7 ms·

In before "Let's all switch to UTC to solve this problem once and for all!" Anyway, it's so weird to me that daylight savings is such a new concept, it didn't

In before "Let's all switch to UTC to solve this problem once and for all!" Anyway, it's so weird to me that daylight savings is such a new concept, it didn't exist where I was born when I was born, but it feels like a thing that ought to have existed for a hundred years at least. And yet, despite it being so new, people are actually defending it? Mindboggling.

function_seven 8y ago
Whenever someone advocates for UTC being the wall clock time all over the world, I think of Jason Mendoza from The Good Place: > Anytime I had a problem and I threw a Molotov cocktail, boom! Right away, I had a different problem!
- wesammikhail 8y ago
  what a great quote :D
- teniutza 8y ago
  Another of Jason's (somewhat) related quotes: I want you thinking about dance 24/7. That means every day, you think 20 thoughts about dance for seven minutes.
- mac01021 8y ago
  By why is UTC a Molotov cocktail?
  - function_seven 8y ago
    This site does a good job of explaining: https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish For me the biggest headache would be the date changing in th middle of the day.
    - henrikschroder 8y ago
      "Excuse me, does your workweek start on Sunday/Monday or on Monday/Tuesday?" Yay, everyone is now on the same time, too bad the concept of weekdays got completely broken in the process...
paganel 8y ago
It’s mindboggling depressing to lose an hour of daylight each day for almost half a year because you’re stuck in an office at work.
- henrikschroder 8y ago
  How much daylight you lose depend highly on what latitude you are living. In California, daylight savings actually makes sense, it's a noticeable boost of daylight for your office commute in the winter. In northern Europe, it makes absolutely no sense, because the darkness consumes everything anyway. It takes about a week or two for sunrise to be at the same time it was before the clock adjustment each fall. It's pretty useless.
  - paulsutter 8y ago
    If “daylight savings” time is so great, why not keep it all year round? Why change at all?
    - runarberg 8y ago
      Please don’t do that. Sleep is really important, and waking up before sunrise is potentially detrimental to overall sleep in the population.
      - henrikschroder 8y ago
        Yeah, uh, that doesn't work in northern Europe, or you'd have everyone asleep until 10. On a meta note: It is always super interesting to me how fundamental people think that day length is, if they've never experienced living at different latitudes. The variations are absolutely enormous, and create very different mindsets. That said, seasonal mood disorders are very common in northern Europe for a reason. Going to school or going to work hours before sunrise in the winter is just the way of things in northern Europe. You don't have a choice in the matter. The flipside is that having full daylight at 10 in the evening during summer is also just the way of things, and the almost non-existant night is a complete mindfuck for people used to less variations in day length.
jaabe 8y ago
We changed our educational grading scale a few years back to make it comparable to the international scale. One of the huge problems was that we had a top-grade for people who went “beyond” expectations for the course. Because “beyond” is up for interpretation, some examiners were more likely to give it than others, but in general it was just extremely hard to earn a top mark and no one really knew what was needed to get it. So we changed it to make it similar to pretty much every other country. Now roughly 10 years later, it looks like we might change it again because people are missing the old “exceptional” grade. Only it isn’t students, educators or examinators who miss it. It’s the public and politicians. They’ll probably succeed in changing it back, despite no one affected by it wanting it. It’s universally stupid, but it makes me wonder when we’ll bring saving-day-light time back.
- LoSboccacc 8y ago
  ?? Most international scales include laude
  - C1sc0cat 8y ago
    That's News to Me in the UK
- interfixus 8y ago
  > despite no one affected by it wanting it Falsified. I'm affected by it, and I want it, and I certainly know students who do too (Assuming I have correctly identified a Danish compatriot here).
  - jaabe 8y ago
    Fair enough, but the majority of students, examinators and teachers aren’t asking for it. I’m an examinator myself, and we have zero members on STEM educations who think their return are a good idea. We discussied it at our summit earlier this year. I’d like to hear why you want it back. We originally removed it because it gave Danish students a major disadvantage when applying for anything internationally because people who would be straight A students, ranked a whole grade lover than their international counterparts, despite actually fulfilling the exact same course requirements. I’ve had students where I would have liked to given them more than the top mark, because they were better than what was required. But I’d much rather give those people a top grade than give people who “only” meet the full requirements of a course a non-top grade. Because the difference might mean that a student who actually deserves an international top mark, loses out on a job or a PhD outside of Denmark. Where as the excellent student walks away with a top mark in both situations.
LeoPanthera 8y ago
> "Let's all switch to UTC to solve this problem once and for all!" "Who is this?" "Hello Uncle Steve!" "Do you have any idea what time it is?" Uncle Steve asks, sounding as if he is still asleep. "Of course I do, and so do you! It's 04:25 on Saturday... everywhere." I add a dramatic emphasis to the last word. "But do you know what 04:25 on Saturday signifies in Melbourne?" "Breakfast time?" I can actually hear him rubbing his eyes. "We don't centre our waking/sleeping cycle on solar noon, fool nephew," Uncle Steve explains. "We centre the school day on solar noon. In countries above and below certain latitudes, where seasonal variation in the amount of daylight is significant, it's important for there to be the maximum amount of light when children are going to school in the morning, and coming home from school in the afternoon. Here in Melbourne, solar noon is about 10:30 Standard Time, so the average school day is timetabled from 07:00 to 14:00, and a typical working day runs from about 07:00 to 15:00. That means that on a working day, I get up at 05:00, at the earliest." "Ooogh. Sorry. That's about two hours later than I reckoned," I tell him. "I know," he replies. "I didn't know you did that in Australia," I say. "That deliberate misalignment of the diurnal routine. Does every country do it?" "No. Equatorial countries don't, because they get plenty of light all year round. Temperate countries do, though. The technical term for it is 'daylight saving'." I blink. "And 05:00 is when I get up on a working day," Uncle Steve continues. "On Saturdays, I like to lie in. Until solar noon, if possible. That's more than five hours from now." I'm beaten. "I guess I have no idea what 04:25 on Saturday signifies. It used to be pretty universal, but now where I live it signifies a time to go out and get drunk..." "And where I live," Uncle Steve says, "it signifies a hangover." "The same time of day on the same day of the week means many different things to different people all over the world," I say. "Too many to remember them all." "Yeah," Uncle Steve grumbles. "It would be neat if there was a lookup table for that kind of thing." https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
bouvin 8y ago
At least UTC would be better than Swatch .beat time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time
skrause 8y ago
> Anyway, it's so weird to me that daylight savings is such a new concept, it didn't exist where I was born when I was born, but it feels like a thing that ought to have existed for a hundred years at least. It is a more than 100 years old concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time#History

function_seven 8y ago

Whenever someone advocates for UTC being the wall clock time all over the world, I think of Jason Mendoza from The Good Place: > Anytime I had a problem and I threw a Molotov cocktail, boom! Right away, I had a different problem!

wesammikhail 8y ago
what a great quote :D
teniutza 8y ago
Another of Jason's (somewhat) related quotes: I want you thinking about dance 24/7. That means every day, you think 20 thoughts about dance for seven minutes.
mac01021 8y ago
By why is UTC a Molotov cocktail?
- function_seven 8y ago
  This site does a good job of explaining: https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish For me the biggest headache would be the date changing in th middle of the day.
  - henrikschroder 8y ago
    "Excuse me, does your workweek start on Sunday/Monday or on Monday/Tuesday?" Yay, everyone is now on the same time, too bad the concept of weekdays got completely broken in the process...

paganel 8y ago

It’s mindboggling depressing to lose an hour of daylight each day for almost half a year because you’re stuck in an office at work.

henrikschroder 8y ago
How much daylight you lose depend highly on what latitude you are living. In California, daylight savings actually makes sense, it's a noticeable boost of daylight for your office commute in the winter. In northern Europe, it makes absolutely no sense, because the darkness consumes everything anyway. It takes about a week or two for sunrise to be at the same time it was before the clock adjustment each fall. It's pretty useless.
- paulsutter 8y ago
  If “daylight savings” time is so great, why not keep it all year round? Why change at all?
  - runarberg 8y ago
    Please don’t do that. Sleep is really important, and waking up before sunrise is potentially detrimental to overall sleep in the population.
    - henrikschroder 8y ago
      Yeah, uh, that doesn't work in northern Europe, or you'd have everyone asleep until 10. On a meta note: It is always super interesting to me how fundamental people think that day length is, if they've never experienced living at different latitudes. The variations are absolutely enormous, and create very different mindsets. That said, seasonal mood disorders are very common in northern Europe for a reason. Going to school or going to work hours before sunrise in the winter is just the way of things in northern Europe. You don't have a choice in the matter. The flipside is that having full daylight at 10 in the evening during summer is also just the way of things, and the almost non-existant night is a complete mindfuck for people used to less variations in day length.

jaabe 8y ago

We changed our educational grading scale a few years back to make it comparable to the international scale. One of the huge problems was that we had a top-grade for people who went “beyond” expectations for the course. Because “beyond” is up for interpretation, some examiners were more likely to give it than others, but in general it was just extremely hard to earn a top mark and no one really knew what was needed to get it. So we changed it to make it similar to pretty much every other country. Now roughly 10 years later, it looks like we might change it again because people are missing the old “exceptional” grade. Only it isn’t students, educators or examinators who miss it. It’s the public and politicians. They’ll probably succeed in changing it back, despite no one affected by it wanting it. It’s universally stupid, but it makes me wonder when we’ll bring saving-day-light time back.

LoSboccacc 8y ago
?? Most international scales include laude
- C1sc0cat 8y ago
  That's News to Me in the UK
interfixus 8y ago
> despite no one affected by it wanting it Falsified. I'm affected by it, and I want it, and I certainly know students who do too (Assuming I have correctly identified a Danish compatriot here).
- jaabe 8y ago
  Fair enough, but the majority of students, examinators and teachers aren’t asking for it. I’m an examinator myself, and we have zero members on STEM educations who think their return are a good idea. We discussied it at our summit earlier this year. I’d like to hear why you want it back. We originally removed it because it gave Danish students a major disadvantage when applying for anything internationally because people who would be straight A students, ranked a whole grade lover than their international counterparts, despite actually fulfilling the exact same course requirements. I’ve had students where I would have liked to given them more than the top mark, because they were better than what was required. But I’d much rather give those people a top grade than give people who “only” meet the full requirements of a course a non-top grade. Because the difference might mean that a student who actually deserves an international top mark, loses out on a job or a PhD outside of Denmark. Where as the excellent student walks away with a top mark in both situations.

LeoPanthera 8y ago

> "Let's all switch to UTC to solve this problem once and for all!" "Who is this?" "Hello Uncle Steve!" "Do you have any idea what time it is?" Uncle Steve asks, sounding as if he is still asleep. "Of course I do, and so do you! It's 04:25 on Saturday... everywhere." I add a dramatic emphasis to the last word. "But do you know what 04:25 on Saturday signifies in Melbourne?" "Breakfast time?" I can actually hear him rubbing his eyes. "We don't centre our waking/sleeping cycle on solar noon, fool nephew," Uncle Steve explains. "We centre the school day on solar noon. In countries above and below certain latitudes, where seasonal variation in the amount of daylight is significant, it's important for there to be the maximum amount of light when children are going to school in the morning, and coming home from school in the afternoon. Here in Melbourne, solar noon is about 10:30 Standard Time, so the average school day is timetabled from 07:00 to 14:00, and a typical working day runs from about 07:00 to 15:00. That means that on a working day, I get up at 05:00, at the earliest." "Ooogh. Sorry. That's about two hours later than I reckoned," I tell him. "I know," he replies. "I didn't know you did that in Australia," I say. "That deliberate misalignment of the diurnal routine. Does every country do it?" "No. Equatorial countries don't, because they get plenty of light all year round. Temperate countries do, though. The technical term for it is 'daylight saving'." I blink. "And 05:00 is when I get up on a working day," Uncle Steve continues. "On Saturdays, I like to lie in. Until solar noon, if possible. That's more than five hours from now." I'm beaten. "I guess I have no idea what 04:25 on Saturday signifies. It used to be pretty universal, but now where I live it signifies a time to go out and get drunk..." "And where I live," Uncle Steve says, "it signifies a hangover." "The same time of day on the same day of the week means many different things to different people all over the world," I say. "Too many to remember them all." "Yeah," Uncle Steve grumbles. "It would be neat if there was a lookup table for that kind of thing." https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish

bouvin 8y ago

At least UTC would be better than Swatch .beat time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time

skrause 8y ago

> Anyway, it's so weird to me that daylight savings is such a new concept, it didn't exist where I was born when I was born, but it feels like a thing that ought to have existed for a hundred years at least. It is a more than 100 years old concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time#History