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The problem with both standard time and DST is that instead of having our tools work for us and simplify our lives, we are working for our tools to simplify the

The problem with both standard time and DST is that instead of having our tools work for us and simplify our lives, we are working for our tools to simplify their implementation. Isn't that backwards? We used to wake up at sunrise and schedule our day relative to that. For me at least it would be simpler if sunrise was fixed all life long to 7:00 am, so that I can have a single schedule my whole life (e.g. wake up with the sunrise every day). Instead of over-correcting with a huge fix once per year with DST, or not correcting anything at all and messing my sleeping patterns with standard time, we could just correct time a little bit every day so that we can all wake up with the sunrise if we wanted. Why? Because I at least feel I've slept a million times better if I wake up with real natural light, and that would be a huge quality of life improvement for me. Sure, time and dates are already complicated, and such a system might make our tools more complicated, but we have solved worse problems. My phone could just shift my "time" at midnight every night so that the sunrise the next day is again, at 7:00 am, like every other day.

ants_a 7y ago
That does not work particularly well at northern latitudes where sun goes below the horizon for couple of hours in the summer, if that. And it would create time zones between latitudes even within the same country where the difference changes from day to day.
- fluffything 7y ago
  Our time-zone system is already flexible enough for regions for which this is a problem to pick up something else that works for them (we already have regions that use DST and regions that do not). I live in Austria and it makes absolutely no sense for me to use the exact same system as somebody in the north pole, or for me and those in the north pole to "compromise" on a system that's bad for both of us.
acqq 7y ago
Biologically, relatively correct. For the certain latitudes. Technologically, time zones were first invented in 19th century for real problem of every town having its own 12 o clock (for different longitudes). The DST was indeed the improvement of the simple time zones first "solution" which better suited the latitudes of those who started using DST. And now trying to revert to the previous unimproved solution is in enough latitudes still worse. But now it's time where the bad ideas spread better because they fit the newly common attention span of many, including the European politicians who decided to abolish the DST based on the results of the "votes from the internet"(!) In reality, the studies showing "no advantage" of DST didn't even prove that, but... attention span: e.g the report cited as the "argument against" from 2008, now (unsurprisingly, sadly) disappearing from the internet: https://www1.eere.energy.gov/ba/pba/pdfs/epact_sec_110_edst_report_to_congress_2008.pdf https://www1.eere.energy.gov/ba/pba/pdfs/epact_sec_110_edst_... didn't prove that DST was wrong or that it produced no savings but instead that "changing its start date from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March, and in the fall by changing its end date from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November" still gave "the total electricity savings of (such) Extended Daylight Saving Time" of "about 1.3 Tera Watt-hour (TWh)" at the place where the study was done. How it was "translated" for the internet attention span by anti-DST people? As "even government studies showed no energy or fuel savings" and even those that should know better swallowed it. What's known is that people have problem with the abrupt 1 hour change. But that could maybe today be solved with a few smaller step adjustments, twice half an hour maybe, or three times 20 minutes? Sounds complicated? It's less than before because now at least everything's connected, and we have faster computers. Also see: Figure 1: Sunrise and sunset times with daylight saving time and 2007 extensions in southern Indiana: https://www.nber.org/papers/w14429.pdf https://www.nber.org/papers/w14429.pdf for the accurate visual representation of how the "extensions" look like on the year chart, and how the DST works: white areas is where's the light in a day. Such charts show the "why" of the DST and are latitude dependent but nobody uses them in the present "discussions." I posit that anybody who doesn't understand the latitude dependency of such charts and what the charts actually show and can't discuss on that level is effectively unqualified to contribute to the topic. Most latitudes where DST had really no benefit simply didn't use it even up to now. Some (close enough to the equator or close enough to the poles) should indeed not use it. But it was earlier technically simpler for big areas to have the same rules.
sigmaprimus 7y ago
>>> For me at least it would be simpler if sunrise was fixed all life long to 7:00 am.... You should consider moving to Hawaii or somewhere else closer to the equator.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rpvnwnkl 7y ago
With Sidereal Time[1], local noon is measured by the sun’s relative angle to the observer’s location. So ‘noon’ is basically at the same time, and the days’ ends push and pull as the earth orbits. If we didn’t have to coordinate time, this seems like it’d be a pleasurable timescale to keep. Since we do have to coordinate time, we’d then have to keep a separate timescale alongside our local time. I guess this isn’t too far from our current timezone+utc/gps system? [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_time)
- dole 7y ago
  Sidereal time is only like 4 minutes or so off standard, iirc.
  - rpvnwnkl 7y ago
    Seems like sidereal and solar time are 4 minutes off per ‘day’. They are more similar to each other than standard time, I think. But I was referring to their day reference starting at ‘high noon’. It’s unlikely your version of standard time has noon at the sun’s peak. My solar noon is at around 11:30, and will be at 12:30 after the time change. Honestly not that different I suppose, but it You can check yours here: https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/ https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/
tigershark 7y ago
It would never work. In northern latitudes you’ll have your 7am shifted at 11am with the sunset 2 hours later. In the summer you’ll sunrise would be at 1am with the sunset at 11. Imagine what happens to your schedule with a fixed 7 am time.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Bonus insight: there doesn't have to be a "fixed 7am time". Countries have widely varying opening/closing business hours...
coldtea 7y ago
>The problem with both standard time and DST is that instead of having our tools work for us and simplify our lives, we are working for our tools to simplify their implementation. Well, it's also us who have to do the implementation, and suffer its issues (and its bugs) so it makes sense. >Instead of over-correcting with a huge fix once per year with DST, or not correcting anything at all and messing my sleeping patterns with standard time, we could just correct time a little bit every day so that we can all wake up with the sunrise if we wanted. How about we have a standard time all around the globe (like UTC or "Swatch Beats")? For coordination/syncing it's perfect (you say, "at 22:00" and everybody knows when that is for its the same all around the world). For not bothering people at the wrong time, it's the same as today (i.e. you still need to know one offset, e.g. that Japan is 3 hours ahead of your country -- only now this would just serve to mentally add to your time to know if it's a good time or not, as the clock time would be the same as in your place). And of course anything computer related is either hugely simplified (e.g. comparing data from servers at the same time), or as complex as today (still needs an offset, e.g. to send the same thing at the start of working day). As for schools, businesses, they would keep the same daylight-related hours as now, just shifted by the countries UTC offset. E.g. the "9 to 5" work schedule in NYC would be 5am to 1pm in the global time.
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  Using UTC everywhere, what times would you expect a business to be open today in Hawaii? What kind of sign might they use to signify their business hours for each day of the week?
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    As the OP has said, you still have to know the offset, except now when you write an email " I will call at 11" they know what your are talking about immediately. As for the sign, what are you even asking?
    - bcrosby95 7y ago
      What if you say "I will call sometime tomorrow". What does that mean if you're telling that to someone in Hawaii? A business has hours of operations. In Hawaii, those hours of operations will span multiple days on the UTC clock. What does "today" mean in UTC everywhere? What about "tomorrow"? What does "Sunday" mean? Does every place experience "Sunday" at the same time? Let's say "Sunday" is the same datetime everywhere - e.g. on 2019-11-03 it starts at 00:00 UTC and ends at 23:59 UTC. Currently, every business I go to has something like this: Mon-Thurs: 8am-8pm Fri-Sat: 8am-9pm Sun: 8am-7pm This no longer makes sense. You now have to talk about business hours for Saturday/Sunday, Sunday/Monday, etc. Saying you will meet up "Saturday" doesn't make sense. When you tell your friend you're free "Sunday the 3rd" it could mean you're free 2 different solar days. There is no useful sense of "today", "tomorrow", or even "monday" anymore. And as you stated, you still need to know offsets. Offsets that we will call what... timezones? What exactly are we getting with UTC everywhere?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
fanf2 7y ago
I think this idea is worth due consideration - I have suggested a version of it before ~~ http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25/10#subj1.1 http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25/10#subj1.1 ~~ http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25/50#subj1.1 http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25/50#subj1.1
nitwit005 7y ago
You can't fix the problem you're describing by fiddling with time standards. Even before timezones became a thing, people started waking up to get to work at a fixed time of day. What changed things was the need for everyone to be at a workplace at the same time to be productive (factories mostly).

ants_a 7y ago

That does not work particularly well at northern latitudes where sun goes below the horizon for couple of hours in the summer, if that. And it would create time zones between latitudes even within the same country where the difference changes from day to day.

fluffything 7y ago
Our time-zone system is already flexible enough for regions for which this is a problem to pick up something else that works for them (we already have regions that use DST and regions that do not). I live in Austria and it makes absolutely no sense for me to use the exact same system as somebody in the north pole, or for me and those in the north pole to "compromise" on a system that's bad for both of us.

acqq 7y ago

Biologically, relatively correct. For the certain latitudes. Technologically, time zones were first invented in 19th century for real problem of every town having its own 12 o clock (for different longitudes). The DST was indeed the improvement of the simple time zones first "solution" which better suited the latitudes of those who started using DST. And now trying to revert to the previous unimproved solution is in enough latitudes still worse. But now it's time where the bad ideas spread better because they fit the newly common attention span of many, including the European politicians who decided to abolish the DST based on the results of the "votes from the internet"(!) In reality, the studies showing "no advantage" of DST didn't even prove that, but... attention span: e.g the report cited as the "argument against" from 2008, now (unsurprisingly, sadly) disappearing from the internet: https://www1.eere.energy.gov/ba/pba/pdfs/epact_sec_110_edst_report_to_congress_2008.pdf https://www1.eere.energy.gov/ba/pba/pdfs/epact_sec_110_edst_... didn't prove that DST was wrong or that it produced no savings but instead that "changing its start date from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March, and in the fall by changing its end date from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November" still gave "the total electricity savings of (such) Extended Daylight Saving Time" of "about 1.3 Tera Watt-hour (TWh)" at the place where the study was done. How it was "translated" for the internet attention span by anti-DST people? As "even government studies showed no energy or fuel savings" and even those that should know better swallowed it. What's known is that people have problem with the abrupt 1 hour change. But that could maybe today be solved with a few smaller step adjustments, twice half an hour maybe, or three times 20 minutes? Sounds complicated? It's less than before because now at least everything's connected, and we have faster computers. Also see: Figure 1: Sunrise and sunset times with daylight saving time and 2007 extensions in southern Indiana: https://www.nber.org/papers/w14429.pdf https://www.nber.org/papers/w14429.pdf for the accurate visual representation of how the "extensions" look like on the year chart, and how the DST works: white areas is where's the light in a day. Such charts show the "why" of the DST and are latitude dependent but nobody uses them in the present "discussions." I posit that anybody who doesn't understand the latitude dependency of such charts and what the charts actually show and can't discuss on that level is effectively unqualified to contribute to the topic. Most latitudes where DST had really no benefit simply didn't use it even up to now. Some (close enough to the equator or close enough to the poles) should indeed not use it. But it was earlier technically simpler for big areas to have the same rules.

sigmaprimus 7y ago

>>> For me at least it would be simpler if sunrise was fixed all life long to 7:00 am.... You should consider moving to Hawaii or somewhere else closer to the equator.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rpvnwnkl 7y ago

With Sidereal Time[1], local noon is measured by the sun’s relative angle to the observer’s location. So ‘noon’ is basically at the same time, and the days’ ends push and pull as the earth orbits. If we didn’t have to coordinate time, this seems like it’d be a pleasurable timescale to keep. Since we do have to coordinate time, we’d then have to keep a separate timescale alongside our local time. I guess this isn’t too far from our current timezone+utc/gps system? [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_time)

dole 7y ago
Sidereal time is only like 4 minutes or so off standard, iirc.
- rpvnwnkl 7y ago
  Seems like sidereal and solar time are 4 minutes off per ‘day’. They are more similar to each other than standard time, I think. But I was referring to their day reference starting at ‘high noon’. It’s unlikely your version of standard time has noon at the sun’s peak. My solar noon is at around 11:30, and will be at 12:30 after the time change. Honestly not that different I suppose, but it You can check yours here: https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/ https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/

tigershark 7y ago

It would never work. In northern latitudes you’ll have your 7am shifted at 11am with the sunset 2 hours later. In the summer you’ll sunrise would be at 1am with the sunset at 11. Imagine what happens to your schedule with a fixed 7 am time.

coldtea 7y ago
Bonus insight: there doesn't have to be a "fixed 7am time". Countries have widely varying opening/closing business hours...

coldtea 7y ago

>The problem with both standard time and DST is that instead of having our tools work for us and simplify our lives, we are working for our tools to simplify their implementation. Well, it's also us who have to do the implementation, and suffer its issues (and its bugs) so it makes sense. >Instead of over-correcting with a huge fix once per year with DST, or not correcting anything at all and messing my sleeping patterns with standard time, we could just correct time a little bit every day so that we can all wake up with the sunrise if we wanted. How about we have a standard time all around the globe (like UTC or "Swatch Beats")? For coordination/syncing it's perfect (you say, "at 22:00" and everybody knows when that is for its the same all around the world). For not bothering people at the wrong time, it's the same as today (i.e. you still need to know one offset, e.g. that Japan is 3 hours ahead of your country -- only now this would just serve to mentally add to your time to know if it's a good time or not, as the clock time would be the same as in your place). And of course anything computer related is either hugely simplified (e.g. comparing data from servers at the same time), or as complex as today (still needs an offset, e.g. to send the same thing at the start of working day). As for schools, businesses, they would keep the same daylight-related hours as now, just shifted by the countries UTC offset. E.g. the "9 to 5" work schedule in NYC would be 5am to 1pm in the global time.

bcrosby95 7y ago
Using UTC everywhere, what times would you expect a business to be open today in Hawaii? What kind of sign might they use to signify their business hours for each day of the week?
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  As the OP has said, you still have to know the offset, except now when you write an email " I will call at 11" they know what your are talking about immediately. As for the sign, what are you even asking?
  - bcrosby95 7y ago
    What if you say "I will call sometime tomorrow". What does that mean if you're telling that to someone in Hawaii? A business has hours of operations. In Hawaii, those hours of operations will span multiple days on the UTC clock. What does "today" mean in UTC everywhere? What about "tomorrow"? What does "Sunday" mean? Does every place experience "Sunday" at the same time? Let's say "Sunday" is the same datetime everywhere - e.g. on 2019-11-03 it starts at 00:00 UTC and ends at 23:59 UTC. Currently, every business I go to has something like this: Mon-Thurs: 8am-8pm Fri-Sat: 8am-9pm Sun: 8am-7pm This no longer makes sense. You now have to talk about business hours for Saturday/Sunday, Sunday/Monday, etc. Saying you will meet up "Saturday" doesn't make sense. When you tell your friend you're free "Sunday the 3rd" it could mean you're free 2 different solar days. There is no useful sense of "today", "tomorrow", or even "monday" anymore. And as you stated, you still need to know offsets. Offsets that we will call what... timezones? What exactly are we getting with UTC everywhere?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

fanf2 7y ago

I think this idea is worth due consideration - I have suggested a version of it before ~~ http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25/10#subj1.1 http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25/10#subj1.1 ~~ http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25/50#subj1.1 http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25/50#subj1.1

nitwit005 7y ago

You can't fix the problem you're describing by fiddling with time standards. Even before timezones became a thing, people started waking up to get to work at a fixed time of day. What changed things was the need for everyone to be at a workplace at the same time to be productive (factories mostly).