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US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent

bbc.com

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Re: US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent

#51

Post by etrautmann »

BeetleB wrote: post #4
damnesian wrote: post #3

Studies have been conducted about the safety of sticking to one time. The ones who are the most vulnerable are kids waiting for buses in the dark. We can't move to dynamic school times because we are still working the same paradigm as the industrial revolution- same schedule every day, year in year out. And society is simply too divided and fractured, and the motives too hidden and craven, to decide to move en masse…

Studies also show that permanent standard time is better than permanent daylight time. But for some reason, the US wants to go against the rest of the world on this.

For what reasons is it better? I’d rather have the evening light than the first 20 minutes when I get up.

Re: US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent

#52

Post by willchis »

WarmWash wrote: post #33

Permanent standard time means less sunlight time after work. Permanent DST means kids walking to school in the dark. Changing the clock twice a year fixes that and lets us avoid both, with the only cost being people complaining for a day afterwards. It's like ripping off the bandaid, instead of doing a slow agonizing pull that lasts months. And yes, I know some people take like 6 weeks to adjust and they will complai…

You're not a software developer, are you ;)? I'm not working on any timezone-aware products right now but I feel for all my brothers and sisters in the trenches if this passes and has to be fixed everywhere!

Re: US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent

#54

Post by throw0101d »

WarmWash wrote: post #33

Permanent standard time means less sunlight time after work. Permanent DST means kids walking to school in the dark. Changing the clock twice a year fixes that and lets us avoid both, with the only cost being people complaining for a day afterwards. It's like ripping off the bandaid, instead of doing a slow agonizing pull that lasts months. And yes, I know some people take like 6 weeks to adjust and they will complai…

> Permanent DST means kids walking to school in the dark.

It means much more than that:

> Later sunrises and sunsets, as seen with pDST, are associated with multiple long-term health outcomes including increases in stroke, heart attacks, diabetes, obesity, and cancer.[8–10]

> The increase in obesity and other cardiovascular health problems show that even if DST were to encourage exercise in some individuals it is not enough to outweigh the effects of sleep and circadian disruption on food choices, metabolism, hunger hormones, and glucose control and other cardiovascular risk factors.[11,12]

* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10476036/

The peer reviewed literature on the effects of changing time, pDST, and pST is quite extensive:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48920869

Re: US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent

#55

Post by lebuffon »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #36
damnesian wrote: post #3

Studies have been conducted about the safety of sticking to one time. The ones who are the most vulnerable are kids waiting for buses in the dark. We can't move to dynamic school times because we are still working the same paradigm as the industrial revolution- same schedule every day, year in year out. And society is simply too divided and fractured, and the motives too hidden and craven, to decide to move en masse…

Every division of society should just use its own schedule, then the number of divisions doesn't matter.

"Standards are great. Everybody should have one!"

    Charles Moore, author of the Forth programming language

Re: US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent

#56

Post by WarmWash »

willchis wrote: post #52
WarmWash wrote: post #33

Permanent standard time means less sunlight time after work. Permanent DST means kids walking to school in the dark. Changing the clock twice a year fixes that and lets us avoid both, with the only cost being people complaining for a day afterwards. It's like ripping off the bandaid, instead of doing a slow agonizing pull that lasts months. And yes, I know some people take like 6 weeks to adjust and they will complai…

You're not a software developer, are you ;)? I'm not working on any timezone-aware products right now but I feel for all my brothers and sisters in the trenches if this passes and has to be fixed everywhere!

Even worse than that, it will pass, people will realize it actually sucks, then they we will go back to the quick and nearly painless "rip off the bandaid" approach.

Re: US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent

#57

Post by eesmith »

gwbas1c wrote: post #8

Am I the only person who thinks its odd that my government (US) thinks its can tell me what time to get up and go to bed? Before timezones, "noon" was the point where the sun was the highest in the sky. It seems we should focus on having our timezones be more in line with what "noon" is supposed to be: IE, major population centers should have "noon" close to true noon, with a little more flexibility for rural areas s…

You can get up or go to bed whenever you wish.

You can say today's date is 27 Messidor Year CCXXXIV if you wish.

The problem is when you want to coordinate events between people following different time conventions.

Timezones as we know it started off as a railroad company invention. Does the London/Birmingham train follow London time or Birmingham time? Does the stop in Rugby use Rugby time?

DST in the US used to be a regional choice until 1966. Coordination became an issue.

"The lack of standardization led to a patchwork where some areas observed DST while adjacent areas did not, and it was not unheard of to have to reset a clock several times during a short trip (e.g., bus drivers operating on West Virginia Route 2 between Moundsville, West Virginia, and Steubenville, Ohio, had to reset their watches seven times over 35 miles)." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_time_in_the_United_...

> with a little more flexibility for rural areas so they can stay on the same time as their closest major population center.

We can do that already. I remember when most of Indiana didn't follow DST. Businesses in Danville, Illinois, near the border followed Indiana time by changing the listed hours of operation during summer.

Speaking of Indiana, 'Attitudes began to change in the 1990s, as Indiana's time zone situation was seen as impeding the state's economic growth. Interstate travel and commerce were difficult as people wondered, "what time is it in Indiana?"' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Indiana

Having 12:00 noon be when the sun is highest makes these issues reappear.

Re: US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent

#58

Post by willchis »

WarmWash wrote: post #56
willchis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not a software developer, are you ;)? I'm not working on any timezone-aware products right now but I feel for all my brothers and sisters in the trenches if this passes and has to be fixed everywhere!

Even worse than that, it will pass, people will realize it actually sucks, then they we will go back to the quick and nearly painless "rip off the bandaid" approach.

Good for job security I guess!

Re: US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent

#59

Post by water-data-dude »

The only time the Sunshine Protection Act has passed the senate was when gosh danged Tom Cotton wasn't there[0]. I swear, he's in the pocket of Big Time[1].

[0]https://www.mediaite.com/politics/that-daylight-saving-time-...

[1]https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/speeches/floor-speech-on-...

Re: US House of Representatives takes step to make daylight saving time permanent

#60

Post by throw0101d »

willchis wrote: post #52
WarmWash wrote: post #33

Permanent standard time means less sunlight time after work. Permanent DST means kids walking to school in the dark. Changing the clock twice a year fixes that and lets us avoid both, with the only cost being people complaining for a day afterwards. It's like ripping off the bandaid, instead of doing a slow agonizing pull that lasts months. And yes, I know some people take like 6 weeks to adjust and they will complai…

You're not a software developer, are you ;)? I'm not working on any timezone-aware products right now but I feel for all my brothers and sisters in the trenches if this passes and has to be fixed everywhere!

> I'm not working on any timezone-aware products right now but I feel for all my brothers and sisters in the trenches if this passes and has to be fixed everywhere!

Things have improved though: back in the 2000s when the 'Bush DST' change occurred, all sorts of software had hard-coded assumptions.

This is because US developers, who wrote a good portion of OS and other software, had never experienced a tzdata update first hand. So that when (e.g.) PST8PDT had its rules changed, it turns a lot of stuff needed to be rebooted to pickup things up.

A bunch of code was put in to notice changes dynamically, so in 2026 things should hopefully be smoother if there are new rules.

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