP, but I sense a bit of facetiousness from them. They do care about it, but not as much as they propose, I think they simply mean to express their annoyance with DST. I now live in a country that doesn't honor DST, and I have to say, it is a convenient thing, and my only annoyance is coordinating with countries that do honor it. The idea of 'more /less' daylight is not the factor people make it out to be and…

I've lived in quite a few countries around the globe. I prefer an absence of DST shenanigans, too.

(The worst is when you are living in Australia and are trying to coordinate with someone in the norther hemisphere like Europe or the US, then you have to deal with double the DST shenanigans.)

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#166

Post by eru »

throwaway8451 wrote: post #91
hourislate wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article was funny. Business owners complaining they have to open up in the predawn? How does SBUX do it? The one down the street opens at 5 am. Construction men working in the dark for an hour? What do they want bankers hours? And schools having to open 30 minutes later, Imagine we give the kids 30 more minutes of sleep in the am. These days they are like factory workers waking up at 6 am to ride the bus and get…

The only bad thing about time changes is adapting to different sleeping hours. Since the change between standard time and DST does not come as a surprise, I do that slowly over the course of a month. When the change actually happens, I drop the hour of extra time I gained in the morning and be done with it. This might not apply to people with kids or living in confined living conditions with others who would be distu…

> The only bad thing about time changes is adapting to different sleeping hours.

Cross time zone collaboration is made harder.

Mostly, I am aware of the DST shenanigans in my local jurisdiction, but keeping track of other people's DST is an extra hassle.

Just not mucking with the clocks is easier.

> It's not different from the jetlag that they subject themselves to willfully.

Just because you are willing to indulge in some pain to achieve some end, doesn't make the pain go away.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#167

Post by loloquwowndueo »

richrichardsson wrote: post #159
bloak wrote: post #151

As I see it, in the summer there's plenty of daylight so it doesn't matter very much how you set your clock, but in the winter it does matter: children would be cycling to school in the dark if you moved the clocks forward (and they'd be cycling back from school in the dark if you moved the clocks back). Therefore, if you want to abolish the clock changes, which seems like an excellent idea to me, the safe and conser…

> the safe and conservative way to do that is to use today's winter time all year round What are the points that lead you to this conclusion? Personally I'd prefer if DST was abolished by staying on Summer Time permanently, as I dislike the lack of light in the evening, and couldn't care less about the dark mornings, but mine is a purely selfish reasoning.

I applaud your self-awareness and courage to say you’re selfish. No other comment - I just found that refreshingly non-controversy-seeking and honest.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#168

Post by dbatten »

josephg wrote: post #154
ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sunlight affects the quality of life directly: 1 hour of more/less natural light can be felt immediately. Moreover, our society structured in a way where most of the social life happens after work or school, the transition from light to dark falls on personal time in most cases. This is why people have such strong opinions on the matter. Speaking for myself, having lived through summer time/winter time schedule aroun…

This might not be an option for you, but have you considered changing your working hours? The sun doesn't care how your clock is set. There is the same amount of sunlight in any given day. If your problem is that your working day is too early or too late in the day, maybe thats what should be changed - not everybody's clocks.

I can't speak for the other commenter, but personally, yes, I have changed my working hours to be as early as I feel is reasonable. I generally work from 7:00 AM until 4:00 PM. I feel that shifting any more than that would start to cause problems with not having enough working hours overlapping with coworkers to facilitate meetings and what not. (And it's worth pointing out that some people don't have this luxury. Students don't pick when school starts, shift workers don't pick when their shift starts, etc. They're beholden to the 8:00 bell or the 9:00 whistle or whatever. And a lot of society revolves around these schedules - especially the school schedules, where parents have to be at least somewhat on the same schedule as their kids.)

Anyway, despite my early schedule, I STILL find that this only buys me barely an hour of daylight in the winter when I get home. Staying on DST year-round would give me an extra hour of time to play outside with the kids, go for a family walk, etc. in the winter months. Selfishly, I'd love it.

And I say selfishly, but I don't think it's entirely selfish. It's not like I'm the only person in this boat. As another commenter pointed out, most social activities tend to happen after work/school in the evenings. I'm imagining the majority of people having more time for outside socializing, exercising, etc. if you just started the school/work day in a couple of hours of darkness and then let them have the sunlight after it was over...

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#169

Post by rjmunro »

Moving around what we call the hours of the day is a really stupid way to change habits.

Why not do this for other unit's of measurement? People travel at 70mph on highways, have accidents and die. Lets make 1 mile only 1200m instead of 1600m, now when the speed limit is 70mph, people will really be travelling at 84kph instead of 112kph, so less will die. It's utterly absurd. Just post a 50mph limit.

If you want people to start the day earlier at certain times of year, you just legislate that things start earlier at a certain time of year. For example schools and shops should be obliged to change their opening hours on that day.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#170

Post by e12e »

dahart wrote: post #101
e12e wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, depends a bit on where. I live at 69 degrees northern latitude, with a 2 month polar night/day in winter/summer - all this talk of DST and schedules following the sun seems a bit silly from up here (and we do have forced DST in Norway - although I hope we'll drop it). An interesting counter point: in summer it's quite easy to drift into a pattern of following the weather -sometimes day will be overcast/rainy, n…

Absolutely. DST makes no sense at your latitude, where rising with the sun isn’t always possible. A long camping trip during the polar day would be sooo weird! I’ve only been to Reykjavik in the late summer, and it was hard for me to get enough sleep. Has anyone started a Northern mystery novel with “It was a clear and sunny night...”?? ;)

Well, the original Insomnia was set in Tromsø (later remade by Nolan):

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0119375/

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0278504/

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