4 ms·

I'd like to see a more nuanced discussion of what 8am actually is. I've lived in places where 8am means you've already had 2-3 hours of sunlight and places whe

I'd like to see a more nuanced discussion of what 8am actually is. I've lived in places where 8am means you've already had 2-3 hours of sunlight and places where 8am is pitch black. Clock time and sun time don't always match. Social time is another aspect, although linked more closely with clock time. After moving countries I found it very strange to see popular TV shows advertised with with a start time of half-past midnight. "Who would be up to watch it?" I thought. Of course, it turns out, there are plenty of people up watching TV at that time in this culture.

corbulo 4y ago
Commute time is huge as well. I went to a University that had double to triple the amount of undergrads to parking spots. The student's time was a total afterthought. An 8am class would be showing up at 6-7 to find parking and get to the classroom. Disgusting, I never took courses that required regular attendance there for that reason. There's so many compounding variables that emerge from Universities total neglect of prioritizing learning. I don't think its as simple as early=bad.
- mold_aid 4y ago
  This is an excellent point, but I have to tell you that it gets worse at the middle of the day because 8am courses are taken by a self-selecting group of students ("I want the 8am" and "I didn't start registering until the last minute"). The parking issue picks up at 10 am and nobody can find a spot - I drive around the faculty lots for 15 minutes on my MWF semesters and emerge at 5 pm to find everybody gone (as you'd expect). By 11 students are parked on top of berms, in staff spots (a ticket? the price of doing business), in motorcycle spots, everywhere. My course meetings start for real 5 minutes after posted time; it's all warmup for those in dorms who get there at the hour.
  - corbulo 4y ago
    You're absolutely correct. I was focusing on the post, but if your class is at 3pm you have to show up at like 8-10am or something ridiculous to get a spot. Parking permits are such a scam.
    - pamplemoose 4y ago
      What would you prefer to parking permits? The scam is living in a society that requires a car for normal day to day living.
      - corbulo 4y ago
        If the school has overbooked students:parking then its a scam to offer parking permits to students who probabilistically will never find a parking spot without resorting to the extremes (time or distance). There's no reason to offer a permit (or charge for it). I don't think its because of cars. There wont ever be a high quality uni in walking distance for 20,000+ people simultaneously.
        stefs 4y ago
        there's also cycling and public transport. a single parking spot can fit up to 12 bikes and - in a perfect world - there'd be park & ride facilities on the city outskirts with tram connections to the uni. thus you wouldn't have to drive your car through rush hour city traffic.
lordnacho 4y ago
There's a map you of the difference between clock noon and astronomical noon: http://blog.poormansmath.net/the-time-it-takes-to-change-the-time/ http://blog.poormansmath.net/the-time-it-takes-to-change-the... Pretty interesting, and it seems to comport with my feelings when traveling to different places.
inglor_cz 4y ago
This is well observable in continental Europe with its wide GMT+1 timezone. I live in a smallish country (Czechia) and I sometimes commute between Prague and Ostrava. The sunset difference is already some 15 minutes, quite visible. The actual sunrise/sunset difference between, say, Paris and Kraków is even more pronounced. Not to mention Madrid; Spain using the Central European timezone is a weird leftover from Franco/Nazi times that no one bothered to correct. 8 am feels very early in Granada and fairly late in Kraków.
- matsemann 4y ago
  Or seasonal changes further north. Like where I live in Norway, the sun goes up at 9:15 in the morning and settles at 15:15 during winter. But during summer it can go up 04:00 in the morning and down 22:30.
giantg2 4y ago
The study is from Singapore. It looks like it's always daylight prior to 8am.
imarg 4y ago
This! My wife used to tell me that kids should be asleep by 2100 because some study showed it is better for them. But what does 2100 mean? It is totally arbitrary. I could accept a study that would reference sunrise/sunset but a specific time? I would always ask her "is this winter or summer time?" just to show how this does not really make sense. Other times I would say "what if we lived right at the point where a timezone changes?". A few meters difference means 1 hour difference. Which 2100 is the correct one? Or what if 2 people live in the same timezone at the opposite ends of it? I believe most of these studies are performed in the USA. I have never lived there (I am in Greece, have also lived in Germany) but the feeling I have from some movies and shows is that there are places in USA where the sun comes up at 0500, maybe earlier (and accordingly also sets early). I do not think that the sun ever rises that early here (I actually just looked, throughout the year the earliest is ~0600 summer time). It is only natural to also have different habits on when to wake up/go to bed. And also 2100 (or whatever other time) to mean something else entirely. a quick search did not verify this
- giantg2 4y ago
  "I would always ask her "is this winter or summer time?" just to show how this does not really make sense." If the rest of your schedule keeps the same numeric time, then this does make sense. If your schedule allows for 9 hours of sleep before waking up for school, then you're still getting 9 hours. If you changed the numeric value, then it would either 8 or 10 hours since the school start time retains its numeric value. "I believe most of these studies are performed in the USA." The study being discussed is from Singapore.
  - imarg 4y ago
    My argument with my wife was not about the duration of sleep (nor has this anything to do with the schedule) but at what time a kid should go to bed. The reasoning behind this is that if a child goes to bed later it would be bad for brain development (or something) even if sleeping the required hours. When I said that most studies are from the USA I was referring to studies in general (and about the children in particular) and not on the one discussed here. I confess, I might have been carried away a little because this has always been my pet peeve.
perilunar 4y ago
> Clock time and sun time don't always match This. I made an app to help: https://sunclock.net https://sunclock.net
asdff 4y ago
For a good chunk of this country if you have to be somewhere from like 8-5, you just don't see the sunlight in winter, maybe you catch the tail end of the sunset on your way home or the rise on the way in.
dehrmann 4y ago
For most US colleges, 8 AM is 6 hours after the bars close.

corbulo 4y ago

Commute time is huge as well. I went to a University that had double to triple the amount of undergrads to parking spots. The student's time was a total afterthought. An 8am class would be showing up at 6-7 to find parking and get to the classroom. Disgusting, I never took courses that required regular attendance there for that reason. There's so many compounding variables that emerge from Universities total neglect of prioritizing learning. I don't think its as simple as early=bad.

mold_aid 4y ago
This is an excellent point, but I have to tell you that it gets worse at the middle of the day because 8am courses are taken by a self-selecting group of students ("I want the 8am" and "I didn't start registering until the last minute"). The parking issue picks up at 10 am and nobody can find a spot - I drive around the faculty lots for 15 minutes on my MWF semesters and emerge at 5 pm to find everybody gone (as you'd expect). By 11 students are parked on top of berms, in staff spots (a ticket? the price of doing business), in motorcycle spots, everywhere. My course meetings start for real 5 minutes after posted time; it's all warmup for those in dorms who get there at the hour.
- corbulo 4y ago
  You're absolutely correct. I was focusing on the post, but if your class is at 3pm you have to show up at like 8-10am or something ridiculous to get a spot. Parking permits are such a scam.
  - pamplemoose 4y ago
    What would you prefer to parking permits? The scam is living in a society that requires a car for normal day to day living.
    - corbulo 4y ago
      If the school has overbooked students:parking then its a scam to offer parking permits to students who probabilistically will never find a parking spot without resorting to the extremes (time or distance). There's no reason to offer a permit (or charge for it). I don't think its because of cars. There wont ever be a high quality uni in walking distance for 20,000+ people simultaneously.
      - stefs 4y ago
        there's also cycling and public transport. a single parking spot can fit up to 12 bikes and - in a perfect world - there'd be park & ride facilities on the city outskirts with tram connections to the uni. thus you wouldn't have to drive your car through rush hour city traffic.

lordnacho 4y ago

There's a map you of the difference between clock noon and astronomical noon: http://blog.poormansmath.net/the-time-it-takes-to-change-the-time/ http://blog.poormansmath.net/the-time-it-takes-to-change-the... Pretty interesting, and it seems to comport with my feelings when traveling to different places.

inglor_cz 4y ago

This is well observable in continental Europe with its wide GMT+1 timezone. I live in a smallish country (Czechia) and I sometimes commute between Prague and Ostrava. The sunset difference is already some 15 minutes, quite visible. The actual sunrise/sunset difference between, say, Paris and Kraków is even more pronounced. Not to mention Madrid; Spain using the Central European timezone is a weird leftover from Franco/Nazi times that no one bothered to correct. 8 am feels very early in Granada and fairly late in Kraków.

matsemann 4y ago
Or seasonal changes further north. Like where I live in Norway, the sun goes up at 9:15 in the morning and settles at 15:15 during winter. But during summer it can go up 04:00 in the morning and down 22:30.

giantg2 4y ago

The study is from Singapore. It looks like it's always daylight prior to 8am.

imarg 4y ago

This! My wife used to tell me that kids should be asleep by 2100 because some study showed it is better for them. But what does 2100 mean? It is totally arbitrary. I could accept a study that would reference sunrise/sunset but a specific time? I would always ask her "is this winter or summer time?" just to show how this does not really make sense. Other times I would say "what if we lived right at the point where a timezone changes?". A few meters difference means 1 hour difference. Which 2100 is the correct one? Or what if 2 people live in the same timezone at the opposite ends of it? I believe most of these studies are performed in the USA. I have never lived there (I am in Greece, have also lived in Germany) but the feeling I have from some movies and shows is that there are places in USA where the sun comes up at 0500, maybe earlier (and accordingly also sets early). I do not think that the sun ever rises that early here (I actually just looked, throughout the year the earliest is ~0600 summer time). It is only natural to also have different habits on when to wake up/go to bed. And also 2100 (or whatever other time) to mean something else entirely. a quick search did not verify this

giantg2 4y ago
"I would always ask her "is this winter or summer time?" just to show how this does not really make sense." If the rest of your schedule keeps the same numeric time, then this does make sense. If your schedule allows for 9 hours of sleep before waking up for school, then you're still getting 9 hours. If you changed the numeric value, then it would either 8 or 10 hours since the school start time retains its numeric value. "I believe most of these studies are performed in the USA." The study being discussed is from Singapore.
- imarg 4y ago
  My argument with my wife was not about the duration of sleep (nor has this anything to do with the schedule) but at what time a kid should go to bed. The reasoning behind this is that if a child goes to bed later it would be bad for brain development (or something) even if sleeping the required hours. When I said that most studies are from the USA I was referring to studies in general (and about the children in particular) and not on the one discussed here. I confess, I might have been carried away a little because this has always been my pet peeve.

perilunar 4y ago

> Clock time and sun time don't always match This. I made an app to help: https://sunclock.net https://sunclock.net

asdff 4y ago

For a good chunk of this country if you have to be somewhere from like 8-5, you just don't see the sunlight in winter, maybe you catch the tail end of the sunset on your way home or the rise on the way in.

dehrmann 4y ago

For most US colleges, 8 AM is 6 hours after the bars close.