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Timezone Bullshit

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Re: Timezone Bullshit

#141

Post by scbrg »

remram wrote: post #119
Lvl999Noob wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it was easier in the times before the internet. Now a consistent timeline should be far more convenient than not having to change your habits by a little bit. Edit: If changing schedule is normalized, then it would be just as convenient as changing the clock. In countries without DST, if someone started using DST instead of changing their own schedule, it would be just as difficult.

Your argument sounds very similar to the "let's abolish timezones" argument so let me post this again: https://qntm.org/abolish Changing your schedule works for you and your boss, but does not let people in other parts of the world know when they can reach you. Officially shifting something is necessary, and then you might as well have timezones.

It's a while since I read that article, so I may forget some details, but I do recall that I found it pretty stupid. It somehow assumes that it would be harder to find out what the regular working hours are in a country are than it is to find out what time it is in that country, possibly in addition to what the regular working hours are.

If Google today tells me, "It's now 5PM in Singapore", with no time zones it could just as easily tell me "Regular working hours in Singapore are 12-20".

OK, so that's two numbers to remember rather than one, but come on. Thing is, what a certain time means varies wildly country to country, and from person to person anyway. My Swedish friends eat dinner at 17:30. My friends in southern Europe eat dinner at ~22:00.

Unless I know who I'm calling, and their regular hours I have no idea if it's OK to give them a call at, say, 07:00 or 22:00. So I need extra information about them anyway - and that information wouldn't be harder to package in a world lacking time zones. In fact, it would be easier, since it'd contain only one element (times available) rather than two (times available plus timezone).

Re: Timezone Bullshit

#143

Post by larrik »

> Either use the tzdb name like America/New_York, or use an offset from UTC, depending on what you want.

I bet storing an offset is far more pain, given that anyone in a DST area will have 2 offsets per year.

Re: Timezone Bullshit

#144

Post by corty »

bilekas wrote: post #133
corty wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is currently one timezone for most of its area, the whole continent excluding Portugal (edit: and Finland, Greece, Baltic states) has the same timezone. But actually it should be 3 or 4 timezones if you want to be close to solar time. Also, there are people who would prefer having solar zone time +1 (so e.g. UTC+2 in Germany instead of UTC+1). The EU decided to chicken out and let the members decide for themse…

IE use DST also fyi. > The EU decided to chicken out and let the members decide for themselves There are reasons the EU doesn't just enforce timeZones across its members.. So this is a 'strange' comment that bothered me.

I didn't mean to say the EU should enforce a timezone. The EU didn't get involved at all after the decision to get rid of DST. Not even by providing guidance or suggestions for the new timezone layout. Usually when there is something to be decided, there is a EU summit or work group. But they didn't even do that.

Re: Timezone Bullshit

#145

Post by davidw »

ghaff wrote: post #130
ljm wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically DST _is_ accepting that it's going to be dark at different times, and therefore the completely man-made thing that is a clock can be changed a bit to reflect that. A perfectly human solution really: work around the shift in daylight hours across the year by fiddling with the clocks. The whole thing with schedules and timetables is a self inflicted problem in a post-industrial society, sure, but workaround…

The problem is that you need to "fiddle with the clocks" in a coordinated way. Schools can't shift around starting times asynchronously with the many businesses where parents work for example.

Yeah. Any sufficiently coordinated schedule change would involve as much headache as clock changes.

Re: Timezone Bullshit

#146

Post by amalcon »

SamBam wrote: post #125
remram wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument sounds very similar to the "let's abolish timezones" argument so let me post this again: https://qntm.org/abolish Changing your schedule works for you and your boss, but does not let people in other parts of the world know when they can reach you. Officially shifting something is necessary, and then you might as well have timezones.

I find it insane that there are otherwise-smart people in the world that want to abolish time zones. For example, this NY Times article. [1] In includes the most bizarre history: > A century and a half ago, time zones didn’t exist. They were a consequence of the invention of railroads. ... and goes on to describe that it's suddenly so confusing and laughable that when it was 7:00 in New York, it would now be 8:00 in…

For some evidence of this, consider that sundials have existed since about 1500 BCE. The existence of such a device easily disproves the notion that the "current time" was ever the same globally. Even mechanical clocks would obviously need to be set such that they would agree with a sundial, or the reading of the mechanical clock would be useless in a world where others are using sundials.

Re: Timezone Bullshit

#147

Post by CydeWeys »

Lvl999Noob wrote: post #53
mabbo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Golf courses. Well, okay, this is my wonderful father's half serious answer that I love to retell. The basic idea is that it's easier to convince everyone that is actually 5:00pm and time to leave work than it is to convince just your boss that you want to start work an hour earlier and leave and hour earlier. This problem is then applied to politicians and other powerful people, who want to go golfing after work. If…

Are there really places that don't observe DST and also don't change their working hours? Just shift the working hours by a few hours when the seasons change. It also gives more granularity for the changes. If 1 week in the whole season is particularly cold, then change the time again for that 1 week.

> Are there really places that don't observe DST and also don't change their working hours?

Huh? I'll flip the question around on you: What places are there that don't observe DST that do change working hours seasonally, especially in a coordinated way? I haven't heard of any.

Re: Timezone Bullshit

#148

Post by mabbo »

gruez wrote: post #138
mabbo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Golf courses. Well, okay, this is my wonderful father's half serious answer that I love to retell. The basic idea is that it's easier to convince everyone that is actually 5:00pm and time to leave work than it is to convince just your boss that you want to start work an hour earlier and leave and hour earlier. This problem is then applied to politicians and other powerful people, who want to go golfing after work. If…

>So therefore, we change all the clocks so that powerful rich people can go golfing. >No other group of people sees any benefits to DST. Ah yes, because only powerful rich people would benefit from extra time in the evening to do outdoor activities.

I didn't say it was right, just that I love it.

But truthfully, if our society wants more time in daylight after work... let's just leave work earlier. I mean, we are doing that, we're just changing the clocks and pretending we aren't. It's dumb.

Re: Timezone Bullshit

#149

Post by CydeWeys »

davidw wrote: post #145
ghaff wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you need to "fiddle with the clocks" in a coordinated way. Schools can't shift around starting times asynchronously with the many businesses where parents work for example.

Yeah. Any sufficiently coordinated schedule change would involve as much headache as clock changes.

More of a headache, even. Sadly, DST is the only good way to have everyone synchronize a schedule change like this.

Re: Timezone Bullshit

#150

Post by mabbo »

davidgh wrote: post #107
mabbo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Golf courses. Well, okay, this is my wonderful father's half serious answer that I love to retell. The basic idea is that it's easier to convince everyone that is actually 5:00pm and time to leave work than it is to convince just your boss that you want to start work an hour earlier and leave and hour earlier. This problem is then applied to politicians and other powerful people, who want to go golfing after work. If…

Since 2018, 13 states in the US passed resolutions to get rid of the semi-annual clock changes but also that daylight saving time become permanent. Of course, federal law doesn’t allow them to do such (a state only has the option to not observe DST, but not the option to permanently observe it). It probably depends somewhat on latitude and longitude, I for one would prefer year round daylight saving time as I like th…

But the public does adjust to changing opening and closing times.

We just all change the clocks as well and pretend that we didn't. And it's stupid.

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