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In Tuesday's Vote, California Opts for Year-Round Daylight Saving
- arachnids 8y agoThis is probably the most content-free article I have ever read.
- baron816 8y agoIs it satire? Are they being facetious? I honestly can’t tell if they’re serious. They don’t make an argument against permanent DST.
- bootlooped 8y ago"This is clearly stupid, and something I’ve personally felt keenly since at least 1994, when I wrote to my then Congressman Pete Geren and asked why he supported Daylight Saving Time." That passage marks the point where they admit it is satire. It's about half way through.
- rconti 8y agoI have no idea. It seems like the author wants permanent Standard time?
- RankingMember 8y agoAgree, what is it even trying to say? They even reference consensus that permanent DST is preferable, while on preceding and following lines make what I hesitate to even call an "argument": > Never mind the fact that permanent DST means they never get that hour back or that in the winter children would be headed to the bus in darkness every morning.
- singingboyo 8y agoNot only is it content-free, but it's either a) wildly inaccurate or b) horribly incompetent satire, at least the bits about the hour being gone forever.
- meowface 8y agoWelcome to Gawker subsidiary websites.
- oxley 8y agoYeah. 2 mins of my life I'll never get back.
- cafard 8y agoWill the lost hour disrupt the time-space continuum? Curious to see a Californian writing for (supposedly) tech-savvy publication echoing an old English superstition: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Give-us-our-eleven-days/ https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Give-...
- bootlooped 8y agoI think the first half of the article is written sarcasticly.
- echevil 8y agoGrew up in a region without day light saving, I really don’t see the point of changing clocks twice every year. I’d be very glad to see it getting abandoned
- jcranmer 8y agoThe real kicker is snow: in the winter months, if you get snow, you really want as much sun in the morning as possible to aid snowmelt and other snow clearing steps. In the summer months, moving extra sunlight to the afternoon makes much more sense. DST is a compromise that gets you morning sun in winter and afternoon sun in summer.
- echevil 8y agoWhat’s wrong with just getting up earlier, on your own terms? Or just stay on DST time zone forever?
- function_seven 8y agoMost people don't determine their own schedules. They have to get to work, or class by a specific time. Even independent contractors have to accommodate their clients' schedules.
- echevil 8y agoCompanies can decide what schedule makes better sense then. Or if needed, better rules can be established to solve those problems. Even with day light saving, people don't work on the same schedule. Plenty of them need to get up before sun rise or work until late night no matter what the clock says.
- function_seven 8y agoPeople don't work at the same time, but the time they work is determined by other people's schedules. That's why janitors often work in the middle of the night, and school starts before work, and the doughnut guy has to get to the shop early in the morning. By the way, I would also love to get rid of clock changes twice a year. I'm mainly playing devil's advocate here. The drawbacks of winter morning darkness are real, and will likely not be solved without DST. I just also think that they're not worth screwing with the clock. If I lived in a more northerly latitude, maybe I'd change my tune. But as it is, I value daylight at 5pm way more than at 7am. The yearly "fall back" of DST is like an insult added to the injury of winter.
- singingboyo 8y agoFrom [1], which is much better and more on-point, if still short: "Opponents of the proposition argue [...] the sun wouldn’t rise until 8 a.m. during some winter months, forcing children to walk to school or buses in darkness" Maybe school shouldn't start so early then? Starting at 8:30-9 would reduce a lot of that, though not all of it. Also, as a Canadian and Vancouverite... so what? Darkness is a fact of life, get over it. [1]: https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2018/11/06/proposition-7-passes-daylight-saving-time/ https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2018/11/06/proposition-7-pas...
- downrightmike 8y agoArizona has not been doing daylight savings for years, and they don't have this problem. Really any area with 350+ days of sun shine a year should abandon DLS.
- dnbgfher 8y agoThe difference is some people are talking about DST year-round (again). Arizona is never on DST.
- sjburt 8y agoThe day length changes less as you get closer to the equator. It's not nearly a big a deal in Tuscon as it is in San Francisco (or Eureka).
- User23 8y agoThis is a great example of why local rule is generally preferable.
- npunt 8y agoAgree, sending kids to school in the dark is a pretty weak 'think of the children' argument. If we REALLY cared about children, we'd start school later as numerous studies show a later start is better for learning and health. See the CDC's guidelines for optimal school start times, which is 8:30am or later: https://www.cdc.gov/features/school-start-times/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/features/school-start-times/index.html
- taylodl 8y agoSo when the US East Coast springs forward 1 hour California is then going to be 4 hours behind? That's gonna make West Coast travel even worse.
- secabeen 8y agoNo. Under this plan, in the winter, CA would be 2 hours behind the East Coast, and the summer, 3 hours behind.
- twoodfin 8y agoSeveral of the New England states are contemplating a move to year-round Atlantic Time, which would keep them synced 3 hours ahead of California. I’d love that. There’s no reason why a city at the latitude of Boston should have to endure 4:30 sunsets.
- ghaff 8y agoI doubt it will ever happen because you're now a different timezone from NYC. But I'd absolutely consider voting for abolishing daylight savings if New England moved to Atlantic Time.
- philwelch 8y agoThe opposite. California is going to UTC-7 year-round. The East Coast varies between UTC-5 and UTC-4. California is effectively going to be in the exact same time zone as Arizona, which is in Mountain Standard Time and does not recognize DST. Honestly, we should just abolish the Pacific time zone and then abolish DST on the West Coast. Rename Mountain Standard Time to Western Standard Time.
- function_seven 8y agoI love the symmetry of that. Western, Central, and Eastern Standard Times.
- Taniwha 8y ago
- rrauenza 8y agoThis doesn't change anything right now -- it allows the California legislature to pick either PST or PDT: https://votersedge.org/en/ca/ballot/election/area/73/measures/measure/3253?id=statewide-73-ca https://votersedge.org/en/ca/ballot/election/area/73/measure... The way it is now Federal law sets standard time zones for each area of the country. California and other western states are in the Pacific Standard time zone. Current law requires the time of each zone to move forward by one hour from early March to early November each year during a period called Daylight Saving Time. During this period, sunrises and sunsets happen one hour later. Federal law lets states choose to stay on standard time all year long, but prevents states from having year-round Daylight Saving Time. What if it passes? Prop 7 would allow state lawmakers to vote on changing Daylight Saving Time. Lawmakers would be able to choose year-round Daylight Saving Time, if allowed by federal law. Any change would require support from two thirds of California’s Legislature. Until then, Prop 7 would keep California’s current Daylight Saving Time schedule. Budget effect Prop 7 would have no immediate effects. Impacts on state and local government would likely be very small. edit: I think it is more of a referendum that Californians want a single timezone rather than they specifically want PDT.
- KyleBrandt 8y agoFlorida was looking into this as well and has the same Federal hurdle. "Sunshine Protection Act" http://www.wtxl.com/news/florida-governor-signs-bill-allowing-permanent-daylight-saving-time/article_c27cfc86-2ee3-11e8-9eb4-f7d12a9766b7.html http://www.wtxl.com/news/florida-governor-signs-bill-allowin...
- CalChris 8y agoIt passed 60-40. The legislature would be foolish to ignore the electorate's clear intent. CA has only a single timezone, the Pacific Timezone.
- eclipticplane 8y agoFoolishness from the California legislature? Nahhhhh.
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- mshenfield 8y agoArchive of stopdst.com: https://web.archive.org/web/20170420043300/http://stopdst.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170420043300/http://stopdst.co... No novel facts, just a pretty list of statements against Daylight Saving Time.
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- dsl 8y agoIt will be so nice to not have to change the time on all our servers twice a year!
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- eridius 8y agoMaybe it's trying to be funny, but this article is the stupidest take on this issue that I've seen.
- DerfNet 8y agoSums up Gizmodo in my experience.
- mark-r 8y agoYup. Ranting about losing one hour, once? It's either a flat attempt at humor or the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time.
- paulgb 8y agoIt might be just an hour to you, but collectively the residents of California stand to lose 4.5 millennia! (But yes, it was the idea of losing time that convinced me this article is either a humor or misguided)
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- newnewpdro 8y agoThe real problem with the time change is it happens over a single night. When you're actually living in nature, waking up with the sunrise, you will gradually wake up earlier or later as the seasons shift. If our time changed gradually on a more natural pace it would be a whole lot less disruptive and people wouldn't be losing daylight from their lives. We have the technology today to make that happen. If everyone's clocks are computerized and sycnhronized, we wouldn't even notice as minutes are quietly added/removed by the system across many days.
- recursive 8y agoUnder this system, either some minutes will be longer than others, or we'll have leap minutes every night. This sounds more complicated, not less. It might achieve the goal of having a sunrise at the same wall clock time every day, but I don't really see a purpose for that. Sunsets will still vary.
- newnewpdro 8y agoI made no claim of it being less complicated, and I am not aware of the general public's primary issue with the time changing being one of complexity. If the clocks are automated, nobody really notices the gradual change. My perception is the public's major complaint is the jarring disturbance to their lives an overnight +-1-hour change has.
- recursive 8y agoAs a person who works on software that cares about what time it is, and already struggles with the existing DST rules, I think I would change careers if this were adopted. Measuring the elapsed time between two instants would become extremely difficult.
- newnewpdro 8y agoWe're already in a world where you really need to rely on external date+time libraries to apply a locale-specific temporally-varying offset from UTC. I don't see it as being a significant implementation difference if that offset changes a smaller amount at midnight on a short sequence of days vs. a larger amount at midnight on just one of those days. Either way you need to be leap-aware.
- _kst_ 8y agoProposition 7 doesn't immediately change anything. It authorizes the state legislature to change the DST rules if authorized by federal law. Reading the text of the revised law, it does seem to emphasize the possibility of going to year-round DST as opposed to year-round Standard Time (which is what I would prefer). One thing I'm not clear about is how the state legislature didn't already have this authority. Prop 7 doesn't change the state constitution, just the state Government Code. https://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2018/general/pdf/topl.pdf#prop7 https://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2018/general/pdf/topl.pdf#prop7
- dragonwriter 8y ago> One thing I'm not clear about is how the state legislature didn't already have this authority. Prop 7 doesn't change the state constitution, just the state Government Code. The relevant Government Code provision establishing DST was adopted by the voters (not the Legislature on its own) and, therefore, the legislature can't change it unilaterally, only by sending an amending statute to the voters.
- masonic 8y agoit passed by less than the required % of votes in the legislature ... but existing law (1949 Prop 12) has been ignored for decades anyway.
- CalRobert 8y ago1) Nothing is changing unless federal law changes. So basically, nothing is changing 2) For those who have calls with people in Europe this would be a big plus since the EU looks likely to go to DST year round. If this happens and California keeps switching then UK/ROI/Portugal will be 9 hours off from CA half the year, and western Europe 10 hours off. It's hard enough to schedule calls with an 8 hour difference.
- User23 8y agoAlready been tried in the '70s and it sucked: https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/30/the-year-daylight-saving-time-went-too-far/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/30/the-year-daylight-sav...
- cwmma 8y agoWhy would they switch to PDT year round as opposed to just switching to MST ?
- vinay427 8y agoPDT and MST are the same time all year long, as far as I know, so there's no effective difference. I suppose this means that other places in Pacific time that have DST part of the year would be on the same labeled time zone as California part of the year for cultural and historical reasons.
- jedberg 8y ago> general consensus is that Daylight Saving Time is better for farmers, and energy consumption, as well as being less disruptive to children who are particularly affected by the ping-ponging of the clock in the spring and fall. I think the author is arguing against getting rid of DST? In which case, what he wrote above (which BTW is a link that goes to an article that backs up not a single thing he said) actually goes against his point. It says that if we stay on permanent DST, it's better for everyone.
- rconti 8y agoconnects twitter account to make a comment doesn't do a thing
- gdubs 8y agoAnecdotally, my kids (all under 5), have already decided to ignore the time change.
- mabbo 8y agoAll of this is patently silly. The sun will rise and set at exactly the same times it always has. All you are doing is changing your clock and deciding when to do things based on what the clock says. Farmers don't care- they get up and work based on when it's sunny, not based on what the clock on the wall says. If you want children to be in school during daylight hours, modify the school schedules. If you want to get that extra round of golf in, go to work early and then leave work early. But don't drag the rest of society along with you so that you can pretend you're not doing anything differently! Ten years after DST dies, everyone will remember how silly it all was and how they were always opposed to the madness.
- LordDragonfang 8y agoUnfortunately 9-5 is deeply ingrained in our culture as the "standard working hours", despite the 8-hour workday being a relic of the past.
- lettergram 8y agoI saw a good argument that adjusting the time to keep daylight as long as possible during waking hours is an amazingly healthy thing. Any decrease in daylight time dramatically increases rates of depression.
- kenneth 8y agoThe annoying thing about this proposition is that it proposes allowing the legislature to attempt to move to permanent PDT… which requires changing our timezone, something which requires an action from federal congress. If we had simply chosen to go to permanent PST, we could stay in the summer time zone and make the change without involving congress since it doesn't require changing timezone. Personally, I'd much prefer PST over PDT, which gives us sunlight later into the day.
- Moto7451 8y agoI don't understand all the hubbub but I am for this. I bounce between the West Coast and the East Coast on a regular basis. If DST is made permanent in California then Southern California will have the same nearly the same sunrise as Georgia when they change their clocks back. Clearly Georgia makes it through the fall and Winter A-OK every year. Is the concern mostly squared around Central through Northern California?
- Silvanm 8y agoHere's a tool I built to calculate how much sunlight you get thanks to DST. https://daylight-saving-time.muehlemann.com https://daylight-saving-time.muehlemann.com