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Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

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Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#461

Post by hakfoo »

troad wrote: post #398
Lance_ET_Compte wrote: post #273

A thousand years ago, every village had their own timekeeping and it worked. Our village is now earth. What if we just abandoned daylight-savings time and timezones and just went with GMT (or anything else) for everywhere on earth? There would be cultural effects as people in California now start work at 16:00, for example...

'Global time' is a perennial HN comment on articles to do with time handling, and a truly terrible idea. Try selling East Asia and Australia on the idea that they should wake up at 7pm, go to work on Friday, finish their workday on Saturday, and then go to bed at 11am -- for the benefit of people on the other side of the world who can't be bothered figuring out local time.[0] Will it fix software issues around time h…

A few years ago, I bought a kit for a network-controlled self-synching clock, mostly as an excuse to practice SMD soldering. It came from a Chinese vendor, and China has only the single time zone, so the firmware was not designed with any sort of time-zone adjustment.

So I had an extremely accurate clock on my desk that was locked to Beijing time.

It was still viable, I just needed to note that it was time to get up for work when the clock said 02:00 instead of 07:00.

With regards to scheduling, we still have to negotiate when a meeting takes place-- "I may work nominally 09:00 to 17:00, but I have another appointment at 13:30", but it would eliminate the phase of trying to disambiguate "do you mean 13:30 your local time or mine?"

If you're using a shared calendar platform, specifying active hours is common anyway.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#462

Post by hnbad »

shultays wrote: post #44
hnbad wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea behind DST is that it shifts working hours into daylight hours during the darker months. This would theoretically cut down on energy use for lighting during those hours. Of course offices, factories and even schools still use artificial lighting even during daylight hours. And now the energy use of artificial lighting is much lower than back when everything used filament.

Even ignoring the energy saving part, it sucks waking up and leaving for work or school while it is still dark. A while ago Turkey switched to a different timezone and stopped doing DST for reasons and now everyone was waking up one hour early in winters. Considering how bad traffic is in larger cities that meant a lot of people will be waking up and going to work or school while it is still dark.

EEST (DST) is UTC+3, EET (without DST) is UTC+2. What Turkey did was abolish the DST transition but stay in permanent DST time or "summer time", which they now call TRT (which is identical to EEST).

There was a survey in parts of the EU a few years ago about abolishing DST that came out largely in favor of abolishing it. In Germany one major source of debate around the issue was that the survey referred to the timezones as "winter time" and "summer time" and predictably more people said they would prefer permanent "summer time". An equivalent survey referring to the timezones as "standard time" and "daylight savings time" likely would have had the opposite result. I could imagine that Turkey picked EEST instead of EET for similar reasons.

Having had a job for six months over the winter where I spent the majority of the 8 hour work day underground, which at times meant I'd go for days without seeing proper sunlight, I agree that this is just miserable.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#463

Post by hnbad »

euroderf wrote: post #151
hnbad wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea behind DST is that it shifts working hours into daylight hours during the darker months. This would theoretically cut down on energy use for lighting during those hours. Of course offices, factories and even schools still use artificial lighting even during daylight hours. And now the energy use of artificial lighting is much lower than back when everything used filament.

I thought the main idea behind it is (or used to be) that kids can go to and return from school in daylight.

No, the main idea was to reduce coal consumption to help with the war effort during World War I (and later World War II): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time#History

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#464

Post by euroderf »

hnbad wrote: post #463
euroderf wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the main idea behind it is (or used to be) that kids can go to and return from school in daylight.

No, the main idea was to reduce coal consumption to help with the war effort during World War I (and later World War II): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time#History

In Europe, in wartime. OK, good to know.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#465

Post by RegnisGnaw »

ars wrote: post #241
RegnisGnaw wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no more exceptions, IDT got extended to last Sunday of October in 2013.

According to Wikipedia: "If the end of IDT falls on Rosh Hashana, then IDT will end on the first Monday after October 1."

Reading a little further:

On July 8, 2013, the Knesset approved the bill to extend IDT even further. According to the bill, IDT will begin on the Friday before the last Sunday of March, and end on the last Sunday of October.[14]

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#466

Post by Lance_ET_Compte »

bakkoting wrote: post #289
Lance_ET_Compte wrote: post #273

A thousand years ago, every village had their own timekeeping and it worked. Our village is now earth. What if we just abandoned daylight-savings time and timezones and just went with GMT (or anything else) for everywhere on earth? There would be cultural effects as people in California now start work at 16:00, for example...

Here's a good essay about that: So You Want To Abolish Time Zones [1] [1] https://qntm.org/abolish

That's a really good essay. My mind has been changed! Thank you!
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