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Vote for no more adjustments, I don't care if that's UTC, nation wide 'Eastern', DST or not DST... just leave things the same all year. I've got a slight prefe

Vote for no more adjustments, I don't care if that's UTC, nation wide 'Eastern', DST or not DST... just leave things the same all year. I've got a slight preference for everyone going UTC with no DST so that meetings and events are easier to schedule across the world. UTC would be great if it weren't for how everyone wants to think of E.G. 8AM or 9AM or whatever as a common start time and then uses DST to try and adjust the clocks rather than the times people do things. The current time isn't particularly useful either, noon isn't even directly tied to the solar apex in most places (due to the timezones and more complex orbit / tilt interactions).

blackguardx 7y ago
They already do this in China. They have one time zone, but people in Western China don't actually shift their schedules. That means that a 9:00 AM start time for work is actually more like 6:00 AM Solar Time. All of China's timezone is keyed to Beijing time.
- James_Henry 7y ago
  Do they really not change their schedules? and how much of that is similar to the fact that someone on the west coast may need to operate on east coast time due to financial markets, customers, etc?
samatman 7y ago
Right now, if I want to schedule a meeting with London, I have two steps: figure out a good time for me, check if it's reasonable in London, adjust if necessary. If London was in the same time zone, I'd have to ascertain, somehow, what 0800 actually means in terms of the workday, and multiply that across every time zone I have to confer with (and there are a lot). No thanks. I like knowing that 5 pm means more-or-less the same thing everywhere except Western China, which happily enough doesn't really come up in my day-to-day life.
- James_Henry 7y ago
  You have to look it up either way, so I don't really understand why it would really be too much harder. For an example, if you are on the west coast you'd learn that 17 to 2 are good hours for you. Suppose on the day in question you know that 1 is the best time for you. Then you'd look at London and note that 9 to 18 are probably good for them. So you'll have to adjust. I don't see what new steps are introduced. You are right that it is nice to now what 5 pm means pretty much everywhere but Western China, but that same sentiment can be expressed by saying early evening everywhere including Western China.
  - naniwaduni 7y ago
    > I don't see what new steps are introduced. Even in the best case, you don't really manage simplify anything, you apply the same offsets, except now everyone on the west coast wakes up on one weekday and goes to sleep on the next, not just the ones who get to bed after midnight. The change happens right at the end of the business day, rather than outside business hours. Every day.
    - samatman 7y ago
      "Cool what are you doing Tuesday night?" "Uh do you mean... calendar Tuesday, or uh Tuesday Tuesday?" Repeated over half of the globe, forever. I do a lot of remote meetings with people all over the globe, I work for a remote company, and I do. not. want. this.
      - James_Henry 7y ago
        No one would be confused by the meaning of Tuesday night as night is defined by the sun and if it is paired with the word Tuesday then you automatically know what they are talking about. There could be some confusion if you are talking with people far away, but that already exists. The sort of confusion that would come up would just be slightly different.
      - GoblinSlayer 7y ago
dmckeon 7y ago
If a country does any no-adjustment approach nationwide, people may want a single common day of the month to do daylight sensitive schedule adjustments, such as outdoor sports practices. I propose overnight on the first Sunday of a month. For example, the week before, in spring (Northern hemisphere) soccer (or whatever activity) practice is at 16:00, the week after at 16:30 or 17:00 or whatever. In fall, the reverse, but the schedules all change on the same day. (Outliers will happen - this is a 90:10 suggestion, not 100:0.) Think of all the families with 2 or 3 kids who have 2, 3, or 4 different activities each week, all at different times. Do we really want their schedules to potentially change in every week of the month? Yes, super-soccer mom or dad could cope, but why not try to keep it simpler?
ska 7y ago
> UTC would be great if it weren't for how everyone wants to think of E.G. 8AM or 9AM or whatever as a common start time You mean people want to think about hours in a way that is useful to them where they live? Doesn't sound crazy. If everyone moved to UTC you wouldn't solve any real problems. Sure, everyone in New York could get used to their day starting at noon or whatever (to what benefit?) but if you wanted to schedule a meeting with someone in spain (or california) you would still have to figure out the time change to make it a reasonable time for you both. Any way you slice it, you're just pushing the problem around to different places.
- James_Henry 7y ago
  Everyone moving to UTC could make people start thinking about what time is actually appropriate to start the day instead of defaulting to 8 or 9 am. A lot of people might not want to think about that, but it could end up quite a bit better for public health.
- nulbyte 7y ago
  > Any way you slice it, you're just pushing the problem around to different places. There isn't a problem. There are many problems. Changes in strategy don't have to solve them all. It is entirely reasonable to prioritize which problem(s) get more attention when there are more than one. That's what this is about, prioritization, and an implicit recognition that one size does not fit all.
- GoblinSlayer 7y ago
  >If everyone moved to UTC you wouldn't solve any real problems. At least people will be less inclined to use local time for non-local schedule, and will be able to tell time unambiguously.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  Your day "starting" at 00:00 sounds a lot easier to reason about than the day starting at 08:00. We did get used to the day starting at a weird time for no particular reason, and whenever you change jobs you'll get used to a slightly different time anyway. I don't see how it's more useful the way it is now than any other way. This is like trying to justify that moving summer holidays by one day would disrupt everyone's way of thinking.
James_Henry 7y ago
Honestly, this comment is spot on. I think people don't realize that the fact that we are so accustomed to the 8 or 9 am meaning the start of the school or work day is not good for public health. If we had UTC or some nation wide time like China there might be more thought about when to actually start things and where the sun is actually at. The article points out that western edges of time zones are hit harder by clock changes. Other research also shows that they are in general sleeping less on western edges because the sun goes down later and they still have to get up at the same time as eastern edges. Because of this, while all-year DST would be better than what we have, it is still worse for public health than all-year standard time which is maybe worse than UTC (as people will start thinking more about the sun and maybe in 30 minute chunks instead of hours).

blackguardx 7y ago

They already do this in China. They have one time zone, but people in Western China don't actually shift their schedules. That means that a 9:00 AM start time for work is actually more like 6:00 AM Solar Time. All of China's timezone is keyed to Beijing time.

James_Henry 7y ago
Do they really not change their schedules? and how much of that is similar to the fact that someone on the west coast may need to operate on east coast time due to financial markets, customers, etc?

samatman 7y ago

Right now, if I want to schedule a meeting with London, I have two steps: figure out a good time for me, check if it's reasonable in London, adjust if necessary. If London was in the same time zone, I'd have to ascertain, somehow, what 0800 actually means in terms of the workday, and multiply that across every time zone I have to confer with (and there are a lot). No thanks. I like knowing that 5 pm means more-or-less the same thing everywhere except Western China, which happily enough doesn't really come up in my day-to-day life.

James_Henry 7y ago
You have to look it up either way, so I don't really understand why it would really be too much harder. For an example, if you are on the west coast you'd learn that 17 to 2 are good hours for you. Suppose on the day in question you know that 1 is the best time for you. Then you'd look at London and note that 9 to 18 are probably good for them. So you'll have to adjust. I don't see what new steps are introduced. You are right that it is nice to now what 5 pm means pretty much everywhere but Western China, but that same sentiment can be expressed by saying early evening everywhere including Western China.
- naniwaduni 7y ago
  > I don't see what new steps are introduced. Even in the best case, you don't really manage simplify anything, you apply the same offsets, except now everyone on the west coast wakes up on one weekday and goes to sleep on the next, not just the ones who get to bed after midnight. The change happens right at the end of the business day, rather than outside business hours. Every day.
  - samatman 7y ago
    "Cool what are you doing Tuesday night?" "Uh do you mean... calendar Tuesday, or uh Tuesday Tuesday?" Repeated over half of the globe, forever. I do a lot of remote meetings with people all over the globe, I work for a remote company, and I do. not. want. this.
    - James_Henry 7y ago
      No one would be confused by the meaning of Tuesday night as night is defined by the sun and if it is paired with the word Tuesday then you automatically know what they are talking about. There could be some confusion if you are talking with people far away, but that already exists. The sort of confusion that would come up would just be slightly different.
    - GoblinSlayer 7y ago

dmckeon 7y ago

If a country does any no-adjustment approach nationwide, people may want a single common day of the month to do daylight sensitive schedule adjustments, such as outdoor sports practices. I propose overnight on the first Sunday of a month. For example, the week before, in spring (Northern hemisphere) soccer (or whatever activity) practice is at 16:00, the week after at 16:30 or 17:00 or whatever. In fall, the reverse, but the schedules all change on the same day. (Outliers will happen - this is a 90:10 suggestion, not 100:0.) Think of all the families with 2 or 3 kids who have 2, 3, or 4 different activities each week, all at different times. Do we really want their schedules to potentially change in every week of the month? Yes, super-soccer mom or dad could cope, but why not try to keep it simpler?

ska 7y ago

> UTC would be great if it weren't for how everyone wants to think of E.G. 8AM or 9AM or whatever as a common start time You mean people want to think about hours in a way that is useful to them where they live? Doesn't sound crazy. If everyone moved to UTC you wouldn't solve any real problems. Sure, everyone in New York could get used to their day starting at noon or whatever (to what benefit?) but if you wanted to schedule a meeting with someone in spain (or california) you would still have to figure out the time change to make it a reasonable time for you both. Any way you slice it, you're just pushing the problem around to different places.

James_Henry 7y ago
Everyone moving to UTC could make people start thinking about what time is actually appropriate to start the day instead of defaulting to 8 or 9 am. A lot of people might not want to think about that, but it could end up quite a bit better for public health.
nulbyte 7y ago
> Any way you slice it, you're just pushing the problem around to different places. There isn't a problem. There are many problems. Changes in strategy don't have to solve them all. It is entirely reasonable to prioritize which problem(s) get more attention when there are more than one. That's what this is about, prioritization, and an implicit recognition that one size does not fit all.
GoblinSlayer 7y ago
>If everyone moved to UTC you wouldn't solve any real problems. At least people will be less inclined to use local time for non-local schedule, and will be able to tell time unambiguously.
scrollaway 7y ago
Your day "starting" at 00:00 sounds a lot easier to reason about than the day starting at 08:00. We did get used to the day starting at a weird time for no particular reason, and whenever you change jobs you'll get used to a slightly different time anyway. I don't see how it's more useful the way it is now than any other way. This is like trying to justify that moving summer holidays by one day would disrupt everyone's way of thinking.

James_Henry 7y ago

Honestly, this comment is spot on. I think people don't realize that the fact that we are so accustomed to the 8 or 9 am meaning the start of the school or work day is not good for public health. If we had UTC or some nation wide time like China there might be more thought about when to actually start things and where the sun is actually at. The article points out that western edges of time zones are hit harder by clock changes. Other research also shows that they are in general sleeping less on western edges because the sun goes down later and they still have to get up at the same time as eastern edges. Because of this, while all-year DST would be better than what we have, it is still worse for public health than all-year standard time which is maybe worse than UTC (as people will start thinking more about the sun and maybe in 30 minute chunks instead of hours).