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Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

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Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#121

Post by rconti »

The major problem here is that far too much effort was put into accommodating everyone by including them in the eastern time zone. Last time I looked, I think something like 48% of the US population lives in it, and it's just unnecessarily large. Obviously there are benefits, but it creates a ton of perverse consequences too.

Realistically, the eastern time zone should probably stop between OH/PA, west of West Virgina, east of TN, etc.

But of course we'd then need 5 time zones to cover the continential US to keep other time zones from becoming far too large.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#122

Post by monkeywork »

Mz wrote: post #90
tzs wrote: post #81

One of the main purported benefits of DST is that it in effect moves some of the extra sunlight from the longer days of summer from the morning to the evening, where most of us are in a better position to use it. That's because without DST as the day lengthens the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening. But WHY does it split evenly? It's because we historically use noon as our reference. We think…

There is one flaw with your theory here: Historically, noon was defined locally by the sun being directly overhead. All time was local time. Then we invented trains and railroads and you couldn't schedule anything with such a system. Thus was born standardized time zones where it is the same time across large swaths of land. Noon is no longer strictly correlated to the sun being directly overhead. I think there are a…

the gig economy may have many upsides and can help supplement the traditional economy however it will not replace it (at least for the next several decades)... while you can have much more flexibility in that econ, there are many things in the traditional econ that still require standardized time and traditional work hours

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#123

Post by Mz »

monkeywork wrote: post #122
Mz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one flaw with your theory here: Historically, noon was defined locally by the sun being directly overhead. All time was local time. Then we invented trains and railroads and you couldn't schedule anything with such a system. Thus was born standardized time zones where it is the same time across large swaths of land. Noon is no longer strictly correlated to the sun being directly overhead. I think there are a…

the gig economy may have many upsides and can help supplement the traditional economy however it will not replace it (at least for the next several decades)... while you can have much more flexibility in that econ, there are many things in the traditional econ that still require standardized time and traditional work hours

I realize that. I am not advocating for 100 percent gig work here. I don't understand why anyone would think I am.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#124

Post by romanovtexas »

tzs wrote: post #81

One of the main purported benefits of DST is that it in effect moves some of the extra sunlight from the longer days of summer from the morning to the evening, where most of us are in a better position to use it. That's because without DST as the day lengthens the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening. But WHY does it split evenly? It's because we historically use noon as our reference. We think…

This is a good suggestion, however, it might not be useful globally. People in the tropics/around the equator get so much sunlight that they would not want to trade the convenience of our current time systems with having to adjust it based on the sun just for that extra daylight.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#125

Post by mkempe »

rconti wrote: post #117
mkempe wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things to say: a) come spend winter in Sweden... in Lapland the sun does not set at all in June and there is darkness around the clock in January; Stockholm is not that far up North, so we get a few hours of daylight in mid-December; and b) if lack of daylight in the winter is such an issue, maybe move to Southern California, or somewhere even closer to the equator. Three things, actually :-) c) consider spending…

I was actually surprised during a visit to Stockholm (granted, in May) that it was not light that much later than my native Seattle in the summer. I guess there's probably a reason major cities in Scandinavia are not all that far north in their respective countries :) I've been above the arctic circle in the summer, but thankfully never in the winter.

The really long days are in late June. In early May you’d be halfway between equinox and solstice...

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#126

Post by bryanlarsen »

tzs wrote: post #81

One of the main purported benefits of DST is that it in effect moves some of the extra sunlight from the longer days of summer from the morning to the evening, where most of us are in a better position to use it. That's because without DST as the day lengthens the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening. But WHY does it split evenly? It's because we historically use noon as our reference. We think…

Wow, this is a really cool idea.

It does mean that we'd have a lot more time zones because time zones would change both along longitude and latitude. It'd also mean that the time delta between two time zones north and south of each other would have a delta that changes every day, and wouldn't be a multiple of a single hour.

To illustrate, think of two time zones, one on the equator, and another straight north enough that the day length changes by an hour between the solstices. On the equinox their clocks are identical and on each solstice they are 30 minutes apart in either direction. Halfway between an equinox and a solstice, they'd be 15 minutes apart. And so on.

If you try and adjust the rules so that each zone is always an integral multiple of an hour apart from any other zone, then you end up with clocks jumping forward & back an hour which is basically what we were trying to avoid in the first place!

So you'd always need a computer when trying to arrange a meeting across time zones. I imagine we'd get used to it, though.

Another question is: what time would you pick for sunrise on really northern latitudes below the Arctic circle? For example Anchorage AK has a shortest day and shortest night of 5.5 hours. 9AM might be a good choice for the winter solstice, but it'd really suck waking up in the dark on the summer solstice when there's 18.5 hours of daylight! So maybe they'd set their time zone to smoothly change from a sunrise of 6AM to a sunrise of 9AM and back with the rest of the variance in the sunset times.

North of the Arctic circle they're screwed no matter what they do, so I imagine they'd just join the time zone of their neighbors to the immediate south just for commercial convenience. :)

It gets complicated, but time zones are complicated no matter what you do, and one hour clock shifts really suck. And sticking with DST also sucks, see minikites' comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15564160). So this really does seem to be the best of bost worlds. I'd vote for it.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#127

Post by bryanlarsen »

romanovtexas wrote: post #124
tzs wrote: post #81

One of the main purported benefits of DST is that it in effect moves some of the extra sunlight from the longer days of summer from the morning to the evening, where most of us are in a better position to use it. That's because without DST as the day lengthens the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening. But WHY does it split evenly? It's because we historically use noon as our reference. We think…

This is a good suggestion, however, it might not be useful globally. People in the tropics/around the equator get so much sunlight that they would not want to trade the convenience of our current time systems with having to adjust it based on the sun just for that extra daylight.

People on the equator get no more sun time then anybody else. It's just that theirs is evenly distributed, they get ~12 hours of sun every single day of the year.

They'd be completely indifferent, their current clocks would still work, they'd just be annoyed at the other time zones moving around on them.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#128

Post by spiznnx »

tzs wrote: post #81

One of the main purported benefits of DST is that it in effect moves some of the extra sunlight from the longer days of summer from the morning to the evening, where most of us are in a better position to use it. That's because without DST as the day lengthens the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening. But WHY does it split evenly? It's because we historically use noon as our reference. We think…

If you want to have constant day lengths, you can't make sunrise your reference. It's physically not possible. There are (almost) exactly 24 hours between each solar noon. There aren't 24 hours between each sunrise, that's why it moves every day. You'd have to change your day length at least twice a year.

Perhaps in the past this would have been ok, but today it's IMO definitely not worth the additional complication that comes from changing day lengths.

edit: I didn't read parent comment properly. Updated my comment.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#129

Post by bryanlarsen »

spiznnx wrote: post #128
tzs wrote: post #81

One of the main purported benefits of DST is that it in effect moves some of the extra sunlight from the longer days of summer from the morning to the evening, where most of us are in a better position to use it. That's because without DST as the day lengthens the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening. But WHY does it split evenly? It's because we historically use noon as our reference. We think…

If you want to have constant day lengths, you can't make sunrise your reference. It's physically not possible. There are (almost) exactly 24 hours between each solar noon. There aren't 24 hours between each sunrise, that's why it moves every day. You'd have to change your day length at least twice a year. Perhaps in the past this would have been ok, but today it's IMO definitely not worth the additional complication…

Quoting the OP: "It would mean that a given clock time on day N+1 is no longer exactly 24 hours later than that same clock time on day N, but I don't think that would matter for ordinary life. I'd be willing to put up with that if it means I get the benefits of DST (more evening light in summer) without the two big discontinuities a year."
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