Should We 'Heed the Science and Abolish Daylight Saving Time'? (msn.com) 252
Today much of the world honors an annual tradition: setting their clocks backwards by one hour. "I hope you enjoy it," writes Boston Globe Jeff Jacoby.
In an essay titled "Heed the science and abolish daylight saving time," Jacoby writes "I also hope this is the last year we have to go through this business of shifting our clocks ahead, and that by this time next year we'll be back on standard time for good." I am not a fan of daylight saving time, and if the polls are accurate, neither are most Americans. According to a 2019 survey by the Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center, 71 percent of the public wants to put an end to the twice-yearly practice of changing clocks... Most of the rest of the world doesn't want it either. In Asia, Africa, and South America, it's virtually nonexistent. Most of Australia and many of the nations of the South Pacific eschew it, as do Russia and most of the former Soviet republics. The European Parliament voted by a large margin to end daylight saving time across the European Union, though whether to implement that change is left up to each EU member state...
The point of "saving" daylight was to save fuel: Congress believed that by shifting the clock so daylight extended later into the evening, the law would reduce demand for electricity and thereby conserve oil. But researchers attempting to measure the effects of clock-changing on energy savings have found them pretty elusive... But daylight saving time doesn't just fail to deliver the single most important benefit expected of it. It also generates a slew of harms. In the days following the onset of daylight time each March, there is a measurable increase in suicides, atrial fibrillation, strokes, and heart attacks. Workplace injuries climb. So do fatal car crashes and emergency room visits. There is even evidence that judges hand down harsher sentences. All of which helps explain the growing chorus of scientists calling for an end to daylight saving time. The public-health problems stem not just from the loss of an hour of sleep once a year but from the ongoing disruption to the human circadian clock...
We should no longer be thinking about "springing forward" and "falling back" in terms of personal preference or convenience but should be focusing instead on the proven degradation to human well-being. Scientists now understand vastly more about the workings and importance of circadian rhythm than they did when clock-shifting was instituted decades ago. There is a growing medical consensus that what we've been doing with our clocks each spring is unhealthy.
It's time to stop doing it.
In an essay titled "Heed the science and abolish daylight saving time," Jacoby writes "I also hope this is the last year we have to go through this business of shifting our clocks ahead, and that by this time next year we'll be back on standard time for good." I am not a fan of daylight saving time, and if the polls are accurate, neither are most Americans. According to a 2019 survey by the Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center, 71 percent of the public wants to put an end to the twice-yearly practice of changing clocks... Most of the rest of the world doesn't want it either. In Asia, Africa, and South America, it's virtually nonexistent. Most of Australia and many of the nations of the South Pacific eschew it, as do Russia and most of the former Soviet republics. The European Parliament voted by a large margin to end daylight saving time across the European Union, though whether to implement that change is left up to each EU member state...
The point of "saving" daylight was to save fuel: Congress believed that by shifting the clock so daylight extended later into the evening, the law would reduce demand for electricity and thereby conserve oil. But researchers attempting to measure the effects of clock-changing on energy savings have found them pretty elusive... But daylight saving time doesn't just fail to deliver the single most important benefit expected of it. It also generates a slew of harms. In the days following the onset of daylight time each March, there is a measurable increase in suicides, atrial fibrillation, strokes, and heart attacks. Workplace injuries climb. So do fatal car crashes and emergency room visits. There is even evidence that judges hand down harsher sentences. All of which helps explain the growing chorus of scientists calling for an end to daylight saving time. The public-health problems stem not just from the loss of an hour of sleep once a year but from the ongoing disruption to the human circadian clock...
We should no longer be thinking about "springing forward" and "falling back" in terms of personal preference or convenience but should be focusing instead on the proven degradation to human well-being. Scientists now understand vastly more about the workings and importance of circadian rhythm than they did when clock-shifting was instituted decades ago. There is a growing medical consensus that what we've been doing with our clocks each spring is unhealthy.
It's time to stop doing it.
Microwave on high for 7-8 minutes. (Score:2)
Wrong solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Ending DST is the wrong solution. Making it permanent is the best solution. Canadian provinces and US states can already opt out of DST. Unfortunately they aren't authorized to make it permanent. That's all we need is the federal legislation to authorize them to make the decision. Many if not most of them already want to, so authorize it and let them do the heavy lifting.
Re: (Score:3)
I've often thought that a candidate could probably win the US presidential election simply by promising to do away with Daylight Savings Time and nothing else.
I don't think many people care which way it goes . (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally agree with the keep DST and make it permanent. I think what people are sick of is the spring forward, fall back nonsense. They don't care if we make DST permanent like Sen Rubio proposes or just do away with it, It's the clock changing people don't like!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Keeping DST is going to be great in the winter in northern places like Bemidji, Minnesota.
It's cute that you think Anything Missesota is northern.
Without the fall back, the sun won't rise until after 9:00 AM in December there.
And later than that for literally every Canadian province. Most people already go to work in the morning before sunrise in the winter anyway. What does it matter if the sun rises at 9am or 10am? It's just nice to have a little sun when you get OFF work at 4 or 5. It truly sucks to get up, go to work in the dark, then come out and go home in the dark.
Much of the world? (Score:5, Insightful)
Editor David says Today much of the world honors an annual tradition: setting their clocks backwards by one hour
Which is only accurate, if you conflate "much of the world" with USA. As the only other territory where DST exists, Europe, does not change time today, but in two weeks.
P.S. personally I like DST, because it is fun to stir up life routines from time to time
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Come on, this is slashdot. It was long ago declared a fact free zone. :-)
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Also, it is only accurate if by backwards you mean forwards. No wonder it causes trouble.
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Europe isn't the other other territory were DST exists. Paraguay and Chile still have DST in South America, 70% of Australia, New Zealand and a number of Pacific Island nations started theirs last year, and are about to end it soon. A number of Middle East and North African countries also use DST.
Re: Much of the world? (Score:2)
Re: Much of the world? (Score:2)
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P.S. personally I like DST, because it is fun to stir up life routines from time to time
But DST IS a routine, and a stupid and costly one.
If you want to stir up life, you could suggest we have like a random number generator running every week, deciding a time zone for each area. And make it able to include funky time zones too, like the ones that have 30 or even 15 minute offsets. Now, that's fun!
Re: (Score:2)
P.S. personally I like DST, because it is fun to stir up life routines from time to time
It used to matter to me, but now it doesn't. All my clocks adjust automatically. Today I didn't even notice it was DST until I read this article.
Greetings from Canada (Score:2)
Which is only accurate, if you conflate "much of the world" with USA. As the only other territory where DST exists, Europe...
Used to be true (Score:2)
The US used to change clocks the same time as the rest of the world (it's more than just the EU.) Then France refused to invade Iraq with us and our POTUS started calling "French Fries" "Freedom Fries" and moved the DST transition dates by a few weeks cause fuck the Europeans and coordination.
"Much of the world"? (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I can tell, only North America changes clocks today. Calling that "much of the world" isn't a good look, IMO.
Here's a list of transition dates in the first half of 2021, grouped by UTC date, listing the time zone ID - and of course, there are plenty of places that don't observe daylight saving time at all.
2021-01-16
Pacific/Fiji
2021-01-31
Africa/Juba
2021-03-14
America/Adak, America/Anchorage, America/Atka, America/Boise, America/Cambridge_Bay, America/Chicago, America/Denver, America/Detroit, America/Edmonton, America/Ensenada, America/Fort_Wayne, America/Glace_Bay, America/Goose_Bay, America/Grand_Turk, America/Halifax, America/Havana, America/Indiana/Indianapolis, America/Indiana/Knox, America/Indiana/Marengo, America/Indiana/Petersburg, America/Indiana/Tell_City, America/Indiana/Vevay, America/Indiana/Vincennes, America/Indiana/Winamac, America/Indianapolis, America/Inuvik, America/Iqaluit, America/Juneau, America/Kentucky/Louisville, America/Kentucky/Monticello, America/Knox_IN, America/Los_Angeles, America/Louisville, America/Matamoros, America/Menominee, America/Metlakatla, America/Miquelon, America/Moncton, America/Montreal, America/Nassau, America/New_York, America/Nipigon, America/Nome, America/North_Dakota/Beulah, America/North_Dakota/Center, America/North_Dakota/New_Salem, America/Ojinaga, America/Pangnirtung, America/Port-au-Prince, America/Rainy_River, America/Rankin_Inlet, America/Resolute, America/Santa_Isabel, America/Shiprock, America/Sitka, America/St_Johns, America/Thule, America/Thunder_Bay, America/Tijuana, America/Toronto, America/Vancouver, America/Winnipeg, America/Yakutat, America/Yellowknife, Atlantic/Bermuda, CST6CDT, Canada/Atlantic, Canada/Central, Canada/Eastern, Canada/Mountain, Canada/Newfoundland, Canada/Pacific, Cuba, EST5EDT, MST7MDT, Mexico/BajaNorte, Navajo, PST8PDT, US/Alaska, US/Aleutian, US/Central, US/East-Indiana, US/Eastern, US/Indiana-Starke, US/Michigan, US/Mountain, US/Pacific
2021-03-21
Asia/Tehran, Iran
2021-03-25
Asia/Amman, Asia/Damascus
2021-03-26
Asia/Gaza, Asia/Hebron, Asia/Jerusalem, Asia/Tel_Aviv, Israel
2021-03-27
Asia/Beirut
2021-03-28
Africa/Ceuta, America/Asuncion, America/Godthab, America/Nuuk, America/Scoresbysund, Antarctica/Troll, Arctic/Longyearbyen, Asia/Famagusta, Asia/Nicosia, Atlantic/Azores, Atlantic/Canary, Atlantic/Faeroe, Atlantic/Faroe, Atlantic/Jan_Mayen, Atlantic/Madeira, CET, EET, Eire, Europe/Amsterdam, Europe/Andorra, Europe/Athens, Europe/Belfast, Europe/Belgrade, Europe/Berlin, Europe/Bratislava, Europe/Brussels, Europe/Bucharest, Europe/Budapest, Europe/Busingen, Europe/Chisinau, Europe/Copenhagen, Europe/Dublin, Europe/Gibraltar, Europe/Guernsey, Europe/Helsinki, Europe/Isle_of_Man, Europe/Jersey, Europe/Kiev, Europe/Lisbon, Europe/Ljubljana, Europe/London, Europe/Luxembourg, Europe/Madrid, Europe/Malta, Europe/Mariehamn, Europe/Monaco, Europe/Nicosia, Europe/Oslo, Europe/Paris, Europe/Podgorica, Europe/Prague, Europe/Riga, Europe/Rome, Europe/San_Marino, Europe/Sarajevo, Europe/Skopje, Europe/Sofia, Europe/Stockholm, Europe/Tallinn, Europe/Tirane, Europe/Tiraspol, Europe/Uzhgorod, Europe/Vaduz, Europe/Vatican, Europe/Vienna, Europe/Vilnius, Europe/Warsaw, Europe/Zagreb, Europe/Zaporozhye, Europe/Zurich, GB, GB-Eire, MET, Poland, Portugal, WET
2021-04-03
Antarctica/Macquarie, Antarctica/McMurdo, Antarctica/South_Pole, Australia/ACT, Australia/Adelaide, Australia/Broken_Hill, Australia/Canberra, Australia/Currie, Australia/Hobart, Australia/LHI, Australia/Lord_Howe, Australia/Melbourne, Australia/NSW, Australia/South, Australia/Sydney, Australia/Tasmania, Australia/Victoria, Australia/Yancowinna, NZ, NZ-CHAT, Pacific/Apia, Pacific/Auckland, Pacific/Chatham, Pacific/Norfolk
2021-04-04
America/Bahia_Banderas, America/Chihuahua, America/Mazatlan, America/Merida, America/Mexico_City, America/Monterrey, America/Santiago, Chile/Continental, Chile/EasterIsland, Mexico/BajaSur, Mexico/General, Pacific/Easter
2021-04-11
Africa/Casablanca, Africa/El_Aaiun
2021-05-16
Africa/Casablanca, Africa/El_Aaiun
Re: (Score:3)
The transition for Africa/Juba was not DST. It was South Sudan shifting from East African time to Central African time, to align with Sudan, Egypt and Libya.
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Sure - this was just "all transitions" within the first half of 2021.
Another drawback... (Score:5, Funny)
It also confuses EditorDavid, who can't figure out which way clocks move, despite it being mentioned twice by the author he's quoting. Maybe he'll figure it out in a few hours when his alarm wakes him up two too late.
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Maybe he lives in the southern hemisphere, where the clocks do go back an hour at this time of year.
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This explains the impetus for DST perfectly. It allows for time correction as various localities see fit. Or not.
It's why we have time zones, rather than setting a World clock at UTC (formerly GMT)... you know it is the middle of the night at your office in Belgium, so the email you send might not be immediately answered.
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This explains the impetus for DST perfectly.
This explains time zones, not DST. The only reason clocks are moved is to help retailers by keeping people out shopping before it gets dark.
Spring forward, (Score:2)
Fall back.
America != Most of the World (Score:2)
The rest of the worlds does it the 4th weekend of March, not the second.
Re: America != Most of the World (Score:2)
Most of Australia does not eschew it. (Score:3)
Incorrect. NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia all do it; Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland do not.
In my state, Western Australia, there have been four referendums on the question; and the people have voted "no" each time.
There are of course people agitating for a fifth referendum.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Most of Australia does not eschew it. (Score:2)
We should stop (Score:3, Insightful)
With the DST articles. Twice a year every year the same question and the same comments.
Thinking about it this a bit more.. perhaps this is too harsh. After all this time around there is an obvious error included just to provoke pedants.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The repeated discussion is important. It reveals all the "progressive" people who don't understand why things are the way they are. It's also a good showcase of the kind of fallacious arguments that people use to get what they want.
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The EU will probably do away with DST in the next few years. So repeated discussion and long term pressure does seem to have the desired effect.
As for this dismissive, arrogant attitude that opposition to DST is just because people don't understand it, well no wonder you are losing the argument. In fact I'd go so far as to say that there has been a majority in favour of doing away with DST for a while now, it's just politically a difficult thing to make happen and a fairly low priority.
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I didn't mean to summon you, but I kinda did, didn't I?
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It absolutely saves energy, and also ends up changing who pays for it.
Current estimates are between 0.5% to 0.2%. [scientificamerican.com] While it doesn't sound like much, across the US that is billions of dollars over the summer.
Individuals see the bulk of that savings, as most people in their homes turn their lights on later. Even though we use electricity rather than older candles and gas lamps, the price tag collectively is still notable. Even if that's just a buck in your electric bill each month, collectively it is consi
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All the more reason to abolish it!
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How else are we supposed to remember to change our clocks?
No need for it near the Equator (Score:2)
In Asia, Africa, and South America, it's virtually nonexistent.
There is a reason for that: at low latitudes, near the equator, daylight hours remain pretty constant throughout the year. Only countries in far northern, or southern, latitudes have a large seasonal variation in daylight which, as the name suggests, is the argument behind "daylight-saving" - although of course, it does not really save any at all it just shifts it to a different local time.
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In Asia, Africa, and South America, it's virtually nonexistent.
There is a reason for that: at low latitudes, near the equator, daylight hours remain pretty constant throughout the year. Only countries in far northern, or southern, latitudes have a large seasonal variation in daylight which, as the name suggests, is the argument behind "daylight-saving" - although of course, it does not really save any at all it just shifts it to a different local time.
There is no need for it here at halfway to the north pole either.
The whole thing reminds me of my friend that used to set his alarm clock's time a couple of minutes ahead so he'd get up on time. Of course, he knew it was ahead a little so he'd just hit snooze, and then set the alarm clock a few more minutes ahead the next day. This did not help him get up on time at all, but he kept doing it until it was like 30 minutes off.
Should We 'Heed the Science and Abolish Daylight S (Score:2)
I'm not going to invoke Betteridge here, because whether to keep or end DST can depend on **which part** of the science one listens to:
https://enddaylightsavingtime.... [enddayligh...ngtime.org]
https://www.livescience.com/60... [livescience.com]
https://enddaylightsavingtime.... [enddayligh...ngtime.org]
https://www.metro.us/daylight-... [metro.us]
Re: (Score:2)
... and those who argue for abolishing DST tend to ignore studies like these.
Heed the Science? (Score:2)
Of course. Also abandon time zones and use metric (Score:3)
One day is 10 dours of 100 dinutes each, each dinute divided into 100 deconds.
When we arrange zoom meetings, all use the same date and time, globally.
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Everyone using UTC time (or whatever other common time) would already be huge progress, yes.
Use one single, universal time zone (Score:2)
I mean going to a single time zone. So whenever something happens, it happens at one particular unique time.
This means that I may get up at 9:50 while somebody else may get up 4:80 (I am already using metric time here)
and we both see the sun going up when we get up.
Getting used to the specific range of time where the sun is up locally would eventually also have the advantage that times like
shop opening times can get adjusted much more easily and flexibly instead of having crazy timezones like in Spain, Vene
Yes (Score:2)
Yes, no one, absolutely no one likes to re-set the clocks twice per year. Even people who like DST. So this is a non-argument.
But people who say the don't like DST because they don't like setting their clocks, usually don't fully grasp the consequences of DST. And I'm sure they wouldn't like the sun coming up at 3am either. And I'd rather set my clocks twice per year than that.
DST does NOT make the sun shine longer. Just later. That's also a hint to everyone suggesting DST all year round.
Cargo cult science? (Score:2)
It is amazing that we can attribute all those negative occurrences to DST and not to the fact that we are sdentering the end of a period of prolonged gloom aka winter.
Heed the science (Score:2)
Yes, you already had me at "Heed the science".
Western Australia right all along (Score:2)
Western Australia has rejected daylight savings 4 times in state referendums. But there is always pressure to accept it. Seems like the public was right all along.
Obsession (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot is obsessed with this topic and I love you all for it.
It's not just slashdot though. It's twice a year on all these kind of sites. It's bad enough we have to keep fucking with the clocks for no good reason.
Yes (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Time is a collective truth. It doesn't matter what we call it as long as we agree. Just like driving on the right.
should we just stop... (Score:3)
...having this same discussion twice a year, every year, for 22 years, right on schedule, acting as if we've never had this discussion before?
Seriously. 45 times now. To coin a bad allusion, "like clockwork".
And it hasn't managed to change anybody's opinion.
Those who want sunlight say DST-365. Those who want normality say turn it off at the normal hour. Those who actually work with IT say "stop changing it because it is a pain in the arse to test the changes in my somewhat fragile scheduling software I inherited and I'd rather be writing real features than going through yet another DST testing change thank you very much (like when Russia went DST-365 for 4 years...and then switched back to flipping it every year).
Seriously. This isn't 'news'. The arguments aren't new. The counter-arguments aren't new. The fact that it is an emotional issue for everybody involved and not a logical one, but everybody claims their arguments are logical (well, they are reasonable, but irrational because we aren't agreeing on the premises), isn't new.
So how about this coming November there not be yet another one of these posts?
Which, is the real issue. (Score:2)
>"I am not a fan of daylight saving time, and if the polls are accurate, neither are most Americans."
Most Americans are against time changing, not against daylight saving time (summer time). What they rarely ask in these polls is if we want to stay on standard (winter time) or on summer time.
So, like most, I want time changing to stop, no matter what. So that is not the issue. Almost all the annoyance and bad effects are do to changing time, not which time we keep. There are almost no positives.
My pr
I fucking loathe DST. (Score:2)
My state was the last one to adopt it, mostly because of the complaints of trucking companies, IIRC. I remember making fun of the other states that had to change their clocks. Now we have to do it too. Nature doesn't care about your arbitrary abstraction inflicted only on the self-conscious. Pick a time and stick to it, this is fucking stupid.
I find dst useful (Score:2)
...to identify odious people who can't disregard trivial things.
Now that the "21st century didn't really start until 2001" is fairly irrelevant, they have little to talk about, so it's harder to recognize them.
Most Americans hate the alternative (Score:2)
Most Americans hate changing the clock.
But how many Americans want to drive to work in the dark in winter? Or to use the other choice, have an hour less of daylight for summer evenings?
That's the main reason we aren't changing. We'll complain about the twice-yearly clock changes, but we can't agree on what tradeoffs to make.
The clock as a scientific instrument (Score:2)
Timezone's are still useful though, otherwise train timetables get a bit funky. Daylight saving? Just change the work hours to 8AM to 4PM and we won't feel such a need to faff about so much with the numbers on the clocks.
The Exception that Proves the Rule (Score:2)
Normally, under Betteridge's Law, the answer would be "no". But in this case, it is "yes".
Switch is in two weeks in Europe (Score:2)
I look forward to the upcoming chaos in the next two weeks where all US/EU meetings will be off by one hour.
To answer the question.. (Score:2)
No.
Should We Just Abolish Daylight Saving Time?
Yes.
LEDs and energy. (Score:3)
The point of "saving" daylight was to save fuel: Congress believed that by shifting the clock so daylight extended later into the evening, the law would reduce demand for electricity and thereby conserve oil. But researchers attempting to measure the effects of clock-changing on energy savings have found them pretty elusive...
They found it not just elusive but somewhat counter-effective even back in the '60s. Maybe it saved a little lighting. But it cost more in air conditioning, with people home more in the hotter part of the day.
But with the change from predominantly incandescent and fluorescent lighting to LEDs (about 10x savings over incandescent, 2.5x over fluorescent), lighting has become a much smaller part of the load. Meanwhile air conditioning and other energy-intensive loads have increased - with improvements in efficiency swamped by increased adoption. So loads and fuel costs now rise, rather than fall, with DST.
Meanwhile the low cost (even unsubsidized) of photovoltaic generation and the rapid improvements in time-shifting energy storage technology are driving a shift from fuel-powered to renewable energy sources. The storage technology improvements are largely driven by the development of electric vehicles - which also enables a shift away from fuel-driven vehicles to battery powered or hybrid, charged by a mix of fuel-produced and renewable energy and/or with regenerative braking rather than pure fuel/brake propulsion.
So fuel and its costs are becoming less of an issue - and will become even less as time goes on.
So why are we bothering with this all-downside clock tweaking?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No, what is odd is that you believe the human daily rythm should be centered around 12.00. The choice of solar zenith as the point of the middle of the day was done for purpose of time keeping. Later came time-zone as trade, high speed travel and fast communication made local time unmanageable.
What skews the daily rythm today is electricity that let us stay up longer. If you ever have been, for an extended period, in a place where you don't use electricity for lighting and use the natural light, you will fi
Re: (Score:2)
No, what is odd is that you believe the human daily rythm should be centered around 12.00. The choice of solar zenith as the point of the middle of the day was done for purpose of time keeping.
Exactly, the solar noon is like the zero point of measurement systems. We don't move the zero point of temperature scales to room temperature just because our lives are centred around that temperature. Or for another DST analogy, we don't change the definition of metres/feet etc. for the summer, even though thermal expansion makes things longer.
If you detach the measurement of time from natural events, it ceases to work as a measurement system, and the numbers lose all meaning. It would be clearer if the
Re: (Score:2)
We've already accepted that solar noon is not 12:00 for pretty much everybody who doesn't live on a (latitude mod 15)=0. And we did move the zero point of both temperature scales that are in common use today to a locally-useful point.
Every time zone today is defined as an offset from a globally-agreed point. We'd just be changing the offset.
Re: (Score:2)
we did move the zero point of both temperature scales that are in common use today to a locally-useful point.
Can you elaborate on this, any examples? I've got the impression that measurement systems generally evolve from local to global/scientific. For example, from the distance between a king's nose to his extended fingertips, to one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the poles.
As for temperatures, Celsius used the freezing and boiling points of water, and it's still widely used in everyday life because the weather and other aspects of our lives are about water. The more scientifically based Kel
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Nothing prevent a society (or the local government of a society) to put its office / school open hour a hour earlier / later permanently. It is stupid to mess with the clock such that the clock noon is far away from local solar noon.
This might be something that has become significantly easier to do over the past 20 years, and will continue to get easier in the future. With near-universal home Internet access and websites for businesses, it's trivial for someone to look up a business's hours on any given day.
Re: Move to permanent summer time (Score:2)
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Why should everyone have to go to work in pitch black in the middle of winter? It seems everyone keeps forgetting that little tidbit.
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The idea that local solar zenith should be 12:00 is odd.
Our entire calendar and time system is based around the sun.
Almost nobody's daily rhythm is symmetrical around 12:00: people are awake 0700-2300 instead of 0400-2000.
There is no reason to have a daily rhythm that is symmetrical. Changing the clock by one hour won't make it symmetrical. In other words, your reasoning doesn't support the point.
Re:Betteridge applies (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK the annual debate (or rather, biannual debate) is not about abolishing daylight savings time but whether to keep it all year round.
We've also solved the problem of waking up at 5am just because it's light outside. We hang sheets of cloth over the windows on specially rails so that they can be moved aside when you want to be able to see out and closed to obscure the whole window when you want it to be dark inside.
Re: (Score:3)
It will be interesting, or more likely frustrating, to see what happens now we have taken to repeatedly hitting ourselves in the dick with the brexit stick.
The EU will probably ditch DST in the next few years. The UK can either get out of sync with the EU, or follow it. Getting out of sync will just frustrate trade even more than it already is, staying in sync will piss off the brexit ultras who think we should be different just because we can be.
Re: Betteridge applies (Score:2)
Re: Betteridge applies (Score:2)
Interestingly enough, it seems most of the UK is still stuck with curtain technology, with the superior shutters being very hard to come by.
Looks like British have been relying on the permanent cloudy weather, but that may not last with global warming.
Re: (Score:2)
What are these rails of which you speak?
Serious question, I've been looking for a solution to hang blackout cloth effectively (if there are big gaps it's completely useless) to make my bedroom dark. Currently using velcro, but it's a pain, and doesn't come aside easily.
Re: Betteridge applies (Score:2)
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People literally die from this time change. It's not worth it for pleasant evenings and some gardening.
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As someone who sleeps on a non-24-hour cycle, who got up at 7pm today, I'm especially amused by the notion that we have to run on finely tuned clocks and not going to bed at the same time every day is dangerous.
But some people are creatures of habit, and if there's anyone that clocks are meant to serve it's them.
Re:Personally, I'm all for it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Personally, I'm all for it (Score:4, Interesting)
I wake up one hour before work right now. As soon as the time changes It will be a month before I'm back in sync. I'm sure all of you pre-alzheimer's types don't feel affected by the change. The rest of us like a regular sleep pattern and don't react well to the stupidity involved in changing the time twice a year.
That's a remarkable length of time to adjust.
I used to regularly fly from Eastern time Zone to Pacific and back. 3 hours different. On short trips - less than a week, I'd stay as much as possible on Eastern time, but anything longer than a week, I'd adjust in two days. I was temporal misadjusted much worse on the times I took a redeye flight back from the coast. Even then, it was never more than 2 days to adjust.
I'm not certain where the pre-Alzheimer's bit came from, but I suspect it might be more the opposite. Obsession about exact times to sleep and to wake, and perhaps a body unable to accommodate anything other than some pre-determined "this is the correct time" gives cause for concern.
Humans had evolved over time to have cycles that were tied to the day/night length. They didn't stay up long after darkness, and woke with the dawn. Near the equator, there isn't a huge difference in day/night length.
But as one heads north or south of the equator, it changes a lot. To the point where there are long periods of time that the sun never rises above the horizon, and times where it never sets.
But in between those extremes, there are latitudes north and south where it does make sense to time shift.
In short, the "Hour of the day" is an artificial construct, and for some reason, you are overly tuned to it.
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Re:Personally, I'm all for it (Score:4, Interesting)
I wake up every morning at the same time regardless of day. I've done it my whole life. I don't even need an alarm. Except when the time changes.
I can mentally program myself to wake up at a certain time. How do you wake up at the exact same time, yet get messed up when the clock (which is of course, arbitrary).
Have you considered going to UTC for your personal time? That never changes except when they add or subtract the odd second.
I switch back and forth across UTC and local time, because while UTC is the same world, around, I need to know what times people are awake, so I don't call them in the middle of the night.
Even with the 3 hour difference between east and west coast USA it can be a real nuisance. Assuming a start of the workday at 8 am and ending at 5 pm, there are only small windows of time to communicate. If I'm west coast, I need to call between 8 and 9 my time, then between 10 and 11 then between 1 and 2 local. Back east, they have to work the windows as well.
Except for one assistant I had. He wasn't that good at making decisions, so he'd call me when he got to work at 8 am, which was 5 am Pac time. After a week of getting called while I was at my best sleep time, I told him either wait until it's at least 7 Pac time, or I'd make certain to have questions at 4 in the morning his time, when I was wrapping up my day at 1 Pac time.
But to return to the issue at hand, if changing 1 hour back or ahead kills people, it should be quite simple to set up an experiment with travelers. Switching time zones should kill travelers. One might make a hypothesis that it should kill more, possibly the more zones shifted, the more deaths?
Funny that this is claimed to be science - what is the exact mechanism that any change in the time shown on a clock kills people? As opposed to the other goofy stuff, in order to kill people, there must be a specific chemical change that moving a clock one hour one way or another triggers. Let us take atrial fibrillation for example. Okay - time for the experiment.
Take 1000 normal healthy people who change clocks between DST and Regular time - have them undergo daily blood tests and EKG's. Have a control group that does not touch their clocks. Then if the hypothesis is correct, there will be a notable difference in deaths between the group, with the control group having less deaths.
Since the regular group will have more atrial fibrillation deaths, there will be a demonstrable chemical or brain difference that will prove or disprove the hypothesis.
After proving that switching a clock one way or the other indeed kills people, it can be expanded - Should we prohibit travel between time zones or refuse to honor life insurance policies because travel is tantamount to suicide? Many questions abound, and a whole lot of ethics - like should we have to have all clocks reference GPS? At what point does time shifting kill people, 5 - 10 minutes? 1 hour? 50 minutes, 22 seconds? How does the body know exactly what time it is?
Color me pretty skeptical, because we didn't evolve on a specific time on the clock.
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Not changing the clock doesn't necessarily mean you won't have to adjust your schedule twice a year.
The simple fact is that is most of the world, as the sun starts to rise earlier and earlier, it just makes sense to have a separate "summer" schedule that takes advantage of the earlier sunrise and a "winter" schedule that instead starts things later when the sun rises later.
If you were to get rid of Daylight Saving Time, instead of adjusting the clock, your workplace may simply adjust the schedule at two poi
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Its a fucking number. Ignore it and go to bed when it gets dark... Without DST the sun would come out at 3:45am...
There's one problem with your specific scenario. I'll be generous and give you the eastern side of a time zone and the summer solstice. If the sun comes up at 3:45 AM, and your solar noon is at 11:30 AM, you have roughly 15 hours of daylight. That means you'll only have 9 hours of daylight at the winter solstice. Most people don't want to sleep for 14 hours a day for a couple months, or have 5-6 more hours of darkness after they wake up.
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For millenia people didn't go to work at the same time every day.
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So those who live above the Arctic Circle should just sleep for a couple of months, and then not sleep at all for a couple of months. Brilliant idea!
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Re:Personally, I'm all for it (Score:5, Insightful)
/nod
I'm reading just to see how many will whine about it, and yet have no problem travelling to a vacation spot, do shift work, etc., and not mention the "jet lag".
What does "not mention the jet lag" mean?
The fact the term exists makes it pretty clear that people do in fact whine about it. Because it's a thing that happens. That has consequence and is unpleasant. Also, it's worth pointing out that for vacation purposes, people are usually not on any life-schedule and can adjust their sleep rhythm slowly, while they relax. DST shifts happen to those not vacationing who are forced to abruptly and rigidly shift their rhythm.
Sorry, but the facts and statistics back up the assertion that changes in sleep patterns cause temporary, deleterious effects. The only people who dispute that are those who substitute "be a man" responses for math. DST shifting is a} unnecessary, b} not beneficial, c} detrimental according to the actual real-world data.
Either you're on board with doing the sensible thing, or you've got some actual concrete and contradictory data, or you're... just some random person responding with their lizard hind-brain that doesn't know how to reason.
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DST shifting is a} unnecessary, b} not beneficial, c} detrimental according to the actual real-world data.
Is it really not beneficial, though?
The simple fact is that in the summer, the sun rises earlier than it does in the winter. For most of the world, it rises significantly earlier.
This means that it just makes sense to have a schedule that happens earlier in the day during the summer than it does in the winter. Adjusting the clocks is one way to achieve that. It has the benefit of meaning that you can use the same printed schedule throughout the year. It also helps keep people in sync with each other, so for
Re:Sigh... (Score:5, Informative)
In the 1970s, we tried going to permanent Daylight Savings Time for a couple of years, and people hated it. Opinion polls back then (when people still had land lines and answered their phones), showed over 70% of people were opposed to year-round DST. I think Britain also tried this experiment during the oil embargo, with similar results.
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My thoughts exactly! Standard time during winter is atrocious. It gets dark by 4:30pm.
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COVID-19 has been a shit year of disruption for schooling. Do we expect "normal" to return once the world is vaccinated? Or does the remote learning we integrated during lockdown apply to post-pandemic normality?
(A) 'summer' timetable with standard hours.
(B) 'winter' timetable starting 1 hour after the sun rises. Shorter day but supplemented by an evening class from home over Zoom.
Parents and schools spent billions on sourcing computers and tablets for remote learning, why not integrate that into the future