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House passes bill to enact year-round Daylight Saving Time across the country
- lioeters 3mo agoCurious how this affects date/time algorithms and software libraries, particularly those that do not have a way to sync with an external authoritative source of time. I guess they all need to be updated to account for this change?
- toyg 3mo agoThey need to be updated anyway, and always have been: somewhere in the world, someone changes time rules basically every year, or even every few months. All current OSes already have support for stating "locale X will not use daylight savings / will always use daylight saving, starting from day yyyymmdd at hhmm" through simple updates.
- cpburns2009 3mo agoAn updated tz database.
- bombcar 3mo agoOr you set your timezone location to one that’s false, but matches what is now true (like Arizona, for example).
- jauco 3mo agoYes there’s databases like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database that track this and that are included in libraries that do the arithmetics. It’s why those libraries are often relatively bulky.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- ClassAndBurn 3mo agoI finally built my side project and the government finally does something to make it pointless! Yay? https://www.daylightsmearings.com/ https://www.daylightsmearings.com/
- cucumber3732842 3mo agoThere's a life lesson there somewhere.
- Cider9986 3mo agoWe'll see if it passes the Senate.
- MilnerRoute 3mo agoIt still needs to pass the Senate.
- al_borland 3mo agoThe Senate passed in a few years ago[0]... then the House did nothing. Now the House passes is and we have to hope the Senate does something again. If only Congress could get on the same page and do these things at the same time. [0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/623/all-info https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/623...
- procrastitron 3mo agoPassing the senate back then was because of shenanigans; not popularity. They played tricks with the “unanimous consent” procedure where senators didn’t know it was happening until after it was too late to object. Multiple senators said afterwards that they were opposed to it.
- hobonation 3mo agoCool. We did this before 1974 and immediately went back, and I never understood why. I guess I'll find out. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-the-last-time-the-us-tried-to-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent-180979742/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-the-...
- bitshiftfaced 3mo agoFrom what I'm reading, it was a big factor that children were walking to school in the dark. One stat I read was that since that time the percentage of kids walking/cycling to school went from almost 50% to now 10%. Maybe that could make the difference this time around.
- kgwxd 3mo agoThey still have to walk to the bus stop.
- maxerickson 3mo agoBuses here go door to door. Or almost anyway. I guess it's because the school age population has declined.
- gepeake 3mo ago> But detractors say it could have economic consequences, particularly for farmers who would have to wrestle with later sunrises. I genuinely don't understand the "farmer's like DST" argument. Farmer's schedules are dictated by the sun not the time and the sun changes continuously year round. If the argument is about commercial coordination that follows the same logic of being difficult regardless given constantly shifting sunlight, at least without DST there's year-round consistency by the other businesses.
- scheme271 3mo agoIt also varies depending on where in a time zone you are. The eastern and western sides of a timezone could see sunrise and sunset at significantly different times.
- al_borland 3mo agoDST was never about farmers, it was to conserve energy for the war effort. Farmers also aren't punching a clock at an office. They can start and end work when they want, based on the weather and daylight that suits the work.
- quantified 3mo agoIf you have animals you are up with the sun, nothing about when you want to work.
- AngryData 3mo agoThat is really only true if you are milking animals. Crops don't care when you plant them or fertilize them or spray them. The closest thing you can get with crops is certain grains you want to sell at certain percentage levels which the sun helps bring down. But even that is 50% just so the mill doesn't rip farmers off.
- al_borland 3mo agoThe “went you want” part was more about in relation to the clock. The sun will rise and fall just the same regardless of how we set our clocks. The farmers are completely unaffected. Their days don’t shift just because the time shifts.
- jmclnx 3mo ago>though its chances in the upper chamber remain unclear Now they need to get it through the Senate. Maybe we'll see something useful passed during this admin :)
- botacode 3mo agoThis will save a lot of lives! Hope it passes. The shift is a relic of an older economy and damages folks' lives through worse mental health and driving outcomes [0]. [0]: https://www.coveragecat.com/blog/daylight-saving-time-car-insurance https://www.coveragecat.com/blog/daylight-saving-time-car-in...
- dlcarrier 3mo agoIt's not the step change in time that's the gratest danger of DST, it's the entire time people are waking up early, increasing cancer rates and all-cause mortality: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6436388/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6436388/
- botacode 3mo agoFascinating, had not seen this research thank you for sharing.
- marssaxman 3mo agoI'm glad we're agreed that changing the clocks twice a year is a bad idea, but I don't understand why we should abandon Daylight Savings Time by adopting it permanently. What's so wrong with Standard Time? Oh, well: whether we put the clocks back or leave them permanently off-by-one, either is better than changing them around over and over.
- Jtsummers 3mo agoThe reason for permanent daylight savings (versus permanent standard) is to provide for later sunsets in the winter. By clock time, the sun would be rising later (after 8am in many places) but setting later as well giving people some late afternoon or evening sun. Which is better is ultimately subjective, you get short days in the winter regardless when you live far enough north. The late sunrise can be more dangerous with a lot more people traveling in the dark (especially if there's mixed vehicle, bike, and pedestrian traffic, like around schools). So that's also something to consider, and a drawback to this particular choice.
- cucumber3732842 3mo agoMorning commutes are way less worse than afternoon ones so it makes sense to prioritize later daylight.
- kixiQu 3mo ago> Which is better is ultimately subjective Most folks subjectively prefer having light after work because that's when it's more fun to do stuff. Unfortunately, the health impacts are (objectively!) worse under permanent daylight saving time. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7954020/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7954020/ https://www.ama-assn.org/public-health/prevention-wellness/sleep-doctors-orders-use-standard-time-365-days-year https://www.ama-assn.org/public-health/prevention-wellness/s... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6436388/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6436388/ (I've heard there's been some debate on this one, though the association positions stay the same)
- 3mo ago
- al_borland 3mo agoI think saying on one time is better than switching back and forth, but we should really stick to Standard time. I know people like it to be light out later in the evenings, but they tried this before in the 1970s and it didn't last long[0]. It turns out not only do people not like it to be dark late into the morning, but it also makes it unsafe for kids going to school. Looking at sunrise and sunset times[1], people will spend a significant portion of the year with dark mornings. Historically, year-round DST was done to conserve energy during war time and other energy crunches. Standard time seems like the more balanced choice for year-round use... that's probably why it was the standard to begin with. As difficult as these things are to pass, and as disruptive as they are (especially now with software update requirements), getting it right instead of making the same mistakes of the past seems important. [0] https://washingtonian.com/2022/03/15/the-us-tried-permanent-daylight-saving-time-in-the-70s-people-hated-it/ https://washingtonian.com/2022/03/15/the-us-tried-permanent-... [1] https://savestandardtime.com/maps/ https://savestandardtime.com/maps/
- saulpw 3mo agoI hate to say it, but you're the problem. One time is better than switching, but we switch because no matter which time standard we choose, some group of people takes issue. The only way we can get one time standard is if we all let go of our highest preference and allow the second-best thing to succeed. Otherwise we'll be doomed to third-best (devolving into worst--see Indiana and Arizona and all the other carveouts within carveouts) for eternity.
- gboss 3mo agoThis is why I think we have to switch. Everyone should be equally miserable
- harimau777 3mo agoI mean, I'd rather us keep switching than have perma-daylights savings time. At least then things aren't messed up for at least half of the year.
- al_borland 3mo ago
- rho138 3mo ago_This_ is the great herculean push for workers rights from Gen X — abolishment of the cruel Standard Time! What a fucking joke that this is what we send people to washington for, while citizens are summarily executed in the streets and cost of living skyrockets.
- encrypted_bird 3mo agoSomething I genuinely don't understand: everyone is saying that with DST, the sun rises later in the day. But as someone who doesn't work first shift and regularly goes to bed anytime between 04:00 and 06:00, I can tell you with certainty that in the summer time (when DST is active), the sun always comes up *way* sooner. I typically despise DST because I always struggle to fall asleep due to the damned sun coming up right as I go to bed. Meanwhile, in the winter, the sun typically doesn't start to rise until closer to 08:00.
- EGG_CREAM 3mo agoThe sun would come up even earlier without dst. It’s just the earth’s tilt that’s causing the sun to come up earlier after spring, nothing we did to the clocks.
- encrypted_bird 3mo agoSo what you're saying is I have it backward. In the summer, without DST, the sun would rise like an hour earlier than with DST. Is that correct?
- moi2388 3mo agoYes. You advance the clock 1 hour. So 06:00 becomes 07:00, so the run rises 1 hour later. So getting rid of DST makes it 06:00 instead of 07:00
- encrypted_bird 3mo agoOh. Hey, thanks y'all for explaining it to me. :)
- EGG_CREAM 3mo ago[dead]
- delichon 3mo agoThis was passed in 1974, then repealed a few months later by popular demand. https://www.joshbarro.com/p/this-week-in-the-mayonnaise-clinic-ba9 https://www.joshbarro.com/p/this-week-in-the-mayonnaise-clin...
- matthewowen 3mo agoThis is a bad change. I think it’s bad for kids to have to walk to school before sunrise. Fundamentally it is useful to have more sunlight later in the evenings in the summer. It’s also useful to have sunlight early enough in the morning for conventional “start of day” times. Changing the clocks meets these. Yes, time is arbitrary and throughout the year we could collectively change the times we do things at to better match daylight hours but this is obviously much worse and harder to coordinate than changing the time for everyone all together’
- christophilus 3mo agoThere are plenty of northern climate countries that get by just fine without DST. Also, if it’s genuinely a problem in a specific location for some reason, that specific location can just say, “Let’s all start work at 9 rather than 8 for the winter months” rather than impose an absolutely absurd song and dance on the entire time zone.
- matthewowen 3mo agoThe majority of the US population lives at latitudes that would be affected by the “sun rises after 8am in winter” problem. As I said before, changing the clocks is a much more efficient approach than getting every school and workplace (etc) to change their hours. It’s not true IMO that “plenty” of northern countries do without it. Russia doesn’t (since 2014) but their time zones are a mess anyway. Iceland doesn’t. Otherwise pretty much every European country does.
- christophilus 3mo agoHm. A quick search suggests that 70 countries out of 195 have daylight savings time, with a fair number of those considering abolishing it. Most of those are in Europe. 73 countries have abolished DST, and 106 have never had it in the first place. Not 100% sure on those stats. They come from AI, and I only spot-checked it. But yeah. Most northern climate countries do currently have DST.
- mizzao 3mo ago
- jambalaya8 3mo agoGreat. This will break every last log, timestamp, and record everywhere. We don't need any of that. I remember this exact debate going on in the south pacific in 2007.
- dooglius 3mo agoWhy would it?
- christophilus 3mo agoWho is logging in a local time zone rather than UTC?