Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European MPs vote to end summer time clock changes

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 121 posts

Re: European MPs vote to end summer time clock changes

#61

Post by stoolpigeon »

qalmakka wrote: post #41
renholder wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Under the new legislation, governments opting to make summer time permanent would adjust their clocks for the last time on the last Sunday in March 2021. For those choosing permanent standard time - also called winter time - the final clock change would be on the last Sunday of October 2021. It's down to the member states to decide but I think most would prefer summer; save for maybe the Nordics, where the vast dif…

I think countries on a blatantly wrong timezone such as Spain should take this opportunity to fix it. For instance, Spain could stay in UTC+1 all year round and go back in the same timezone as Portugal (which is going to certainly pick its summer time as its whole-year round timezone), thus eliminating the artificial shift everything has there (people eat lunch at 14 and dinner at 22, but these times match roughly wi…

I feel that way here in Hungary. If the Eastern Europe time zone was called something else maybe we'd be in it. In the summer it doesn't matter but I'd kill for sunset an hour later in the winter.

Re: European MPs vote to end summer time clock changes

#62

Post by nicoburns »

qwsxyh wrote: post #52
bunderbunder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Southern Britain gets just over 8 hours of sunlight in the middle of winter. Meaning you can choose between people driving to work with the sun up, or driving home from work with the sun up, but you can't have both. So I guess we'll just have to decide whether people would rather get hit by cars just after breakfast or just before dinner.

Permenant winter time means that school hours in Winter are entirely contained within sunlight hours. Permenant summer time means that kids are walking to school in the dark. I'd rather not have them hit by drivers also driving in the dark.

I'd much rather school kids had time to play in the light after school.

Re: European MPs vote to end summer time clock changes

#64

Post by avar »

seszett wrote: post #27
avar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What survey are you referring to? I mean the one the EU did: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-5302_en.htm Either you're mis-recalling that "2 million" number for France, or very coincidentally there was some poll specific to France whose result in France was exactly the same (84%) as the one the Commission conducted across the EU. In any case, whether citizens in specific EU countries participate in polls h…

This is the French survey: http://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/15/autres-commissions/com... The results are here: https://www.vie-publique.fr/actualite/alaune/changement-heur... and 2 103 999 persons answered it, with 83.71% being in favor of dropping daylight savings time. That served as a basis for the French government's contribution to the draft that was voted on at the EU parliament. The draft didn't drop from th…

So the ~84% is a coincidence. Neat!

I'm not making some claim that the French don't have representation in the EU, but that in this case (for whatever reason) Germans have an outsized direct participation in the EU's own survey, and that might be a more general indicator for how they're more likely to directly deal with EU institutions in other matters, instead of leaving it to their national government.

Re: European MPs vote to end summer time clock changes

#65

Post by bunderbunder »

qwsxyh wrote: post #52
bunderbunder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Southern Britain gets just over 8 hours of sunlight in the middle of winter. Meaning you can choose between people driving to work with the sun up, or driving home from work with the sun up, but you can't have both. So I guess we'll just have to decide whether people would rather get hit by cars just after breakfast or just before dinner.

Permenant winter time means that school hours in Winter are entirely contained within sunlight hours. Permenant summer time means that kids are walking to school in the dark. I'd rather not have them hit by drivers also driving in the dark.

Alternatively, permanent winter time would mean that school hours are entirely during daylight if we shift the school hours to match.

Alternatively, some time zones are so wide that there's no argument that assumes a constant school or work start time and can also work with a standard time system. For example, not far east of where I live, it's possible to switch your clock from 8AM to 7AM just by driving to the next town over.

All of this by way of saying, presenting these sorts of observations as if they were compelling is specious. With the sole exception of the rate at which the planet is spinning, literally every variable is easy to vary.

Re: European MPs vote to end summer time clock changes

#66

Post by dpark »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #7

Mind that this is just a step in the legislative process not the final thing. Next step is the EU Council where relevant ministers of the individual member states have to find an agreement. Some governments aren't that enthusiastic ..

Do all of them actually have to agree or just some majority?

Re: European MPs vote to end summer time clock changes

#68

Post by rocqua »

setr wrote: post #3

>The proposal would give each member state a choice from 2021: either to keep the current summer time system or scrap the twice-yearly clock changes So if you travelled vertically within a timezone, you could end up going back and forth by an hour repeatedly, depending on the state’s decision made here? Truly, a design made by committee.

I once found a latitude with 4 different time zones. I think it goes through Pakistan. Time zones are always going to be weird.

Re: European MPs vote to end summer time clock changes

#69

Post by Angostura »

qwsxyh wrote: post #47
renholder wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Under the new legislation, governments opting to make summer time permanent would adjust their clocks for the last time on the last Sunday in March 2021. For those choosing permanent standard time - also called winter time - the final clock change would be on the last Sunday of October 2021. It's down to the member states to decide but I think most would prefer summer; save for maybe the Nordics, where the vast dif…

Here in the UK permenant summer time would mean sunrise would be 9am during the depths of winter. That sounds like a great way to make more accidents (as everyone is now driving to work in the dark at 8am) and also make the seasonal depression worse.

Where as at the moment we drive home in the dark.

Re: European MPs vote to end summer time clock changes

#70

Post by fredley »

Wildgoose wrote: post #29
avar wrote: post #4

> There were 4.6 million replies [to the online] consultation, 70% of which were from Germans. Germans make up around 15% of the EU population. So by this metric they've got an out-sized democratic participation in the EU by a factor of almost 5x. As seen on a solar map [1][2] Germany isn't even particularly badly impacted by this issue compared to say France or Spain. There's some truth to the saying that Germany ba…

If you don't vote, don't complain. I live in the UK and I also voted to end the twice-yearly wrecking of our body-clocks with the attendant accidents, injuries and deaths. Moreover from an IT perspective it would be convenient if we don't pick permanent Daylight Saving Time in that the UK would effectively always be using UTC.

I don't know, BST (more sunlight in the evenings) would be better, and UTC happening to line up with GMT could result in a whole load of programmers getting quite far in their career before realising timezones are something you even need to account for...
Post reply on HN