10 ms·

Getting rid of Daylight Savings makes complete sense, and it's something we should really pursue. Getting rid of Time Zones is ridiculous. People know that 6a

• pixie_ 10y ago
  We need permanent daylight savings time. Yesterday sunset was around 6pm in LA. Today it will be at 5pm. At least I had a little bit of daylight after work, now it's just depressing.
  • twic 10y ago
    We need midday to be roughly the average of when the sun is at its highest across the year. I think that corresponds to permanent standard time. If that leaves people working later in the day than they'd like, then we also need different working hours in the winter.
  • raldi 10y ago
    Without Standard Time, it would have been dark out until 7:40am today here in SF. That's really tough on people (or children) who have to be at work/school by 9 or even 8. By mid-December, sunrise wouldn't be until almost 8:30. In Seattle, it would be dark outside until 9am. Losing an hour of sleep in the spring is rough, but I'd rather do that (and get an extra hour in the fall) than have to get ready in the dark all winter.
    • macspoofing 10y ago
      >That's really tough on people (or children) who have to be at work/school by 9 or even 8 In what way? People (and kids) survive wars and famines I'm sure we can handle a little bit of darkness. But if you really really can't, there's no reason why in winter, school couldn't start an hour later. Probably a good idea regardless.
      • raldi 10y ago
        > People (and kids) survive wars and famines I'm sure we can handle a little bit of darkness. I never claimed otherwise. To use your own rhetoric: People, including kids, survive wars and famines; I'm sure we can handle changing the clocks twice a year. But to clarify my position, it's that when asked to choose between two hardships: * Gain an hour of sleep every fall, lose an hour of sleep every spring * Have an extra hour of morning darkness all winter long ...the majority chooses the first.
        • gameshot911 10y ago
          >...the majority chooses the first. Does it? If it were up to a popular vote today, I'm not so sure DST camp would win out.
          • raldi 10y ago
            Do you mean in California or somewhere else? If California, how do you explain the fact that Sacramento has considered this many times, most recently two months ago, and always decides to keep things the way they are? http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-sac-essential-politics-updates-effort-to-eliminate-daylight-savings-1472001408-htmlstory.html http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-sac-essenti... There are two possibilities: California's representatives are representing the will of the people, or they're not. Occam's Razor would point toward the former, but if you have evidence of the latter, what is it?
            • djrogers 10y ago
              California's representatives haven't represented the will of their constituents in decades... Just look at how many ballot initiatives pass in spite of opposition from Sacramento or vice-versa. I'm pretty sure if put to a vote we'd stop changing times twice a year.
              • raldi 10y ago
                "I'm pretty sure" is not evidence.
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    • capkutay 10y ago
      Yes but when you look at time changes holistically, the CDC and sleep experts are recommending that schools start around 9 or 10 am. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/sleep-scientists-say-school-days-should-start-later-180956565/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/sleep-scientists-sa... http://www.startschoollater.net/why-change.html http://www.startschoollater.net/why-change.html I'm more and more convinced that most humans just aren't wired to wake up at the crack of dawn. The tech industry owes a lot of its hyper productivity to the fact that they have flexible hours for their engineers which tend to skew later into the day and night.
      • raldi 10y ago
        > I'm more and more convinced that most humans just aren't wired to wake up at the crack of dawn. But ending Standard Time would make everyone get up one hour earlier all winter long.
        • bonoboTP 10y ago
          No. School start could be shifted to 9 AM or 10 AM. The clock should show 12 at noon. The clock is not the problem. The problem is that people are required to start their day at a too early time. Fix: increment the time requirements.
          • AckSyn 10y ago
            I find this argument extremely short sighted. Why is starting work early in the day a problem? And why is going to bed at a decent hour to give you an 8 hour sleep period before you have to wake up for work or school a problem?
            • reflexive 10y ago
              > Why is starting work early in the day a problem? It's only a problem if it requires you to get up while it's still dark. Otherwise, I agree with you - go to bed at a decent hour so you can get 8 hours of sleep before sunrise.
    • Ph0X 10y ago
      I don't care which side we keep the clock at, but going back and forth is just plain stupid and causes more issues that it solves.
    • boulos 10y ago
      But being at work/school by 8am is part of the disease. Do you think a 7:40 am sunrise is really too late for a 9am arrival? As long as it's not super dark by the time you're in transit, it seems fine to me (and yes, I realize that sunrise in December would creep up to 8:20).
      • deleted 10y ago
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    • jedberg 10y ago
      And yet even with DST, kids in Alaska manage to get to school despite the sun coming up at 10am. This whole "for the kids@ argument is the worst one. Most workers today would prefer going to work in the dark and having daylight after work. Even farmers will tell you DST doesn't make a diffence to them anymore (or ever). The animals get up with the sun regardless of what the clock says. I agree with OP -- in today's modern world we should just stick with DST all year.
      • baddox 10y ago
        You didn't actually make many claims to counter the "for the kids" argument. The fact that kids in Alaska do that is unsurprising, but how does it affect them? I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say that Alaska is not one of the most appealing places to live for most people, and all else being equal, I suspect kids and parents would rather the sun come up before school.
        • jedberg 10y ago
          As others pointed out society adjusts. In Anchorage for example elementary school starts between 9am and 9:30am to account for the late sunrise.
          • raldi 10y ago
            Sure, but "society adjusts" works both ways: Society also adjusts to turning the clocks back and forth. The question isn't whether society can adjust, but rather which society prefers: winter morning sunlight or not changing clocks. If two people come to opposite conclusions on that point (as you and I do), there's really nothing left to do but agree to disagree.
            • CaptSpify 10y ago
              A small subset of society (school-children) needing to adjust is much less of a hassle than everyone adjusting though. I'd be curious to see how many subsets of society would prefer changing their clocks, vs keeping them the same.
    • lmm 10y ago
      The roads are busier in the evening than they are in the morning. So being able to come home in daylight is more important than being able to go to work/school in daylight.
      • raldi 10y ago
        But in many places, evening rush hour would be in the dark in the winter with or without daylight saving. So it's not either/or but rather one/none.
  • TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    Yeah, the parent comment seems like something a person who enjoys spending all their time in front of a screen might say. For anyone who's in to any (most?) outdoor activities, the extra evening daylight is likely appreciated. Where I live we can be rock climbing till 8pm on a week night all through December and January.
    • ajmurmann 10y ago
      I like to go running before work. That was really annoying this spring because it finally was bright early enough to do that and then DST came and ruined it and made me wait another few weeks.
      • baddox 10y ago
        It's clear that no system of time is ideal for everyone.
        • Sacho 10y ago
          We could get rid of DST and allow companies to decide for themselves whether to shift their working hours. Further changes to working hours can then occur naturally as cultural sensibilities shift, without requiring a massive overhaul of timekeeping tools.
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • ajmurmann 10y ago
    Why need how the freaking clock works instead of just agreeing on changing working hours?
  • astrodust 10y ago
    You live in LA, one of the more southern-most cities in the US. Just imagine what it's like for Anchorage.
  • qb45 10y ago
    > We need permanent daylight savings time. Yesterday sunset was around 6pm in LA. Today it will be at 5pm. At least I had a little bit of daylight after work, now it's just depressing. I would like to decouple waking up earlier and leaving work earlier from changing numbering of hours such that midnight and midday happen at 1:00 instead of 0:00/12:00. But considering that some countries already adopted permanent DST for reasons you described I'm not holding my breath. Now it remains to be seen if they will keep living like they do now or slowly drift back (in terms of solar time, not official time) to where they started from.
• seanwilson 10y ago
  > When you're dealing with someone internationally, you know not to call them at midnight their time because there's a high probability they may be sleeping. If we all used the same time though, instead of looking up what their time is now, you'd change to looking up what their time is when they'll be sleeping. Doesn't seem a huge difference but not saying either is better for that.
• beambot 10y ago
  This example fails in my experience. You know not to call international in the middle of the night only after jumping through the mental gymnastics of timezone differences anyway. You'd have to do the same with a single time base.
  • inopinatus 10y ago
    No, you don't. You just need multiple clocks on the wall. This remains a widespread solution to determining whether or not your counterpart in Sydney is asleep.
    • zanny 10y ago
      So instead of multiple clocks, you tape sticky notes on your one clock when different cities have high noon. You must always do the translation, with or without a universal time zone. The difference is that with universal time, it discards the entire set of translations around scheduling conversion that already happen, and it fixes the horrible mess of anyone living near a time zone boundary being in perpetual scheduling hell.
      • inopinatus 10y ago
        Or I could just look at my wall. Pro tip for solution designers. Don't tell someone what they "must" do. It's the fast track to being ignored. Especially when a) you're badgering them to conform to some hairbrained sticky note engineering and b) they already have something that works.
        • inimino 10y ago
          You could still have your wall of clocks. They would all show the same time but each clock face would be shaded half black and half white to show the average daylight period in that city.
        • BurningFrog 10y ago
          The "look at inopinatus' wall" solution does not scale well.
• swiley 10y ago
  The time the sun rises and sets drifts around (and drifts differently depending on how far north you go). It's really a separate thing that you should have an almanac (or an approximate expression) for.
• achr2 10y ago
  I genuinely don't see a difference between looking up an unknown timezone, and looking up a 'part of day offset'. As it stands I need to look up an overseas timezone and then figure out the offset from my timezone. With a universal time, I would instead lookup a 'part of day' offset to know if it is okay to call/schedule a meeting. But the benefit is that the overall system is far simpler - Time no longer has alternate interpretations. And for semi-local contexts, you already know that the next state over, or the other side of the country is one or two hours ahead/behind - the same as today. And mostly the mental model people use for long distances works similarly to universal time anyway - I know my time, and after a few interactions, I know an 'offset' to their timezone. Though, I guess the real bummer would be being in a 'part of day' zone where the date changes in the middle of the workday... ha
• restalis 10y ago
  Not that I disagree with you, but we're less dependent on the daylight than we used to be and it may be even more human to get to know the peers' schedule instead. A lot of us will be more bothered to be waken up from our mid day sleep than interrupted from the night work session.