12 ms·

On the topic of DST... can you explain why some countries use DST? Anytime I look for the reasoning of it, it says that DST helps "make better use of daytime" b

On the topic of DST... can you explain why some countries use DST? Anytime I look for the reasoning of it, it says that DST helps "make better use of daytime" but how? The earth isn't gonna say "Damn! These people changed their clocks. I better change by rotation and give them more sun time." Whether you have DST or not, you still have the same amount of time with sunlight in a day.

macintux 6y ago
Just once I’d like to have a time zone discussion on HN that doesn’t devolve into pages of arguing about daylight saving time. If you search HN you’ll find plenty on this topic.
- db48x 6y ago
  You'll have a happier life if your dreams are attainable.
- klyrs 6y ago
  I mean, you're not wrong... but what else is there to talk about? Fact of the matter is, your preferences depend on where you live, your lifestyle, and the amount of time you spend on date&time fuckery in code. It's a contentious issue.
mabbo 6y ago
Golf courses. Well, okay, this is my wonderful father's half serious answer that I love to retell. The basic idea is that it's easier to convince everyone that is actually 5:00pm and time to leave work than it is to convince just your boss that you want to start work an hour earlier and leave and hour earlier. This problem is then applied to politicians and other powerful people, who want to go golfing after work. If there's no DST, the sun will set "earlier" according to the clock, and you can't get in a full 18 holes. So therefore, we change all the clocks so that powerful rich people can go golfing. No other group of people sees any benefits to DST.
- Lvl999Noob 6y ago
  Are there really places that don't observe DST and also don't change their working hours? Just shift the working hours by a few hours when the seasons change. It also gives more granularity for the changes. If 1 week in the whole season is particularly cold, then change the time again for that 1 week.
  - Macha 6y ago
    I assumed this was the norm in places that don't observe DST? Your workday is 9-5, year round, no we're not considering the time the sun sets
  - bombcar 6y ago
    Even with DST here we still have "winter hours" for many businesses where it doesn't make sense to be open late (10 PM in summer is still light out, 10 PM in winter, sun set 5-6 hours ago).
    - dmurray 6y ago
      The golf courses are closed when it's too dark, but the offices aren't. You need to close the office a few hours before the golf course, even if your office business isn't strongly dependent on the amount of daylight.
  - majewsky 6y ago
    That sounds like a huge coordination problem. Those problems are usually solved by some central entity enacting a standard, i.e. government enacting DST.
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    Arizona
    - SamBam 6y ago
      Do Arizona banks and post offices and stuff really change their hours in different seasons?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throw0101a 6y ago
The closer one is to the poles, the more the number of hours of daylight shifts over the seasons. So at/near the equator, in a place like Panama, you will get roughly 12 hours of daylight in both the December and June Solstices. * https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/panama/panama https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/panama/panama Whereas in the Edinburgh you go from having 7 hours of daylight in December to over 17 hours in June: * https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/edinburgh https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/edinburgh So people want those 7 hours to be when it's most convenient for them.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  The infuriating thing is that our solution to this is to change the clock instead of just changing our schedules. It's completely ridiculous.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    ...no, actually it’s extremely logical. Changing clocks society wide is far easier than getting every single person and company to adjust its schedule.
    - Lvl999Noob 6y ago
      Perhaps it was easier in the times before the internet. Now a consistent timeline should be far more convenient than not having to change your habits by a little bit. Edit: If changing schedule is normalized, then it would be just as convenient as changing the clock. In countries without DST, if someone started using DST instead of changing their own schedule, it would be just as difficult.
      - ceilingcorner 6y ago
        I don’t think anyone other than programmers thinks DST is much of an inconvenience. The clock changes twice a year, big deal. That’s infinitely less complicated than asking your boss if you can start earlier, which means the store at the subway station will need to be open an hour earlier (since its business comes from commuters), which means restaurants will need to be open earlier to address the lunch crowd, which means your doctor will need to schedule appointments earlier, on and on.
XorNot 6y ago
For the same reason that work from home turns out to be viable for a huge number of people, and the main reason office's are as big as they are is because middle managers don't believe work happens if they don't watch someone sit in an office chair. There's no possible way businesses are going to adjust their hours twice yearly to let employees get more sunshine, but DST does that effectively by ensuring official timekeeping gets moved about on them.
- bombcar 6y ago
  The even dirtier secret is that NOBODY KNOWS if work is getting done because often the work is pointless or ill-defined.
- GoblinSlayer 6y ago
  What is the point of sunshine if you sit in a box all day? You get equally zero amount of it during summer as well as winter.
BjoernKW 6y ago
Because of the unfortunately still common 9-to-5 work schedule.
throwaway2245 6y ago
The excuse usually given is to match up farm work, which is dictated by dawn, with general work shift patterns. However, I recall that farmers are very split on the issue when polled - it impacts on their work shifts as well.
Arubis 6y ago
Source: none, this is my pure supposition and projection. Power. The sensation of raw power. By and large, the best way to eliminate DST would be for one or more sufficiently powerful lawmakers or political executives to say: this is no longer benefiting the public at large, and we are going to stop! These are the folks empowered to change the date on which DST transitions (at least stateside). These are also the same folks whose careers have been mostly defined by the deliberate and incremental accumulation of power into their own hands. If you're wired for that kind of desire for power, the ability to tell the entire country: okay, I am changing time! It happens on this date! --must be simply _irresistible_. I mean: you're literally changing TIME. Hot shit! The entire population has to respond! You're changing TIME! Why give that up? While I'm storytelling and presuming, I'll note that this needn't be a deliberate, conscious decision; I'm only suggesting that the people positioned to change this sort of thing are probably naturally wired to resist doing so, and may not even be aware of why themselves.
snarf21 6y ago
We need to get rid of DST switches permanently. We should stick with DST as most people prefer extra light at night.
KineticLensman 6y ago
> Whether you have DST or not, you still have the same amount of time with sunlight in a day Yes, but you can better align the available light with things like commutes and school hours - so that people commute in light instead of the dark, for example.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
xyzelement 6y ago
You got a bunch of longish replies to your question and I can't tell if they covered the simple answer. DST changes the question of : is it dark at 7am when I get up or not? is it light when I get off work at 5 or not? It aims to shift the usable daylight hours to correspond with human activity.
- somehnguy 6y ago
  >It aims to shift the usable daylight hours to correspond with human activity. But it fails miserably at it.. Here in NYS all winter long it gets dark at 5PM. Summer, 9PM. It's useless and just causes inevitable confusion every year.
  - jws 6y ago
    There’s nothing to be done about winter, that is the “regular” time and you live in the north. You only get the sun above the horizon for 9 hours a day in late December. The summer 9pm is the advantage of daylight savings. You get the sun up for 15 hours a day! Norther summer is great. Without daylight savings time, you’d get dark at 8pm in the summer and have an hour of “wasted” daylight before you got up. The “savings” part is to take the wasted light while you are sleeping and move it to the evening when you can enjoy it. It does cause confusion though, and having implemented daylight savings code there are a bewildering number of rules around the world, there are even places that have double daylight savings. They shift once, then shift again for a two hour offset.
    - somehnguy 6y ago
      I appreciate the response and explanation, I guess I was mistaken on which direction DST was being used for! All my life I was under the assumption that it was the other way around, to try and get back more time during the winter. Thinking about it more now though, that doesn't even make sense given the direction the clock changes.. I'm still not sure it is worth the confusion it causes but I do have a better understanding of why it exists now. Thank you!
  - 1strepublicusr 6y ago
davchana 6y ago
I am from India, northern part, where there is a lotbof variation between sunlight hours throughout the year. Some days the sun is out at 6 or before in summer, & in winter its some time not out even till 9 or such. India does not use timezones. Every business, school, office who has business hours, use something like Winter Timings Summer Timings. Schools & such use 14 Oct to 14 Apr as Winter, & other 6 months as summer. My school used to open at 6 in summers, & 7:30 or 8 in winters. Here in US they keep the opening timings same throughout the year, but go through this DST shenanigans.

macintux 6y ago

Just once I’d like to have a time zone discussion on HN that doesn’t devolve into pages of arguing about daylight saving time. If you search HN you’ll find plenty on this topic.

db48x 6y ago
You'll have a happier life if your dreams are attainable.
klyrs 6y ago
I mean, you're not wrong... but what else is there to talk about? Fact of the matter is, your preferences depend on where you live, your lifestyle, and the amount of time you spend on date&time fuckery in code. It's a contentious issue.

mabbo 6y ago

Golf courses. Well, okay, this is my wonderful father's half serious answer that I love to retell. The basic idea is that it's easier to convince everyone that is actually 5:00pm and time to leave work than it is to convince just your boss that you want to start work an hour earlier and leave and hour earlier. This problem is then applied to politicians and other powerful people, who want to go golfing after work. If there's no DST, the sun will set "earlier" according to the clock, and you can't get in a full 18 holes. So therefore, we change all the clocks so that powerful rich people can go golfing. No other group of people sees any benefits to DST.

Lvl999Noob 6y ago
Are there really places that don't observe DST and also don't change their working hours? Just shift the working hours by a few hours when the seasons change. It also gives more granularity for the changes. If 1 week in the whole season is particularly cold, then change the time again for that 1 week.
- Macha 6y ago
  I assumed this was the norm in places that don't observe DST? Your workday is 9-5, year round, no we're not considering the time the sun sets
- bombcar 6y ago
  Even with DST here we still have "winter hours" for many businesses where it doesn't make sense to be open late (10 PM in summer is still light out, 10 PM in winter, sun set 5-6 hours ago).
  - dmurray 6y ago
    The golf courses are closed when it's too dark, but the offices aren't. You need to close the office a few hours before the golf course, even if your office business isn't strongly dependent on the amount of daylight.
- majewsky 6y ago
  That sounds like a huge coordination problem. Those problems are usually solved by some central entity enacting a standard, i.e. government enacting DST.
- nerdponx 6y ago
  Arizona
  - SamBam 6y ago
    Do Arizona banks and post offices and stuff really change their hours in different seasons?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

throw0101a 6y ago

The closer one is to the poles, the more the number of hours of daylight shifts over the seasons. So at/near the equator, in a place like Panama, you will get roughly 12 hours of daylight in both the December and June Solstices. * https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/panama/panama https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/panama/panama Whereas in the Edinburgh you go from having 7 hours of daylight in December to over 17 hours in June: * https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/edinburgh https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/edinburgh So people want those 7 hours to be when it's most convenient for them.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
The infuriating thing is that our solution to this is to change the clock instead of just changing our schedules. It's completely ridiculous.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  ...no, actually it’s extremely logical. Changing clocks society wide is far easier than getting every single person and company to adjust its schedule.
  - Lvl999Noob 6y ago
    Perhaps it was easier in the times before the internet. Now a consistent timeline should be far more convenient than not having to change your habits by a little bit. Edit: If changing schedule is normalized, then it would be just as convenient as changing the clock. In countries without DST, if someone started using DST instead of changing their own schedule, it would be just as difficult.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      I don’t think anyone other than programmers thinks DST is much of an inconvenience. The clock changes twice a year, big deal. That’s infinitely less complicated than asking your boss if you can start earlier, which means the store at the subway station will need to be open an hour earlier (since its business comes from commuters), which means restaurants will need to be open earlier to address the lunch crowd, which means your doctor will need to schedule appointments earlier, on and on.

XorNot 6y ago

For the same reason that work from home turns out to be viable for a huge number of people, and the main reason office's are as big as they are is because middle managers don't believe work happens if they don't watch someone sit in an office chair. There's no possible way businesses are going to adjust their hours twice yearly to let employees get more sunshine, but DST does that effectively by ensuring official timekeeping gets moved about on them.

bombcar 6y ago
The even dirtier secret is that NOBODY KNOWS if work is getting done because often the work is pointless or ill-defined.
GoblinSlayer 6y ago
What is the point of sunshine if you sit in a box all day? You get equally zero amount of it during summer as well as winter.

BjoernKW 6y ago

Because of the unfortunately still common 9-to-5 work schedule.

throwaway2245 6y ago

The excuse usually given is to match up farm work, which is dictated by dawn, with general work shift patterns. However, I recall that farmers are very split on the issue when polled - it impacts on their work shifts as well.

Arubis 6y ago

Source: none, this is my pure supposition and projection. Power. The sensation of raw power. By and large, the best way to eliminate DST would be for one or more sufficiently powerful lawmakers or political executives to say: this is no longer benefiting the public at large, and we are going to stop! These are the folks empowered to change the date on which DST transitions (at least stateside). These are also the same folks whose careers have been mostly defined by the deliberate and incremental accumulation of power into their own hands. If you're wired for that kind of desire for power, the ability to tell the entire country: okay, I am changing time! It happens on this date! --must be simply _irresistible_. I mean: you're literally changing TIME. Hot shit! The entire population has to respond! You're changing TIME! Why give that up? While I'm storytelling and presuming, I'll note that this needn't be a deliberate, conscious decision; I'm only suggesting that the people positioned to change this sort of thing are probably naturally wired to resist doing so, and may not even be aware of why themselves.

snarf21 6y ago

We need to get rid of DST switches permanently. We should stick with DST as most people prefer extra light at night.

KineticLensman 6y ago

> Whether you have DST or not, you still have the same amount of time with sunlight in a day Yes, but you can better align the available light with things like commutes and school hours - so that people commute in light instead of the dark, for example.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

xyzelement 6y ago

You got a bunch of longish replies to your question and I can't tell if they covered the simple answer. DST changes the question of : is it dark at 7am when I get up or not? is it light when I get off work at 5 or not? It aims to shift the usable daylight hours to correspond with human activity.

somehnguy 6y ago
>It aims to shift the usable daylight hours to correspond with human activity. But it fails miserably at it.. Here in NYS all winter long it gets dark at 5PM. Summer, 9PM. It's useless and just causes inevitable confusion every year.
- jws 6y ago
  There’s nothing to be done about winter, that is the “regular” time and you live in the north. You only get the sun above the horizon for 9 hours a day in late December. The summer 9pm is the advantage of daylight savings. You get the sun up for 15 hours a day! Norther summer is great. Without daylight savings time, you’d get dark at 8pm in the summer and have an hour of “wasted” daylight before you got up. The “savings” part is to take the wasted light while you are sleeping and move it to the evening when you can enjoy it. It does cause confusion though, and having implemented daylight savings code there are a bewildering number of rules around the world, there are even places that have double daylight savings. They shift once, then shift again for a two hour offset.
  - somehnguy 6y ago
    I appreciate the response and explanation, I guess I was mistaken on which direction DST was being used for! All my life I was under the assumption that it was the other way around, to try and get back more time during the winter. Thinking about it more now though, that doesn't even make sense given the direction the clock changes.. I'm still not sure it is worth the confusion it causes but I do have a better understanding of why it exists now. Thank you!
- 1strepublicusr 6y ago

davchana 6y ago

I am from India, northern part, where there is a lotbof variation between sunlight hours throughout the year. Some days the sun is out at 6 or before in summer, & in winter its some time not out even till 9 or such. India does not use timezones. Every business, school, office who has business hours, use something like Winter Timings Summer Timings. Schools & such use 14 Oct to 14 Apr as Winter, & other 6 months as summer. My school used to open at 6 in summers, & 7:30 or 8 in winters. Here in US they keep the opening timings same throughout the year, but go through this DST shenanigans.