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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

#481

Post by HideousKojima »

captainmuon wrote: post #450

This is ridiculous. Why don't they make the regular time permanent? And if people want to have more light in the evening, then they just leave work earlier. Surely that is easier than permanent daylight savings time. I know people will say it's too hard to change habits and (clock) work hours, but with permanent DST you will have to change that anyway, when people realize how dark winter mornings will be. I predict a…

The problem is that there are three options:

1) Permanent DST 2) Permanent Standard Time 3) Status Quo

And the problem is that, at least based on what I've gathered anecdotally from speaking to people and from which side the media pushes, preferences are usually 1-2-3, followed by 2-1-3, followed by 2-3-1, with anyone who prefers the status quo in dead last.

Personally I prefer standard time to DST as well, but we don't really have any power to make that decision.

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

#482

Post by alerighi »

I will never understand why we change the clock instead of changing our habits. Well, maybe in a time when we didn't have computers it was simpler to just put the clock ahead or behind an hour, but nowadays it creates a ton of complexity for nothing. Isn't it simpler to just shift our times, for example in the summer start to work at 9:00 and in the winter at 8:00?

Beside, if we have to choose a time, why not choose the solar time and shift all our times one hours, at least the sundial are right...

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

#483

Post by robbrown451 »

While we're at it, can we please get rid of leap seconds? (which we don't know are going to happen until ~six months beforehand?) Just wait until we are off by a full minute, and then we'd know at least a full decade ahead of time when the next leap minute will happen.

I don't understand the need to have it so precisely align with astronomical measurements (to the nearest 0.9 seconds) when we already do so much roundoff due to time zones, daylight time, etc.

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

#484

Post by stygiansonic »

anikan_vader wrote: post #405
Smithalicious wrote: post #269

Watching Americans freak out about post-8AM sunrises is surreal to me. The sun doesn't rise until 8:45 during the darkest times of the year here in the Netherlands and its really not much of an issue. Whether standard time or summer time is the better choice here is something I hold no opinion on, but the sheer hysteria some people here express is very overblown.

Not really a fair comparison, given that the Netherlands's latitude would put it in the Hudson Bay were it to be in North America. There are no major North American cities as far north as Amsterdam besides Anchorage.

Edmonton, AB is at a higher latitude than Amsterdam and has a larger population. Calgary’s latitude is similar and also has a larger population than Amsterdam.

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

#485

Post by throwaway0a5e »

Smithalicious wrote: post #269

Watching Americans freak out about post-8AM sunrises is surreal to me. The sun doesn't rise until 8:45 during the darkest times of the year here in the Netherlands and its really not much of an issue. Whether standard time or summer time is the better choice here is something I hold no opinion on, but the sheer hysteria some people here express is very overblown.

The subset of Americans in question doesn't have much in the way of big problems hence why this is getting a "the sky is falling" response rather than a "ok, whatever" response.

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

#487

Post by captainmuon »

wolverine876 wrote: post #397

The whole world going to the same time zone, usually proposed in these discussions, doesn't work - sun-time dissociates with clock-time, making words like "night" and "noon" confusing. However, I would like to see a North American Standard time (NAT): Set the clock at half-way between US Mountain and Central times and apply it to all of North America (with maybe a few extreme exceptions, such as western Alaska and Ha…

Or you could go the exact opposite, and do solar-local time everywhere.

We introduced time zones historically to make train travel easier. Now, we use navigation systems almost every time we travel long distances. It always shows me time of departure, time of arrival, and since they are non-round times and I can't be bothered to calculate the duration, it shows me that, too. If every city was in its own timezone, nothing would change. Just that duration would be slightly different than arrival-departure.

TV programming is basically dead, so you wouldn't have a problem with announcing when a show will run.

The only problem would be when scheduling online meetings. Frankly I rely on calendars for that, too. And often different places already have weird rules like meetings start 15 minutes later, or you should be there 5 minutes early.

The benefit of solar-local time is, I hope, that it will help people live more attuned to nature. You know at 12:00 the sun is at highest, that the daylight is symmetric around noon. People will be encouraged to make longer days in the summer and shorter days in the winter, maybe.

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

#489

Post by colinmhayes »

captainmuon wrote: post #450

This is ridiculous. Why don't they make the regular time permanent? And if people want to have more light in the evening, then they just leave work earlier. Surely that is easier than permanent daylight savings time. I know people will say it's too hard to change habits and (clock) work hours, but with permanent DST you will have to change that anyway, when people realize how dark winter mornings will be. I predict a…

The sun currently rises at 5:30 in the summer where I live. It would just not be acceptable for it to rise at 4:30.

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

#490

Post by davis_m »

RONROC wrote: post #423
thehappypm wrote: post #131

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

I hate to be that guy but if you're dying because the clocks changed and it was too much of a burden for you to re-adjust (like literally everyone else does) then oh well. Policy decisions based on dodgy, whataboutism-esque figures is, in my opinion, what undergirded the incredibly incompetent COVID response here in the US, and elsewhere.

> if you're dying because the clocks changed and it was too much of a burden for you to re-adjust (like literally everyone else does) then oh well.

It's a good thing everyone's actions take place in a bubble and have no effect on others.

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