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British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

cbc.ca

231–240 of 583 posts

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#231
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instinctively, I think morning light is important to our biology for a daily reset I'd bet people would happily trade away the inkling of light they get during their winter commute before locking themselves into their office for some extra daylight when they leave that office. Daylight is most enjoyable if you can actually make use of it.

Yeah I don't agree with this at all. I want the light when I'm getting up in the morning. When I'm coming home from work it's the end of the day: I'm tired, I'm hustling home to do errands or chores or make dinner, I'm probably going to spend that time inside anyway because that's where the things that I need to get done are, and if it it's going to be cold and windy, it's going to be cold and windy in the evening. I…

> I want the light when I'm getting up in the morning

I apologize society is inconveniencing you.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#232
post #67
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen arguments about kids going to school in the darkness being thrown around a lot, but I've never understood why that (against fresh drivers) is always taken to be worse than kids coming home in the darkness (against exhausted drivers).

In addition to the reason already given (kids get home before the evening traffic picks up), another reason is that generally driving conditions are worse in the morning than they are in the evening so if there isn't enough light for both the morning and evening drives to be in light it is safer to give the light to the morning drive.

> another reason is that generally driving conditions are worse in the morning than they are in the evening

Wait, why? Where? I've never heard this. Which driving conditions are you talking about? Rain? Snow?

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#233
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US decided (and Canada followed) that daylight time was more correct for the larger portion of the year, presumably it's easier to transition the remaining 4mo to daylight than it is to move 8mo to standard. But also, all the opinion polling (business and individual) was like over 90% in favour of year-round daylight time, so here we are.

> The US decided (and Canada followed) that daylight time was more correct for the larger portion of the year, presumably it's easier to transition the remaining 4mo to daylight than it is to move 8mo to standard. How is transitioning permanently to one easier than transitioning permanently to the other? How to transition to permanent DST: wait until we are in DST and then stop switching. How to transition to permane…

If you adopt permanent DST, the there's a 1 hour difference between the current clock and the future clock for 4 months, and nothing for 8 months. If you adopt permanent ST, the difference between the current clock and future clock is 1 hour for 8 months and nothing for 4 months.

It's a 4 month-hour difference over the year, instead of an 8 month-hour difference.

Personally, I'd prefer standard time, but having all days be 86400 seconds is a pretty great improvement over status quo. I find what most people really would like to change is the amount of time with sunlight in the winter, especially the more north they live... but changing the clock doesn't change the number of hours of sunlight; Vancouver, BC just doesn't have much sunlight in the winter.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#234

My dream world is everyone using 24 hour clocks set to UTC

And then it's going to be so fun guessing at which time each country in the world starts working

Not hard, visualize the locations on the globe and a pie with 24 slices. If you start work at 12, and you want to know when someone 2 slices West will start you add 2 to get 14. 2 slice East of you, subtract 2 to get 10.

Better than guessing what timezone the region picked when it spans multiple natural time zones, and whether they do or don't have time changes.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#235
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest unreasonability is switching at all. I admit other points of view, but switching back and forth is a compromise that seems far worse than just sticking with one. Either one.

We seem to be in the worst situation now where not only does the EU change their time twice a year, they change it on a different schedule than US/Canada. For a few weeks during the year, half of your meetings start at a different time. Everyone is confused.

Now add southern hemisphere

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#236

I'm in BC. The astro-nerd in me would have preferred to see permanent Standard Time instead of a permanent +1 offset. Instinctively, I think morning light is important to our biology for a daily reset and the solar cue of "high noon" is also a real thing. I'm sure I've read that sleep health experts have historically supported a change to permanent Standard Time, not DST. I respect there are economic arguments for pe…

100% with you.

And every argument I hear from the pro DST group is really just an argument for ending adult work at 15.30 rather than 17.00 and maintaining a 9.00 start time.

It blows my mind that we are all meant to wrap our lives around bullshit jobs.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#237

My dream world is everyone using 24 hour clocks set to UTC

Mine too. People seem to have are hard time conceptualizing the hour as an arbitrary number, rather than having a static (usually incorrect) meaning associated with it like 12 as noon/midnight.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#238
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would have preferred permanent standard time to permanent daylight time. Do you have children? In past HN threads, the preference largely comes down to whether you have children (and want more early morning light for safer trips to school) or not.

I don't have children and I prefer permanent Standard Time because I have the apparently weird belief that noon should be at noon. (i.e. the time 12:00PM should be when the sun is overhead) I'm not a "capitalism gives you brain worms" kind of person, but the idea that it is somehow better to literally change the location of the sun in the sky because the holy hours of 9-5 are sacrosanct is so strange to me.

> because I have the apparently weird belief that noon should be at noon

But why? Because it's not even in standard time, except for around 1/60th of a time zone at best, if you're rounding to the minute.

If solar noon jumps from being at 11:35 in standard time, to at 12:35 under DST, at your coordinates, what does that matter?

Noon was at noon before the railroads. But ever since time zones were invented, that's no longer been the case.

Digits on a clock are just a number. If you care about when solar noon is, just memorize it.

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying the federal government granted blanket authorization to switch to the one? So the only reason states wait on authorization is merely obtusely insisting on the wrong choice? (In addition to being impotent.) The more I learn about this issue the more things I find to be angry about.

Permanent DST being the "wrong" choice is your opinion, and a minority one. Certainly doesn't make those who disagree "morons".

Indeed, it is my opinion. It's not in the minority so much as it runs counter to what lobbyists with vested interests have loudly promoted. Most people haven't given the matter much thought and don't have an opinion on it (let alone an informed one).

"Morons" was an overly dramatic way of putting it but it is very clearly the technically deficient choice as will be apparent to anyone who bothers to consult the history books. The US already attempted permanent DST in 1974 but quickly repealed it. Russia similarly tried it out from 2011 to 2014 before switching to permanent standard time instead. The UK also tried it at one point before abandoning it. Mexico might have tried it for the longest, from 1996 until 2022 when they too switched to permanent standard time. (Actually I'm unclear why Mexico gave it up. They're far enough south that the difference between the two shouldn't be particularly impactful.)

The correct answer here is obvious. (This being HN I guess personal political rants aren't really the thing to do so I should at least link to some actual literature on the topic. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10....)

Re: British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then it's going to be so fun guessing at which time each country in the world starts working

Not hard, visualize the locations on the globe and a pie with 24 slices. If you start work at 12, and you want to know when someone 2 slices West will start you add 2 to get 14. 2 slice East of you, subtract 2 to get 10. Better than guessing what timezone the region picked when it spans multiple natural time zones, and whether they do or don't have time changes.

Also it's much easier for communication, because if someone sends you a message asking to have a call or meeting at X hour there's no need to know their timezone, because your X hour is the same as theirs no matter where you are in the world.
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