Daylight Saving Time Isn't Worth It, European Parliament Members Say (arstechnica.com) 425
AmiMoJo shares a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this week, the European Parliament voted 384 to 153 to review whether Daylight Saving Time is actually worth it. Although the resolution it voted on was non-binding, the majority reflected a growing dissatisfaction with a system that has been used by the U.S., Canada, most of Europe, and regions in Asia, Africa, and South America for decades. The resolution asked the European Commission to review the costs and benefits of Daylight Saving Time. If the EU were to abolish Daylight Saving Time, it would need approval of the majority of EU member states and EU Parliament members.
"We think that there's no need to change the clocks," Ireland Member of European Parliament (MEP) Sean Kelly said to Deutsche Welle. "It came in during World War One, it was supposed to be for energy savings -- the indications are that there are very few energy savings, if any -- and there are an awful lot of disadvantages to both human beings and animals that make it outdated at this point."
"We think that there's no need to change the clocks," Ireland Member of European Parliament (MEP) Sean Kelly said to Deutsche Welle. "It came in during World War One, it was supposed to be for energy savings -- the indications are that there are very few energy savings, if any -- and there are an awful lot of disadvantages to both human beings and animals that make it outdated at this point."
Parliament also voted to keep DST for now (Score:5, Interesting)
There were actually two resolutions on Daylight Saving Time. The other was about abolishing DST and was rejected: https://www.timeanddate.com/ne... [timeanddate.com]
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So they voted to find out the pros and cons rather than just going with a gut feeling to rip out the existing system.
Seems reasonable to me.
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) (Score:2)
I mean nowadays it is possible to save energy on lighting by less radical measures.
However, it would be very hard to cancel Daylight Saving Time. As there will be undoubtedly political populists trying to construct a career by defending this tradition.
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LED lamps consume several times less electrical energy than incandescent bulbs.
I mean nowadays it is possible to save energy on lighting by less radical measures.
However, it would be very hard to cancel Daylight Saving Time. As there will be undoubtedly political populists trying to construct a career by defending this tradition.
A good part of opposition to reducing lighting energy came from governments pushing "energy saving" (ie, CFL) bulbs -- "energy saving bulb" being literally the name used in trade, at least in Poland. These bulbs cause massive pollution, are very dangerous if broken, and are unhealthy for eyesight (both due to flickering and bad spectrum).
Despite these flaws, legislation sounded like "energy saving" are the second coming while incadescents are Hitler reincarnated; obviously, some favours from CFL makers were involved. This made the public lose any trust in such measures.
And as most voters are irrational, a voice that says "THEY want to again change things contrary to what we always did" can indeed gain some votes.
Which "Energy saving" bulbs are you talking about? ... cause the OP was taking about LED bulbs which are solid state not Fluorescent ones. Compact fluorescent are particularly high in mercury and they are (or they used to be) a bit of a bitch to recycle. LED lights also contain various kinds of metals including lead,nickel, some also contain arsenic and (surprise, surprise) copper. However, incandescent bulbs contain very high levels of lead and mercury so it's not as if we are transitioning to something mo
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The name "energy saving" means explicitly CFL in common labelling in shops and in advertising in Poland; I believe I pointed so well enough -- if that wasn't clear, then sorry. LEDs are thus called "LED bulbs" or "LED lighting" (when in non-bulb shape), to disambiguate.
Daylights Savings is like emoji (Score:2)
Emoji forces single language software to support Unicode and DST forces single time zone software to support different time zones. And screw up badly.
That's the only positive thing about DST that I can think of.
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Ridiculous! If some software is designed for use in a single timezone it isn't broken and saying so is just pure crap!
No Daylight (Score:2)
While We're At It... (Score:3)
I'm pretty sure that most of the folks who vote in the EU parliament don't work five days a week or more. So how about we declare that Friday is actually part of a 3-day weekend and that the working week is only 4 days long?
Given the amount of time I'm asked to spend in pointless meetings each week, if I could schedule those to run back-to-back on a Friday I could achieve this with at worst zero drop in productivity...
I'd rather we did this than worry about the time of day...
y2k problem repeat (Score:2)
I'd really like getting rid of DST. But I expect quite a fallout caused by devices keeping time (and observing DST) but not getting updates. We have witnessed struggles with operating systems, when governments decide to move time change date and companies fail to apply upgraded tzdata package. With embedded devices this will be many times worse.
Re:y2k problem repeat (Score:4, Informative)
Nb. don't believe this happens often? See the example from one random distribution:
https://koji.fedoraproject.org... [fedoraproject.org]
Look into the changelog – how often governments change their minds and how few days are left to react.
Restructure this whole world clock business (Score:2, Interesting)
I've always thought that the use of time zones was a bit of an anachronism. Pick a longitude; the international date line is as good a place as any, and that sets the time and date for everyone on the planet.
So you end up going to work at 22:00 and return at 08:00 and it's all in the daylight, so what , these are just numbers. Travel planning will be simplified and so will arranging meetings where people join on-line from different time zones.
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This would be more confusing for travellers though. For example, say you book a flight to Korea, and you arrive at 5:00... Should you be planning to go directly to your business meeting, or getting dinner... Will the trains be running, will the shops be open if you need to grab something? And what is the best strategy to manage your jetlag?
Ticking over midnight while at work could also be problematic for some people. Days nicely batch things together.
And that's before you get to the fighting over where the
Re:Restructure this whole world clock business (Score:5, Insightful)
So you end up going to work at 22:00 and return at 08:00 and it's all in the daylight, so what , these are just numbers. Travel planning will be simplified and so will arranging meetings where people join on-line from different time zones.
You optimize for the common use case.......talking about 9:00AM and expecting people to know it's morning is a much more common use case than needing to change your watch when you travel.
If I say, "Oh, it's 7:00PM in your time zone?" everyone already knows it's after standard business hours there.
Who benefits from DST? (Score:3)
Everyone hates it, everyone thinks it has adverse effects, and yet we still have it. Is someone making a buck off it? Is the Little League lobby running the country? Do the lizardmen who've infiltrated all the world's governments like it?
What's the deal here?
Whats the point in having accurate clocks... (Score:2)
... and then setting them an hour out? Plenty of idiots above have talked about the "extra hour" of daylight they get with DST. Err, no, you don't. The earth doesn't rotate any quicker, you get exactly the same amount of light FFS. Want some more during winter? Then get your arses out of bed an hour earlier! All DST does is fool your mind into think its an hour later than it actually is so whats the point? Just keep the clocks the same and get up an hour earlier.
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An extra hour of light in the morning before you get to work is useless to most people. They want to have an extra hour of sunlight after work. Life has also generally shifted from early morning hours to staying awake longer in the evenings. It's not unreasonable to assume that most people upon sincere reflection would prefer to have DST for the whole of the year, i.e., have their time zone shifted +1 and getting rid of DST.
good (Score:2)
Jet lag for every human being, twice a year ... insanely stupid.
But at least the kids' soccer game has more light! Bleah.
and yes, get off my lawn ...
Oh great (Score:3)
I'd love to see the end of DST, but if this is agreed to by all the EU member states then it'll be a nightmare for us in the UK, because the lunatics are in charge of the asylum, so 1). They can't agree on anything, and 2). If the EU does it, it means that it's undemocratic and bad.
Er... (Score:2)
What animals are inconvenienced by DST?
I mean sure, Rover might get his walk an hour later, or Bessie get milked an hour earlier, but it's not like these expectations are ENTIRELY the result of habituation to human schedules in the first place.
It's not like Yogi Bear is like "oh shit, I was supposed to steal that picnic basket at 8 and I missed it because I forgot to reset my goddamned alarm clock..."
It's LONG past time... (Score:2)
...for this Daylight Savings Time nonsense to die....
Go to permanent DST (Score:5, Insightful)
Earlier this week, the European Parliament voted 384 to 153 to review whether Daylight Saving Time is actually worth it. Although the resolution it voted on was non-binding, the majority reflected a growing dissatisfaction with a system that has been used by the U.S., Canada, most of Europe, and regions in Asia, Africa, and South America for decades.
I don't think anyone minds Daylight Saving Time itself. What they mind is the needless switching back and forth. Personally I want us to go to Daylight Saving Time permanently. It gives me the most daylight hours in the evening after work when I can made the most use of them. I don't need noon to be the point in the day when the sun is highest overhead. I'm perfectly fine with noon being defined in the manner with the greatest utility for the most people. If that means noon is what currently is 3pm then so be it.
If we get rid of DST (Score:3)
How will I know when to change my smoke alarm batteries?
Re:Day Light Savings no Longer meets todays needs (Score:5, Informative)
> being robbed of 2 hours of potential daylight after work and school.
What the fuck are you talking about?
DST moves the clock forward by 1 hour. That means it stays light longer.
The exact opposite of what you are saying.
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Exactly, and that's why I strongly prefer DST for the whole year. Without DST it would be dark an hour sooner in the summer. I don't want that. Where I live (Portugal) people stay up long and get up late. Our time zone is wrong.
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Try Spain, they are an hour ahead - it's still dark in winter when the kids leave to go to school in Galicia.
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Well that's too bad. In the winter, it's dark when I go to work, and dark when I get home, and since I have no windows - if it's a busy time I could quite easily go from December to Feburary without seeing proper daylight.
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Try that a little further north and it means that in Winter you leave your house in the morning when it's pitch black night, so you can see the sun set when you come home. Well, if you come home early.
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You do realise that the actual amount of daylight doesn't change , right? Its just a number on a clock. If you want more light then get up earlier! All DST does is fool your mind into thinking its later than it is so whats the difference?
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I guess you've never heard of flexitime.
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Do you have comprehension problems? What difference does it make if the clock says 5pm and you leave work then, or it says the real time of 4pm and you leave then having got into work an hour earlier? The real time you leave work will be the same. Are you too dumb to understand this?
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I don't give a fuck either way. If it makes you happy, crank those hands on the clock by 6 hours so you get to work when it's (now) midnight so you can get out of work with sunrise, but stop putting me into jetlag twice a year.
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Yes the current system gives more sun in the summer months.
There is exactly the same amount of sun in summer regardless of whether the clocks are put forward, backwards or left exactly the same.
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Because that way you leave your home in the morning when it's not dawning, but when it's NIGHT.
I don't know about you, but around here, the sun rises at midsummer at 4am and sets at 8pm, unadjusted. So let's say we shift that by 2 hours so it rises at 6am and sets at 10pm. Great.
Now midwinter. Sunrise at 8am, set at 4pm. And if you shift that by 2 hours to get some evening rays until 6pm that means the sun rises at TEN in the morning.
I don't know about you, but I should be at work before that time. So you'd
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Everyone speaks of circadian rhythms, and how important they are. Part of that? Is sunlight, blue skies in the morning. *That* supposedly syncs things up.
So while I really don't care that much about the time zone changing, if people are going to want 'more sun at night', that's really the wrong reason to do it today. If we keep it, it should be so that the sun appears in the morning. That way, when the majority of people are in transit to work?
They get sunlight, blue skies in their eyes.
But really, all
Re: Day Light Savings no Longer meets todays needs (Score:2)
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You've responded to me, yet I don't see how your comment applies to what I've said in my post. I didn't advocate changing anything, or modifying anything.
My comment about "if we keep it" was meant to stress that we shouldn't *change* it so that there is more light at night. That's the post I was responding to..
In terms of "go to bed when the sun is shining", all I said is that it's supposedly good to have sunlight + the blue sky in the morning. To sync things up. This doesn't mean you have to watch the
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So while I really don't care that much about the time zone changing, if people are going to want 'more sun at night', that's really the wrong reason to do it today. If we keep it, it should be so that the sun appears in the morning. That way, when the majority of people are in transit to work?
Why? In the mornings, people get up and go to work and sit inside. In the evenings, they go out and can, if there is any, enjoy the daylight. When GWB extended summer time in the US, it had no measurable impact on any sector of the economy, except sports clubs, which saw an increase in custom, because people had more sunlight in the evenings when they could go and enjoy themselves.
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Why? Really? My post says precisely why. Circadian rhythms.
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Yep
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The farm day started at sunrise, irrespective of what it said on the clock.
There's no reason why the school day couldn't have started later, tying it to the arbitrary position of clock hands is stupid when you're in a location which results in the sunrise/sunset times changing significantly depending on the time of year.
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Re:Animals read clocks? (Score:5, Interesting)
Deer, as an example, get used to roads being safe to cross until a certain point in the morning. All well and good, but suddenly that point shifts by an entire hour without any warning that the deer can perceive. Result: More animals hit by traffic.
Most animals live by their circadian rhythm. Wake up at a certain time, eat at a certain time, sleep at a certain time. For farm animals like cows and pigs, this fits into their daily routine as livestock. But suddenly everything shifts by an hour, resulting in anything ranging from confusion to stress. And for what? So the stores turn on their all-night LEDs at the same time they always do?
Re:Animals read clocks? (Score:5, Funny)
Because they too have to set their alarm clocks to wake up an hour earlier, but as they don't have jobs to go to suffer from higher levels of depression as a result and so are more likely to commit suicide.
This is why you see more roadkill around the time the clocks change.
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First, livestock doesn't give a shit either way. A cow wants to be milked at at certain time, whether you call that time 6am or 7am the cow doesn't care. So this may not be disadvantageous to the animal, but certainly to the person that has to deal with the animal because he or she cannot heed the dictate of DST simply because the animals don't give a fuck about it.
Then there's animals that we're a threat to. Animals have a pretty good idea of timing, oddly enough, and if they learn that you avoid roads dur
Re:EU Parliament? (Score:4, Funny)
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none who hold democracy dear
In other words, the European Commission, which holds all the power.
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Re:EU Parliament? (Score:5, Insightful)
Direct democracy is even more dangerous. It just takes a well-crafted series of facebook posts to convince millions they're in danger, and their votes can be swayed.
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I used to be a fan of direct democracy. Why not just vote on everything now that technology makes voting cheap and reliable, right?
But the reality is that most people aren't interested enough to educate themselves about important topics, but want to participate anyway. Even the ones who seem to be engaged are often really just angry because of decades of abusive Daily Mail headlines warping their perception of the world and baiting them every single day.
Someone will now accuse me of being a fascist who gets
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However during the referendum on the treaty with the Ukraine I saw kind
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What about direct democracy in the small - the things people actually interact with daily or at least several times per month?
Then they can see the effects of their choices faster.
Also this would allow a more dynamic process by allowing people to together move towards a (local) system that works according to their wants and needs.
This could be done for instance by having several periods with increasing length so that the first vote will have a short period of validity, the second vote for the same question
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appointed by whom ?
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> those people are appointed appointed by whom ?
Russian hackers, of course.
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The Turtles, obviously!
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So, who were the candidates for president? How many votes did the second place get? (The answer, is zero, because the president is appointed in a really stupid way that in no way reflects democracy).
Re:Good in some areas (Score:5, Insightful)
65N here and I haven't met a single person who thinks DST is a good idea, even when the clocks go forward.
Just as the autumn proper ends and it turns really dark, grey and nasty for November-season, you lose an hour of daylight in the evening along with a good chunk of your will to live. By the time you get to December the sun might bother to drag its arse over the horizon by 10:30, but it'll never get above the trees and it'll be back in bed by 2:30. The kids are going to school in the dark and coming home in the dark, whether we faff about with the clock or not.
Here, DST is a swift kick in the nuts when you need it the least. Much further north and there's no daylight to save.
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Take a wild guess why Iceland never bothered to join the idiots club.
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Well, yes, but without "summer time" we wouldn't have "winter time". And in the summer we have so much daylight we have to black it out if we want any sleep, so (until we can bottle the stuff) why would we want to save it then?
Why do we have to piss around with the clocks at all?
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The solution is to take sun from the summer and move it to the winter!
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Without DST you'd have less light in the evenings in the summer, and the same bleak dark winter days that you already complain about in the winter.
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Given that the sun here sets well after midnight in summer and is back up again before 4am, and I've seen people out having a picnic in broad daylight at 2am, summer evenings really aren't an issue. Spring and autumn, though, sure. If we could have permanent DST, great; it's the changing back and forth this half-time half-assed DST implementation brings that makes it suck a pain.
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Without DST you'd have less light in the evenings in the summer, and the same bleak dark winter days that you already complain about in the winter.
Assuming the solution to abolishing DST is literally to abolish DST rather than the sensible approach: make a zone-by-zone decision on whether to stay permanently on DST or non-DST.
Most of England would probably be best on permanent DST - unfortunately, Scotland probably needs its own time zone. Maybe that can be fixed if Scotland break away so they can stay in the EU... Trouble is, in the current political climate, the Daily Mail is gonna be shouting "you can take our Greenwich Mean Time from our cold de
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In Summer it's virtually impossible to get the kids to bed at a sane time because it's light outside until about 10pm. You think that makes any parents really happy?
That seems to be the consensus (Score:3)
I think most people agree with you. Having the extra daylight in the evening is nice. Very few people like standard time ("Winter" time).
It's about time we abolished this idiocy. Assuming the EU actually listens to the populace, then we will all just shift to permanent DST, which is the same as shifting one time-zone to the right.
The chances of the EU listening to the populace? Variable, sort of like a lottery.
Re:Yes, finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem I have with getting rid of it is that I very, very strongly prefer the summer time - but the "original" time is winter time. I want DST for the whole of the year.
Re:Yes, finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
Set your alarm clock an hour earlier then
As a morning person myself, I just do things earlier in the day then others tend to do. Chances are your job will be slightly accommodating, allowing you get in an hour early and leave an hour early. As this normally expands the coverage in the company.
Re:Yes, finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to love coming in to work early, because I could dos about posting on Slashdot while no-one else was around, and then knock off early and post on Slashdot from home for a few extra hours ever evening.
Then I realized I can just post on Slashdot all day at work on no-one seems to notice, so I only get up just in time to roll in to work right on time.
You think I'm joking.
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I heard a proposal on Car Talk for what you want. It's call "Daily Savings Time" . Each day, at 2pm the clock is advanced an hour, so you lose an hour of work. Each day at 2am the clock is moved back an hour, so you gain an hour of sleep. Presto!
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Where do I sign?
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As far as I'm concerned you can turn the clock by 12 hours or whatever makes you happy, as long as it STAYS THAT WAY.
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You're an idiot if you think that standard work times could be changed as easily as an arbitrary time zone convention.
Re: Yes, finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
And having fixed standard work times is just as idiotic as the idea of daylight saving...
The majority of us don't work in fields or require natural daylight to do our jobs anymore.
Many of us have to deal with clients or suppliers in other countries who don't work at the same time anyway.
Many businesses are intentionally open outside of regular working hours because that's the only time many customers can go there (retail, restaurants etc).
Travel congestion is a serious problem in terms of time wasted, the unpleasantness of the congestion and environmental impact. You end up with transport infrastructure thats massively overcrowded for a few hours a day, and mostly idle for the rest of the day/night.
Many businesses operate 24/7.
Many call centers are located far away from the locations they serve (eg lots of indian call centers serve customers in the us and uk despite a huge timezone difference).
Just because something has always been done a certain way, doesn't mean that is still the best way.
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And yet there often are (gasp) reasons as to why things are the way they are. Maybe you need to be in the office 8 to 5 because customers expect to be able to reach you? Or co-workers who want to talk to you can? Or there's an early shift because the UPS truck comes at 4pm to pick up product and producing something at 4:01 is worthless?
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I guess it should be doable to "retrain" customers to reach you at different times. And with easier and easier telepresence, being able to talk with a coworker is by no means tied to being in the same place at the same time anymore. Most of my communication is with people I never met and will most likely never meet.
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Retrain customers you say? HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!!
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!!
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!!
Oh, you were serious? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
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Re: Yes, finally. (Score:3)
I just walk into my downtown bank branch, sign my name, and wait 0-5 minutes. Find a new bank.
Shared schedules matter (Score:5, Interesting)
And having fixed standard work times is just as idiotic as the idea of daylight saving...
You've never tried to manage a business have you? There is a lot of benefit to having most companies work predictable schedules. Real, tangible, measurable, economic benefit. If you worked in a company like mine you'd find that it's really hard to run an assembly line without people showing up at the same time each day. Good luck running a hospital with people coming and going whenever they feel like it. Have fun running a restaurant when the waitstaff or cooks can come and go whenever.
Many of us have to deal with clients or suppliers in other countries who don't work at the same time anyway.
And far more of us do work with clients who are nearby and need to be able to interact with us on a predictable schedule. It is a LOT easier to arrange this if most businesses have roughly similar or highly predicable schedules.
Many businesses operate 24/7.
Many more do not. What is your point?
Re: Yes, finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Yes, finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
We've done that a long time ago. We even did away with a having to be at work at a certain time. And guess what: It works.
Yes, some people start at 6am. Some come in around 11am. But there's plenty of overlap that you can get a meeting scheduled, and a lot of NON-overlap so you can actually get work done, too, because you can't stuff that time with more meetings. Which led to people actually thinking before scheduling yet another useless hour long meeting for something that can be resolved in 2 emails.
This way the ones that want some precious afternoon rays can get them by getting out around 3pm while those that value their morning sleep can arrive just before lunch (and are actually awake by then instead of waddling in like zombies at 9am and require an hour and three coffee just to be barely functional).
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These days, you're lucky to find someone (competent) answering phones from 9 to 5.
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if you have store opening hours from 09:00 to 18:00, this means that problems with the POS will be during those times. That means that the IT people who deal with those issues must be available. No, this will not be all of them.
This is another of my pet peeves: Having store opening hours the majority of which fall in the time when most people with jobs can't visit the store. Unless you're something like a coffee shop with a large customer base that grabs a cup on the way to work, your most important business hours are likely to be the couple of hours in the middle of the day over which everyone else's lunch breaks are spread and the time after 17:00 when other people leave work. Changing your opening times to 11:00-20:00 would l
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All the DST-lovers always try to pretend that it's impossible to adjust work hours.
That's a stupid argument. Walk down any street and take note of the business hours. Every business keeps different hours; they adjust their times based on day of the week and holidays; even having different hours in summer vs winter is fairly common. This conception that people have that we need DST so that everyone will work the same schedule is simply false. People already can and do account for the fact that working ho
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Time zone change: uniform change for all of society
versus
Individually changing all bus schedules, plane schedules, work schedules, child care schedules, school schedules, TV and radio programs, and so forth.
You don't see any difference?
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Being rude louder doesn't improve your point.
As it happens the cemetery has a sensible opening schedule within sight of my desk right now that varies by month to acknowledge that it's not good to have people wandering around in there after dark. It's not that hard.
Another example: our local schools already coordinate on opening hours and holidays to avoid creating problems for parents. Adjusting the hours to something sensible and safe by (half-)term probably would not be hard.
9-5 never made that much sen
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The OP was an idiot in the sense of stubbornly insisting on a point instead of just admitting that he was mistaken, because he pointed out in a fairly smartass way the obvious fact that the hours on the clock are an arbitrary convention, thereby missing the whole point of DST, which is exactly that. The hours on the clock are an arbitrary binding convention, so if you want to change the relation of society as a whole to the daylight hours, then for Christ's sake adjust the clock rather than changing all ti
Re: Yes, finally. (Score:4, Informative)
The whole idea of DST and changing time zones is that it's way easier to change the hands on the clock - and arbitrary but binding convention - than actually changing ten thousands of time tables, work schedules, bus and metro routes, etc.
Re: Yes, finally. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not changing anything seems to be the more sensible alternative.
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Re:Yes, finally. (Score:5, Informative)
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I believe the message to which you are replying would answer the question that you have asked, ie one proposes the other disposes in this case.
Rgds
Damon
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The vast majority of us are represented by people we didn't vote for, yet somehow when it comes to the EU it's an indicator that the system is undemocratic.
One of my MEPs is Nigel Farage (the MEP with the 2nd worse attendance record) - I didn't vote for him.
I didn't vote for my Prime Minister (as I'm not in her constituency)
I didn't vote for MP either
In fact, I've never lived in a constituency where I was represented by the person I voted for, somehow I've always lived in uber-safe seats.
Re:Yes, finally. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a difference between having the opportunity to elect your representative, versus a bureaucratic appointment. Theoretically elected representatives are swayed by feedback from their constituency. A bureaucrat only answers to the person that appointed him.