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Alternatives to Daylight Saving Time?

Posted by timothy on from the even-ben-franklin-made-some-whoppers dept.

Wellington Grey writes "Daylight saving time almost upon us. The arguments about its possible benefits and drawbacks come up twice every year. Does it save energy or lives? Possibly, but it does definitely cause a great deal of inconvenience. My question is this: what do you think would be the best possible system to replace DST with? What is the best way for humans to deal with the inconsistent amount of light over the year and still foster coordination over disparate time zones?"

6 of 755 comments (clear)

  1. DST is ending by self+assembled+struc · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, DST is coming to an end. The summer is when the hours are artificially moved ahead. The winter time is the actual "accurate" earth time.

  2. Standard Time is Upon us! by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, we are in Daylight Savings Time right now. We are getting ready to go back to Standard Time.

  3. Picture this... by qoncept · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're a farmer, or construction worker, or anyone who does his business in daylight. During the months of short days, you are up and ready to work at sun up every day and need to work for 8 hours. In the summer, you can still get to the bank and do your business. But in the winter, without DST, you're stuck at work until 5:00pm and can't. DST isn't baseless. It caters to a small group of people that can't adjust their hours.

    --
    Whale
  4. Re:Move to Arizona by szark · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's on a state/local level though. Prohibition was federal. I'll admit that it's extremely difficult to get rid of something the government has adopted, but it isn't impossible.

  5. Re:Move to Arizona by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    There used to be some counties in Indiana which bordered Ohio (and the part of Kentucky in the Eastern zone??) that were in the Eastern time zone, like the rest of indiana, but observed daylight saving time unlike the rest of Indiana. An example were the Indiana counties that contain Cincinnati suburbs. This isn't something that happened all around Indiana (and doesn't seem more confusing than states which straddle two time zones, which there are 10 or so of).

    (There are still some counties in Indiana that border states in the Central time zone (Illinois, some of Kentucky) that observe Central time, including DST.)

  6. Re:Move to Arizona by Aero+Leviathan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, while WWVB does send UTC time, it also sends a 'daylight saving time status' code.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWVB#Modulation_Format

    --
    ~ Aero