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Daylight Savings Time (2020)

theory.stanford.edu

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Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#61

Post by phailhaus »

mac01021 wrote: post #32
phailhaus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is far more difficult to get thousands of businesses to coordinate on a fundamental cultural shift to a 10a-6p working day, than to just not change clocks back after switching to DST one last time.

People say that but I'm not sure it's true. As long as they all agree about what time it is at any given moment (which is something we're not proposing to change) why do their business hours even have to line up perfectly? And to the extend that they do need to, wouldn't they just sort of figure it out over the course of a week or a month and then not have to worry about at again from that point on? Also, it would be…

> wouldn't they just sort of figure it out over the course of a week or a month and then not have to worry about at again from that point on?

You'd have to re-negotiate every time you work with a new client. Are they on 9-5? Or 10-6? When can we schedule that weekly call? Businesses have no incentive to go through this headache, so they won't.

We already shift our working hours twice a year with practically no issues. Let's just not switch back once.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#62

Post by ginko »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #45
ginko wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is the best way to keep a systemic off by one error for ever? Is this really the only way to allow people to get out of work earlier?

Why does it have to be a "one off error?" When's the last time you used a sundial to figure out the time down to a quarter hour or didn't have a device with you that gave you the current time? I think most people would agree on two things: (1) that having time after work to do things during daylight hours is ideal, and (2) that the work hours they already have are fine. A shift in working hours might be fine for chil…

> When's the last time you used a sundial to figure out the time down to a quarter hour or didn't have a device with you that gave you the current time?

I live in Scandinavia some 500km South of the Arctic circle. Let me tell you that it's very obvious that the sun is one hour off at "midnight" in Summer. If we kept DST in Winter it would be even more noticeable. It would also mean that there'd be some 3 months per year where I need to go to and leave from work in complete darkness. At least right now I get to wake up to some sunlight in December.

Daytime is fundamentally an astronomic concept. Proponents of permanent DST could at least be intellectually honest and admit they want everyone to get up an hour earlier rather than force everyone to pretend that 11am is actually 12pm.

> Yes, the days get a bit shorter, but you're still talking about a 6:45pm sunset in Texas

That's cute. I just walked back home from work and the sun was already setting here at 5:30. And it's still Autumn.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#63

Post by agent327 »

Uehreka wrote: post #7

I care more about sunset than sunrise, so if people are proposing to get rid of DST instead of making permanent DST I will fight them tooth and nail. I get that it's subjective, but my subjective view is that having sunlight after work is more important, and I stand by that.

I totally understand your point. I don't see why all the daylight hours need to happen during the time when I'm stuck in the office (or otherwise at work), leaving only darkness for the hours I'm not at work. This may have made sense in an era when the majority of people worked in the field, but today most people work in buildings, and a great many of those buildings sadly have permanently shuttered windows and artificial lighting.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#64

Post by MisterBastahrd »

ginko wrote: post #62
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be a "one off error?" When's the last time you used a sundial to figure out the time down to a quarter hour or didn't have a device with you that gave you the current time? I think most people would agree on two things: (1) that having time after work to do things during daylight hours is ideal, and (2) that the work hours they already have are fine. A shift in working hours might be fine for chil…

> When's the last time you used a sundial to figure out the time down to a quarter hour or didn't have a device with you that gave you the current time? I live in Scandinavia some 500km South of the Arctic circle. Let me tell you that it's very obvious that the sun is one hour off at "midnight" in Summer. If we kept DST in Winter it would be even more noticeable. It would also mean that there'd be some 3 months per y…

That's cool, but this article is written by an American to an American audience with an American sensibility regarding daylight and time in general. What works best for us may not be what works best for you, and people in your country are free to set your time however you like.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#65

Post by benttoothpaste »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #8
Apreche wrote: post #5

We need daylight savings time. What we don't need is standard time.

Why not just use standard time, and shift schedules so that standard office hours are from 10am-6pm?

Actually if you like daylight "saving" time you need to shift to 8am-4pm.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#66

Post by WithinReason »

SamBam wrote: post #60
riemannzeta wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Whenever I have this conversation with folks, I point out that the purpose of clocks is to keep human behavior in synch, and all that daylight saving time does is make that harder in an age in which people don't rely upon the position of the sun in the sky anymore to determine when it's time to do things. Yes, we are diurnal animals. Yes, sunlight matters to how we sleep. But why do we care whether the hands…

> or worry about whether whomever we had to collaborate with in a different part of the world was doing the same. How would having a single universal time solve knowing whether your collaborators were asleep or having dinner or whatever? You could have some kind of lookup table -- "Australians usually wake up around 18:00 UTC" -- but then what have you solved?

With universal time you wouldn't have to do conversion when you want to determine when an event is in one time-zone when it's specified in another one.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#67

Post by ginko »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #64
ginko wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When's the last time you used a sundial to figure out the time down to a quarter hour or didn't have a device with you that gave you the current time? I live in Scandinavia some 500km South of the Arctic circle. Let me tell you that it's very obvious that the sun is one hour off at "midnight" in Summer. If we kept DST in Winter it would be even more noticeable. It would also mean that there'd be some 3 months per y…

That's cool, but this article is written by an American to an American audience with an American sensibility regarding daylight and time in general. What works best for us may not be what works best for you, and people in your country are free to set your time however you like.

I disagree. The US has states quite a lot further North and their decisions are also likely to affect Canadian timezone decisions. Furthermore the same discussion is taking place in the EU with countries in Central Europe on the Easternmost part of CET (in particular Germany) pushing for permanent DST, so take my opinion not as a Northern-European one but as a Northern one.

To me it looks like it's mainly the Southernmost states and countries that are pushing for this. Which is especially strange since actual tropical countries don't seem to have issues with standard time.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#68

Post by taeric »

WithinReason wrote: post #66
SamBam wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or worry about whether whomever we had to collaborate with in a different part of the world was doing the same. How would having a single universal time solve knowing whether your collaborators were asleep or having dinner or whatever? You could have some kind of lookup table -- "Australians usually wake up around 18:00 UTC" -- but then what have you solved?

With universal time you wouldn't have to do conversion when you want to determine when an event is in one time-zone when it's specified in another one.

You would if you were wanting to be kind to the folks not in your area.

Would also make moving amusingly harder. You would be used to schools and business starting at time X, but you would be wrong.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#69

Post by amitp »

cyberge99 wrote: post #55

Sorry for the pedantry, but it’s “Daylight Saving Time”.

Yes. I used "savings" in the title and first paragraph for SEO reasons. This blog post is from 2006, when google didn't change words into other words without asking, so it was useful to use the variant that people search for rather than the version that is correct.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#70

Post by throw0101a »

avgcorrection wrote: post #39
Apreche wrote: post #5

We need daylight savings time. What we don't need is standard time.

Apparently you didn’t see this article (linked in the submission article) about the downsides of permanent DST: https://herf.medium.com/why-standard-time-is-better-e586b500... The human body “needs” DST like diabetes needs cookies.

Quite a few folks/societies that study chronobiology and sleep rhythms have put out statements that permanent Standard Time is what we should ideally be using.

A comment of mine from a few months ago with links to various position papers, many of which are referenced in the story you linked to:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26416574

The Society for Research on Biological Rhythms:

> Local and national governments around the world are currently considering the elimination of the annual switch to and from Daylight Saving Time (DST). As an international organization of scientists dedicated to studying circadian and other biological rhythms, the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms (SRBR) engaged experts in the field to write a Position Paper on the consequences of choosing to live on DST or Standard Time (ST). The authors take the position that, based on comparisons of large populations living in DST or ST or on western versus eastern edges of time zones, the advantages of permanent ST outweigh switching to DST annually or permanently. Four peer reviewers provided expert critiques of the initial submission, and the SRBR Executive Board approved the revised manuscript as a Position Paper to help educate the public in their evaluation of current legislative actions to end DST.

* https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31170882/

* https://doi.org/10.1177/0748730419854197

World Federation of Societies for Chronobiology:

> In summary, the scientific literature strongly argues against the switching between DST and Standard Time and even more so against adopting DST permanently. […]

* https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2019.0094...

* https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2019.00944

If anyone think that these are wrong, feel free to contact the original authors.

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