here's an idea - UTC everywhere
That's so utterly absurd. So now I know that it's also 20:00Z on the other side of the ocean. Great. But, are they awake at 20:00Z there? Or asleep? Let me subtract the time difference...
Proposal on implementing permanent time zones in the European Union
121–130 of 264 posts
Re: Proposal on implementing permanent time zones in the European Union
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
For large parts of the US it’s probably dark by 4:30 so no, not really. I’m not in the US by the way.
Here's a map of the earliest sunset time: https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/2018-12-... . There are parts of the US which have sunsets before 4:30, including some major population centers, but I don't know if I'd call them "large parts".
that map shows most major cities in North America have the sun set before 5PM (traditional work end time). New York, DC, Los Angeles, San Fransisco, Chicago.
New York, Boston, and Chicago all set before 4:30, a minimum of 10% of the population just there.
Re: Proposal on implementing permanent time zones in the European Union
#123This proposes that The Netherlands switch to WEST/UTC. There is already no clear consensus on whether to stay on permanent summertime (+2) vs wintertime (+1), and I would expect the switch to UTC to be even more challenging to adopt. Interestingly we switched from Amsterdam time (+0:20) to Berlin time (+1) during WW2, so going to +0 would mean a much earlier noon. Additionally policymakers have been saying to favour…
I do like the idea of being in UTC and not having to worry about this timezone nonsense between my computer and any server application. Unfortunately I've moved from the Netherlands to Germany and my family, a few longitudinal kilometers away, would have to do timezone gymnastics when we talk about any sort of plans, so needless to say, from my personal point of view I fully agree with you that NL and DE being in dif…
> I do like the idea of being in UTC and not having to worry about this timezone nonsense between my computer and any server application.
It's an automatic watch. You do not have to worry about it. Communicate UTC timestamps with timezones between computers, but don't make people use those "because it's easier to program."
Re: Proposal on implementing permanent time zones in the European Union
#124DST is social terrorism at this point. "We" keep it that way because the herd is too scared to change. Never underestimate the awful raw power of herd thinking, it's the worlds greatest cancer.
Re: Proposal on implementing permanent time zones in the European Union
#125Putting Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (AKA Ireland) on different timezones strikes me as political suicide for anyone proposing it. But otherwise I am warm to the proposal. Some tweaks would make it more practical/politically acceptable (keep Portugal and Ireland on the Western Time Zone, don't split up Greece from the islands).
Not even one of the signatory experts is from UK/Ireland.
They could be completely clueless of what dynamite they are playing with.
Re: Proposal on implementing permanent time zones in the European Union
#126Interesting tidbit from the full document:
"During the Second World War, Western European states were forced to adopt Central European Time by Hitler and Franco. After the war, this was not revoked, leaving the Western European states at a disadvantage to the Central European states due to the detrimental effects of misaligned clocks."
https://timeuse.barcelona/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/proposa...
Re: Proposal on implementing permanent time zones in the European Union
#127We (Europe) shouldn't fragment time zones that much. We (NL) should stay on permanent summer time. Reasons - criminality is lower when there's longer light - earlier darkness leads to more accidents. It's better to have longer darkness after the masses are RESTED (in the morning), opposed to when they're TIRED (in the evening) - longer day-time for office workers, is more productive - shorter time of year that has lo…
> criminality is lower when there's longer light Correlation is not causation
What do you believe the causation is then?
If light isn't what impacts it, then it seems like the summer should have more crime than winter. Kids are out of school and there is no snow and cold.
Re: Proposal on implementing permanent time zones in the European Union
#128This almost feels like a false flag of proposing the most disruptive plan possible such that it couldn't possibly be approved, haha.
Splitting & re-groupings are almost arbitrary and have no consideration for politics, business and culture.
Ireland & N. Ireland in different TZ? France & Corsica in different TZ? Pushing Ireland & Portugal into their own TZ and calling it Azores time? Bringing UK into alignment with Spain/France/Belgium/Netherlands, but pushing Germany/Italy/Switzerland into alignment with Eastern Europe countries but out of alignment with Western Europe?
A 2 step process by which some countries change TZ twice? Would love to write the code for that mess.
Re: Proposal on implementing permanent time zones in the European Union
#129Apart from the specific location issues highlighted in the comments here, the entire site can be summed up to "everything is better, just trust us". Zero arguments for any claim. Terrible.
> Zero arguments for any claim.
You mean aside from the list of citations?
Re: Proposal on implementing permanent time zones in the European Union
#130We (Europe) shouldn't fragment time zones that much. We (NL) should stay on permanent summer time. Reasons - criminality is lower when there's longer light - earlier darkness leads to more accidents. It's better to have longer darkness after the masses are RESTED (in the morning), opposed to when they're TIRED (in the evening) - longer day-time for office workers, is more productive - shorter time of year that has lo…
> We (NL) should stay on permanent summer time. > Reasons > ... Why not just have time as close to solar as possible and move working hours as needed? I have always found arguments for permanent summer time very confusing. Just move working hours as needed, why do you need to deviate the entire clock from the solar time for that?
Because many people for some reason don't strongly value the derivative of the solar inclination being zero and a local maximum within at most slightly over 30 minutes[1] of an analogue watch having the hands both vertical, on the few days a year that the equation of time is zero.
[1] Because the equation of time might not be exactly zero at noon, the Earth isn't a perfect ovoid and you could be up to 7.5 degrees of longitude from the centre of an hour-wide timezone, even if you drew them perfectly straight down the globe with no regards to national borders.