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The advantage of daylight savings is I can set my schedule to wake up at the same time each day, while maximizing my daylight hours and never getting up before
by reflexive 10y ago
The advantage of daylight savings is I can set my schedule to wake up at the same time each day, while maximizing my daylight hours and never getting up before dawn.
Without the shift for daylight savings, the sunrise time in San Francisco varies from 5:47a at the summer solstice, to 8:25a just after winter solstice. If I set my schedule to get up at 8:25a every day, I'd miss a significant amount of morning sunlight.
The beauty of daylight savings is it shifts the sunrise time to be earlier in winter, so instead of 8:25a the sun rises at 7:25a. Thus I can set my schedule to get up at 7:25a and get an extra hour of sunlight every day.
(Technically the latest sunrise time is just before shifting from daylight to standard, 7:39a on November 5 - the point is we reduce the range of variation from 2hrs 38min to 1hr 38min)
- parthdesai 10y agoAnd yet by the time i leave my work at 5:30-6 pm, it is pitch dark. I personally would prefer having some daylight after work.
- reflexive 10y agoIn that case, your ideal daylight savings would move the clock forward in the fall and backward in the spring, so that sunset remains close to the same time year round.
- cheiVia0 10y agoNo, just get up earlier and leave work earlier.
- reflexive 10y agoThis is true if your only goal is to maximize the amount of daylight you have after work - taken to its logical conclusion, you would just go to work in the middle of the night and get off in the morning. However, if you add the constraint that you never want to go to bed before sunset, you will improve by adjusting the clock so sunset is at a relatively constant time.
- cheiVia0 10y agoSunset changes day to day, are you really adjusting your clock every day to match sunset?
- reflexive 10y agoAdjusting twice annually (forward and back) is a compromise between adjusting every day and never adjusting. Four adjustments might be preferable for people closer to the poles, at the expense of people closer to the equator.