RIP Daylight Savings Time

The farther north you go the more bizarre changing the time becomes. I spent a year in the high Arctic (there was a DEW Line station in town) and I ended up following the sun. Slept more in winter - upto 24 hours darkness, slept less in summer 24 hours light. It turns out light is stronger than dark in winter there was always an hour or two of dusk in summer it really was light for 24 hours. 

My real point is we’re being fools chasing the light of each day and trying to make it fit our notion of what time to call it.

I'm still waiting for decimal time to make a comeback.

Advan046 said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I, with a light heart and technical thoughts, challenge your concept or hypothesis that the high point of the sun should be fixed at 12:00PM. Nothing in my life revolves around the sun position. Maybe if I was in theater or some type of camera image capturing job it becomes a big factor, or ran an observatory. 

I think it would be just fine to meet for lunch at 5pm USAT (USA TIME) or have a zoom call at 3AM USAT without having to figure out every invitee's time zones. 

USAT would be defined as starting at 9am at the time that NASA confirms sunrise occurs for the washington monument in DC (or maybe a more stable geological feature of the USA) at the spring equinox of 2023 and from then on it is the same time anywhere in the USA. Hawaii is at 9am the same as Maine (unless Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands get included then they are the most separated points)

Yes it will be uncomfortable but noon does not have to equal a clock time of 12:00pm. Noon can be noon for you when the sun is highest just like saying sunset now has no bearing on clock time. Sunsets' clock times vary day to day and we have no issue with using that word separate from a clock time. 

Regarding the current actual legislation:

I wish we would keep Standard time and discard Daylight savings time but what I have read was that the lobbies for the major pro team sports, fitness gyms, after school sports related entities, and primarily golf courses keep pushing the idea that more sun after work hours equals more profit. So sticking to the daylight savings time hours is better for them. Which I don't buy, but that is what the Michigan state legislature debate went on about when discussing the state law regarding the end of daylight savings time.  

May USA TIME last forever, until Earth time that is. I stand down and release the podium. 

There are some folks in Greenwich that might agree with everything except your definition of where the, what do we call it, how about, Coordinated Universal Time is based.

slantvaliant (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm still waiting for decimal time to make a comeback.

Changing clocks twice a year is dumb. We should set them to Standard time so we get more light in the morning and less in the evening. Why? It's a closer match to our internal biological clock (i.e. circadian rhythm) 

Not surprisingly the American Academy of Sleep Medicine is team Standard Time (although they also note that the change itself is a bigger problem): https://aasm.org/american-academy-of-sleep-medicine-calls-for-elimination-of-daylight-saving-time/

Lots more info here: https://savestandardtime.com/concerns/#solution

This is a big thing. It's huge if it passes and works. Just think of the conversations in twenty years:
"Pops your generation screwed everything up. You messed up COVID, nearly started WWIII, watched wars everywhere, couldn't elect an adult to save your life..." [interrupting] "But we fixed daylight saving time"

"OK Pops, you win this one, let me buy you a beer."

In reply to Keith Tanner :

HA HA yes yes yes I know about that but was trying to be a little silly about how to sell it. You know we can't base USA Time with some other country being the baseline. We need a monument and tourism tie-in. 

USA TIME was a step in the right direction towards a single Earth Time would be my desire, with the end of all time zones. But maybe the only politically achievable step is a USA Time, but you are right in that we should link it to UTC. But then we don't get a cool Time Plaza around the washington monument

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

Freaking dumb idea.  Michigan really should be on central time, it was only the early days of the auto industry wanting to be on the same time as the NY stock exchange that means we're in EST.  That means we're already an hour off of 'sun time' (ish) add in the stupidity of DST and we'll be two hours off sun time.  I grew up in Northern England where sun rise was already 8:30 in the middle of winter on standard time.  Why do we think we need all this extra sun in evening?  This crazy county already likes getting up early, quitting work early, and eating/going to be early compared with most first world countries, so whats so important about more sun light in the evenings?  Please settle on standard not daylight savings time.

 

Edit. - In other words I wish the OP's thread title was accurate.  RIP DST!

Well... yes and no.  Should Atlanta be on Central Time?  Because when you look at Atlanta and Detroit on a map, Atlanta is actually farther west.

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

Atlanta is -84.39°E, Detroit is -83.05°E so Detroit is further west. 

In reply to Error404 :

Map curvature distortions notwithstanding, the point is still valid:

I don't know standard from dst all I know is the time we are on now sucks and we should go back to the way it was last week. 

Nick Comstock said:

I don't know standard from dst all I know is the time we are on now sucks and we should go back to the way it was last week. 

I'm honestly quite surprised to see so many people preferring standard time. To me, the extra hour of daylight is much more useful at night than it would be early in the morning, when all I'm doing is working.

Error404 said:

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

Atlanta is -84.39°E, Detroit is -83.05°E so Detroit is further west. 

Those should be W, not E.  I think you mean so Atlanta is further west.  The (negative) longitude number gets larger as you go further west.

For reference Chicago is -87.64W, NYC is -73.95W

stuart in mn said:

Do we need to also ban traveling from one time zone to another so people will feel better?

I think we do until someone invents a world standard.  You know what, Greenwich England isn't famous for much, maybe someone there could figure something out 

In reply to ProDarwin :

When I typed "atlanta coordinates" into my work computer, Bing spat out that Altanta is "33.74831° N, -84.39111° E". I looked at it as Bing being silly and ~5.6°W<~6.95°W. 

Either way, it doesn't really pertain to the subject and I probably didn't put enough thought into it before I mashed the big red Post button. My apologies for this mild derailment of the subject at hand.

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

Nick Comstock said:

I don't know standard from dst all I know is the time we are on now sucks and we should go back to the way it was last week. 

I'm honestly quite surprised to see so many people preferring standard time. To me, the extra hour of daylight is much more useful at night than it would be early in the morning, when all I'm doing is working.

I have to be at work at 6:45PM and get to leave at 7AM so the whole thing is pretty irrelevant to me at this point.  

I calculated that we gained 235 hours of useable time this year by changing to DST, now if they just change it so that it stays on DST I'd be a happy camper.

You probably need to be at least in your late 50's to remember this fiasco.   I remember being in 8:am classes while it was still dark outside.  

The Emergency Daylight Saving Time Act signed by President Nixon dictated that clocks would spring forward one hour on Jan. 6 — and stay that way for almost 16 months, until April 27, 1975.  

The year Daylight Saving Time  went too far (mercurynews.com)

A fun watch, also very crushworthy host.

RevRico said:

In reply to DrBoost :

Because children were waiting for the bus in the dark, and parents groups thought it was dangerous. At least that's what I've gathered from old newspapers, so I imagine it will face the same challenge because parents seem to be much more overprotective these days. 

I find that to be a stretch of an excuse, my entire high school career was waiting for the bus in the dark at 630am. 

Parents park their trucks with the engine running (and therefore bright-ass headlights on) for "safety" to watch over their chilluns until the bus picks them up.

Real smart to blind oncoming traffic when you have your kids standing on the side of the road...

93EXCivic said:

Error404 said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

But now for something serious. Want more daylight when you get home? Rather than arbitrarily changing time around, ask your boss to change your schedule. Or join a union pushing for those hours. Or change jobs to one that offers hours that suit you.

If only it was that easy, school/day care has or will have more effect on my schedule then anything else.

I am all for DST year round. More time for mountain biking, walks, hikes, etc in the evening since I live down south where there is a chance of pleasant weather during the "standard" time of year.

I don't understand why anyone would want standard time year round.

I think some of you are missing my point.

I get that you want more daylight hours after work, but two things that make me scratch my head.  1- what percentage of people actually work 9-5 compared to people in the early 1900s?  DST shifts the amount of daylight you get after work... but that seems a bit biased toward people who work traditional hours.  It also seems biased toward those who prefer daylight.... which incidentally, I do not.  2- I don't understand why we prioritize perception over thousands of years of heavily-studied galactic geometry.  Standard time places noon at the point where the sun is perpendicular to the longitude in the middle of your time zone.  DST puts noon perpendicular to the one beside it.

Every astronomer for the last 4000 years:  We've carefully calculated the geometry of the heavens for four millennia and quantified it thusly
DST folk:  Cool, I'm just going to make this clock lie to me for over half the year because lawnmower.

Why are we changing clocks?  Worried about the extra hour of daylight?  Instead of changing your clock, change your alarm.  Get an extra hour before work.  But for people like me who set their own hours, people who don't prefer daylight.  The whole concept of DST is not only outdated, it's a random suspension of mathematical fact.  It's vestigial.  It's pointless.

This article recalls the time in the 70s when we tried this full-time DST before and it failed horribly.  For the extra hour of daylight that "normal" people gained in the evening, the early shifters (school kids and their parents, early retail, blue collar, northern states) noted a huge increase in depression, suicide, auto accidents, etc.

We're not doing any good simply berkeleying with clocks.  Just leave them alone.  If the simple perception that a number on a clock is enough to cause increased death, then the solution is not changing clocks.

Keith Tanner said:

Advan046 said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I, with a light heart and technical thoughts, challenge your concept or hypothesis that the high point of the sun should be fixed at 12:00PM. Nothing in my life revolves around the sun position. Maybe if I was in theater or some type of camera image capturing job it becomes a big factor, or ran an observatory. 

I think it would be just fine to meet for lunch at 5pm USAT (USA TIME) or have a zoom call at 3AM USAT without having to figure out every invitee's time zones. 

USAT would be defined as starting at 9am at the time that NASA confirms sunrise occurs for the washington monument in DC (or maybe a more stable geological feature of the USA) at the spring equinox of 2023 and from then on it is the same time anywhere in the USA. Hawaii is at 9am the same as Maine (unless Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands get included then they are the most separated points)

Yes it will be uncomfortable but noon does not have to equal a clock time of 12:00pm. Noon can be noon for you when the sun is highest just like saying sunset now has no bearing on clock time. Sunsets' clock times vary day to day and we have no issue with using that word separate from a clock time. 

Regarding the current actual legislation:

I wish we would keep Standard time and discard Daylight savings time but what I have read was that the lobbies for the major pro team sports, fitness gyms, after school sports related entities, and primarily golf courses keep pushing the idea that more sun after work hours equals more profit. So sticking to the daylight savings time hours is better for them. Which I don't buy, but that is what the Michigan state legislature debate went on about when discussing the state law regarding the end of daylight savings time.  

May USA TIME last forever, until Earth time that is. I stand down and release the podium. 

There are some folks in Greenwich that might agree with everything except your definition of where the, what do we call it, how about, Coordinated Universal Time is based.

Heck I AM in theater, and the sun's position has nothing to do with my day... which kind of supports my point.  We already have a disregard for where the sun is, so micro-managing time on a clock is pointless.  The time on the clock should be irrelevant, so why is it so ridiculously important that we alter it?

The whole concept of altering clocks for everyone because a sports team or a golf course needs money is nuts.  It's like the baseball team has this conundrum...

Owner: how much time do we need for a game?
Manager:  three hours
Owner:  Well, baseball games just gotta start at 7pm, it's tradition.
Manager:  Let's change time for everyone so we can keep that tradition

No.  Hell no.  Just start the berkeleying game at 6pm.  The whole idea that DST exists is evidence to the fact that we as a whole don't get it.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I go to work as early as I can but there is a limit to that due to daycare opening time. School hours have more an effect on many people's working hours then anything else.

I don't get why it matters where the sun is at noon.

This is all amusing to me.  I really think people are affected by the time change because they WANT to be affected.  My sleep patterns were berked up before the time change and after the time change, it's still berked. Only now I can go for a bike ride after work without having to worry as much about riding in the dark towards the end. 

In reply to 93EXCivic :

 because that's where it is.  It's halfway through the day.  And if it's so irrelevant where the sun is, why is it so monumentally important that we meticulously manage the numbers around it?

All I'm saying is that we're applying a massively invasive solution by making everyone change clocks, increasing crime rates, increasing suicide rates, causing measurable health and stress changes to the entire population by creating a false alteration of a known mathematical entity just so some people who work certain hours have an extra hour of vitamin D.

If your basement near the river floods, you call a waterproofer.  You don't alter the flow of the river and screw it up for everyone else.  

Math:  What is 10 + 5?
DST:  15
Math:  Correct
DST: but I want the answer to be 16, so it's 16.  It's definitely 16.