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US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

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Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#211

We did this before. 46 years ago. And it went badly. https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/30/the-year-daylight-sav... Why do we have such short memories?

That article doesn't say why it was a bad idea. Are we really rejecting this because it'll be dark at 7:35am? Sorry, but that's not even close to a compelling reason not to do this.

I don't know, it can definitely really suck having to wake up in the dark. Waking up to natural sunlight is the way.

Of course the real problem is there's just not enough light in the winter. Not much we can do about that. :-)

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#212
This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. There's a reason why "Standard Time" is called that. Now the words "Midday" and "Midnight" are meaningless.

The measurement of time is a science, and science should not be decided by politicians.

This seems trivial, but if this, then what next?

Edit: I'm getting a lot of replies saying that "midday" isn't precisely the middle of the day, and therefore I am wrong, but even since the invention of timezones, midday is supposed to be "the middle of the day, to the nearest hour". Now it is intentionally skewed, and keeping this forever seems like a huge mistake.

If you are willing to accept that the numbers on the clock don't actually mean anything, we should all just use UTC all the time, with all the pain that that will bring. This is just the first step along the way.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#213

>Sunshine Protection Act Jesus, does everything need to be hyperbolic virtue signaling. Won't someone please think of the children!

It's extra funny in this case, because the main point of those opposing this bill seems to be "Won't someone think of the children? They'll have to walk to school in the dark!"

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#214
I think I can say this on behalf of most developers who have ever had to fix DST errors in their code: Thank fucking god.

I am shocked that none of our unit tests failed on Monday. One of the first code reviews I did here I pointed out that his tests were going to break in a few months when DST kicked in because his tests asserted that there was a 24 hour gap between two calculations. He responded this code was temporary and it would be gone by then.

There was another PR on a certain Monday a few months later. Told ya so.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#215

People literally die more because of these changes. Statistically measurable increase in mortality on these days. Save lives, stop changing the clocks.

Interesting, I've never heard that, although it seems like it would make intuitive sense (people more tired than usual from lack of sleep?). I searched around a bit and found a couple of articles that others might find interesting:

[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/daylight-saving-time-is-dead...

[2]: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-03-12/...

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#216
post #162

I love this. I'd even go as far as to support permanent double daylight saving time. Let's get those daylight hours in the evening where they can do some good!

So more dark hours in the morning when it's more dangerous.

Depending on how far north you live, it's academic at best; it's dark to and from work.

We're already going to work in the dark in the morning in winter, why will it matter if its dark later?

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#218

Obligatory: https://archive.ph/Aro0a Barro is very fond of pointing out that we tried this once in the 1970s and almost immediately rolled it back. Permanent DST means that it's dark between 8-9AM in large swathes of the US. Among other problems, having kids go to school in the dark or twilight hours is unsafe, so schools responded by adjusting their schedules, which is an even bigger problem than DST, because the re…

For some definition of "we". I wasn't alive in the 1970s; half of people living today weren't.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#219

Does this mean that I will no longer be able to smugly remind people that there is only one 's' in "daylight saving time"? It was really the only reason I could see for keeping the biannual time change around.

Anyway, now you can help stop people from sayings “anyways”

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#220

Such a terrible idea compared to permanent standard time. There is plenty of light during the summer, so there's no need to optimize for that. The winter is when daylight is scarce, so that's what should be optimized for.

Personally, I have wanted more daylight in the evening hundreds of times in my life, at least. It's the obvious result of average workdays ending at 5 or 6 (or later) and our "free time" being restricted to a sliver of daylight much of the year. But how often have I wanted more daylight in the morning? Basically never.

Personally, I have wanted the exact opposite. I need more light in the morning so that I can go for a run and enjoy the cool, fresh air.
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