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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

#971
post #77

I mentioned something similar in a comment last year, but I think there's going to be a lot of moaning about late sunrises in US in December. Roughly 8:15-8:20 am around the solstice in New York, DC, Chicago, and even Austin. Not til nearly 9am in Seattle. The sun won't rise before 8am in NYC for basically all of December and January. I'd even be willing to guess that the amount of moaning might be equal to what we g…

Enough from these self centered early risers. They go to bed at 7 PM. They live in homes full of "live, laugh, love" decorations. They tuck in their shirts. Enough.

I know, right?

But I think it will be those night owls who must wake up early who will suffer most. Left to my own devices I would wake at 9 and go to bed around 2, but because of work and family scheduled I get up early Mon-Fri. Another hour before seeing the sun in the winter doesn't thrill me. Somehow I think it will bother me more than the early sunsets, but we'll see.

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

#972

Why don't we leave the clocks aligned with the Sun, so noon occurs at solar noon, and just have everybody agree to shift their work day to 7:00 to 4:00. Because on a solar basis, that is exactly what you are doing. "8 to 5" will now be "7 to 4". And people that normally work "7 to 4" will now be working "6 to 3" That is all you are doing. You are basically just kidding yourselves. It is so extremely stupid, really. Y…

You seem to be under the impression that daylight saving time is a new invention?

Yeah, changing the time of solar noon doesn't change the number of daylight hours, nobody thinks it does. The point is to stop using 1:00 noon 8 months of the year, and 12:00 noon 4 months of the year, just to pick one and stick with it.

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

#974
post #951

Fascinating to me that the one thing the Senate unanimously agrees on, HackerNews finds it incredibly controversial and discusses it for 2000+ comments.

There has been a "daylight savings is the worst thing since Hitler" type post every time change for as long as I can remember, it's the ultimate bike shedding topic. It actually has a lot of parallels to most covid posts, there are a lot of competing benefits and many are angry their preference isn't given the most weight.

I agree that the debate about 'permanent daylight savings' vs 'permanent standard time' is bikeshedding, but the idea of changing the clocks twice a year is patently absurd.

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

#975

I'd kill for a peek into the parallel universe where it was permanent standard time that was likely to get adopted and see how much effort went into researching the ill effects of that choice to convince people with enough FUD to keep daylight time switching going. Here's the thing: If you're a proponent of permanent standard time, you should be in favour of turning off the switching no matter what. Even if it means…

The one hour switch doesn't bother me that much. I didn't even notice this week when the time changed, because all of my clocks adjusted themselves. A friend had to remind me yesterday when I remarked how it was still light outside. What bothers me is having to wake up when it's still dark outside. The last few days before the DST switch in the fall are always super rough for me, every year. Going through that all wi…

I suspect you will have a much easier time convincing your employer to have more flexible working hours than convincing the US government to change time zones.

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

#976

I'm surprised at the number of commenters who think permanent DST is favourable to night owls and bad for morning people. I think it's night owls and delayed-cycle teenagers attending school who will suffer most under permanent DST. In the Winter, permanent DST means everyone has to get up an hour earlier for work or school's clock time, relative to the sun which regulates their body rhythm. Someone pointed out virtu…

These problems are best solved by addressing the issue itself - that teenagers need more sleep than our maniacal obsession with starting school early in the morning. That’s a change that can, and should, be made independently.

It's not that simple. Alot of highschool aged kids need to work to save for college or just to feed their families.

Starting school later sound good if you live a very privileged life, but makes life impossible if you need to leave a 3 to work.

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

#977

I am extremely surprised at all the people who are against this, saying that "Making DST permanent forces people to wake up earlier." I am not sure I know a single person whose morning wake-up time is dictated by the rise of the sun. Everyone I know wakes up whatever time that their work tells them to. I am happy to have more sun after I get out of work. It was a breath of fresh air this week getting out of work and…

I think this is kind of a conflict between those who are morning people and those who aren't. Many morning people would prefer to have that sunlight in the morning. I'm not at all a morning person and I'd rather have that sunlight after work when I can actually benefit from it.

I'm not a morning person because I struggle waking up when it's dark outside. So I'm against this because I'm not a morning person.

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

#978

This will probably get lost, but anyway. Socially we need a way to synchronize with each other and we designed our culture around calendars and clocks, synchronized to Earth revolutions - midnight. Our bodies are designed (evolved if you want) to synchronize with the sun and there the best (healthiest) waking time is at sunrise. When synchronized to midnight, sunrise time varies and that variation depends on latitude…

> It is simply preferable to have waking time synchronized with the sunrise. This seems like a preference stated like an objective fact, unless I’ve misunderstood. I have been waking up between 11am and noon for years. The only issue I think it causes for me is it can make scheduling things with other people difficult. There was a brief period in my life when I woke up before 6am (about six months in 2016) but at no…

waking with the sunrise is preferable in the same way as not-smoking is preferable

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

#979
For anyone wondering how our bodies synchronize to a 24-hour-cycle of the earth, it is primarily through light detected by our eyes. (A great resource for in depth: Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology Andrew Huberman [0])

Apart from cone (RGB) and rod cells (brightness) which are responsible for vision in general (through the "-opsin" proteins: photopsin and rhodopsin, respectively) we also have a more ancient distinctive third class (subconsciously: not taking part in any vision at all) which was first discovered in the light-sensitive skin cells of the African clawed frog in 1998: intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs), which express their own distinct opsin—melanopsin. Melanopsin cells in mammals are specialized for measuring ambient illumination, contributing to visual discrimination, and driving a wide variety of physiological responses including, but not restricted to: synchronization of circadian clocks to light : dark cycles, regulation of pupil size, modulation of sleep and suppression of pineal melatonin production.[1]

So, even if you are blind those important signalling cells could be still intact. That's why one does not remove the eyes for 'cosmetic' reasons, anymore. This circadian feedback system functions ideally when all three parts of our photoreceptors are working in unison but can still function - albeit to a limited extent - if just one part is available.

To not confuse "noons" we can categorize those in three ways:

(i) solar noon: the time when the sun is at the highest point, at a specific day, at that exact location on earth

(ii) local noon: static time-zones i.e. conventionally set. Normally within +/-2 hours of the solar noon.

(iii) biological noon: adjustable through the light from outside but without any light input it varies from person to person (a "night-day"-cycle could be anywhere from 23.5h - 24.5h long).

There are roughly three time windows in which the photoreceptors of the eyes synchronize our bodies to the outside world, the first and last being the most important ones:

(1) After our physiological temperature minimum, normally about 2 hours before we wake up, naturally. Here the "biological noon" gets set, initially. The window closes some time about that point (I couldn't find a reliable number, anywhere, my guess is about 2 hours in, so about 4 hours after the "temperature minimum" the window closes and one is locked in the "dead" zone, for now).

(2) When the sun sets down. Experiencing the change and reduction in light helps the body to anticipate and prepare for the last window.

(3) In the last phase everything gets reversed, in order to not disrupt melatonin production ("hormone of darkness and sleep initiation") it is vital to not emulate the sun (bright, overhead). The best sources of light are low-hanging warm lights and just enough brightness to feel comfortable. Here, you have to take into account the adjustment period for your eyes. Unfortunately most people aren't used to see adequately and orient themselves in low brightness settings (peripheral vision). Star-gazing could serve as a starting point for some sensibilization.

Those biological insights can be used to balance and fine-tune one's circadian rhythm.

But the most reliable and effective way in getting the system into full gear, is how this elaborate system evolved in the first place: outdoors. Living outside for a couple of days, on some weekends of the months for example, to "reset" can work wonders: a substantial set of people who think of themselves being night owls are actually fooled into it by artificial lights ;) [2]

[0]https://hubermanlab.com/find-your-temperature-minimum-to-def...

[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3619500/

[2]https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(13)...

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

#980

I am extremely surprised at all the people who are against this, saying that "Making DST permanent forces people to wake up earlier." I am not sure I know a single person whose morning wake-up time is dictated by the rise of the sun. Everyone I know wakes up whatever time that their work tells them to. I am happy to have more sun after I get out of work. It was a breath of fresh air this week getting out of work and…

> Everyone I know wakes up whatever time that their work tells them to.

Or whatever time that their toddler(s) tell them to ;)

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