Florida Lawmakers Approve Year-Round Daylight Saving Time (tampabay.com)

JustAnotherOldGuy writes: It seems like we're seeing a sudden outbreak of common sense from one of the most unlikely places. Florida might become the third state -- after Hawaii and Arizona -- to be done with the hassle of changing their clocks twice a year. Yesterday, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the Sunshine Protection Act in under one minute, with only two dissenters. The House had already passed it 103-11 last month. Now it has to be signed by Gov. Rick Scott. If Scott passes it, however, it still has to go through Congress before Florida has Daylight Savings Time all year long.

Comments

Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is going to suck. I live in the panhandle, which is on central time. So it's going to confuse the hell out of everyone that needs to know we're not on eastern time SOME of the year...

Re:Gonna suck.

[glenebob]

Right, because bouncing the clocks around twice a year is not confusing at all.

Re:Gonna suck.

[erice]

Right, because bouncing the clocks around twice a year is not confusing at all.

Changing the clocks is confusing twice a year. Having different time than neighboring states is confusing for at least five months per year.

Re:Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

which is why everyone should stop changing the clocks twice a year

Re: Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. However, if everyone doesn't, you get all these annoying time differences you now have to keep track of.

Re: Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

How often do you need to look it up? Once a day? Once per week? Once per month?

Just get one of those time-tracking apps that can show you the time of cities all over the world..

I think it's great that another place is getting rid of this, just wished the place i live would do it too.

Re:Gonna suck.

[Applehu Akbar]

The right way to do this is to eliminate DST, not make it permanent.

Re:Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having different time than neighboring states is confusing for at least five months per year.

Floridians deal with having different time across the state 12 months per year, as do several other states. We'll survive regardless of whatever happens with DST.

Re:Gonna suck.

[hazardPPP]

No.

In the modern Western world, we work on a 9-5 schedule (or thereabouts). DST was invented to shift more daylight hours in the summer to the afternoon and evening, so that people could enjoy this daylight after work. Otherwise, a lot of the daylight hours would be very early in the morning, when most people are asleep or getting ready for/going to work.

So going to DST year-round actually makes sense, because it permanently shifts daylight into the afternoon, i.e. into after-work hours. I don't care how far that puts nominal noon away from real/solar noon, because time-keeping is anyway just a convention made up to make people's lives easier. So we can bend this convention a bit to suit our present purposes. Moving to DST permanently is easier than getting everyone to switch to working 7-3 or whatever.

Re: Gonna suck.

[jecowa]

Without daylight savings time we would get sunrise at 4:45 am in some places in June.

Re: Gonna suck.

[DirkDaring]

Yes. And?

Re: Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

With or without Daylight Saving Time, some parts of Alaska have sunlight 24 hours a day from May through August and their lives don't implode. Suck it up.

Re: Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Without daylight savings time we would get sunrise at 4:45 am in some places in June.

Which means the sunset is around 11 PM or something there.
Kids need to sleep, you know.

Re:Gonna suck.

[jellomizer]

If all the other states are doing it, it isn't so bad, but if you are out of sync with the other states, makes interstate commerce a bit more challenging.

Re:Gonna suck.

[anegg]

Yes. Please. End the madness. I (almost) don't care which direction it ends up in, as long as the changes stop. It is one of the most idiotic examples of legislatures making people dance to the tune of idiot lawmakers I can imagine. The only thing that surpasses the idiocy of DST in the first place was the mid-2000s HUGE effort to alter, slightly, the date of the start and the end of DST in the United States. Sheer stupidity.

Re:Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused alright, confused as to why you think this change is any more confusing than your current situation.

Re:Gonna suck.

[AvitarX]

I disagree (which is to say it's subjective I guess).

When it's dark in the morning, my productivity suffers.

Sun in the morning when waking up is better than sun after work.

It can be pretty dark in the mornings even on winter time, I'd really hate it and hour darker.

Re: Gonna suck.

[TechyImmigrant]

Without daylight savings time we would get sunrise at 4:45 am in some places in June.

So get up earlier.

Re: Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

And privileged urban cyborgs don't care, and wish to elevate their lack of caring into law.

Rural people and the poor benefit from daylight savings, because it saves money on utility bills. Urban people don't give a shit basically because they are rewarded daily for being egocentric sociopaths. A minor annoyance for them, is more important than a major cost to rural people who make the food. Because fundamentally we've trained them to be self-centered fools, and they will never be anything else.

Re:Gonna suck.

[Rakarra]

The right way to do this is to eliminate DST, not make it permanent.

That is the worst of all the possible options that have been presented, and is really the only reason why those who fight for the preservation of DST do so.

Re: Gonna suck.

[Rakarra]

Rural people and the poor benefit from daylight savings, because it saves money on utility bills.

The poor aren't likely to be affected one way or another, and rural people DON'T CARE, because they never paid attention to the hour of the day in the morning. They got up at dawn, whenever it is, as the exact time changes a small amount every day.

Re:Gonna suck.

[Major_Disorder]

Changing the clocks is confusing twice a year. Having different time than neighboring states is confusing for at least five months per year.

In the past you would have been correct, but almost no one stores that information anymore. MOST people just ask Google what time it is in whatever city they are currently thinking about calling, or travelling to.

This foolishness costs millions in lost productivity each year, and the number of auto accidents increases for a week after both spring and fall time changes. All this downside for zero upside.
It is long past time for this foolishness to end.

Re: Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back to your twelve million dollar, 240 acre farm and quit ruining things for everybody else, you whiny little rich bitch.

Re:Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

so why don't we all just work 8-4. I'm pretty stupid that its easier to change your measurement of time then to change your working hours.

Re:Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be correct as to how DST is currently viewed, but you are wrong as to why it was invented.

DST is the invention of Nazi Germany where the hope was that they would save resources by making people get up earlier and have fuller use of daylight. It was adopted in the US for the same reason.

Of course, you can accomplish the same thing by changing work shift hours, but for whatever reason the powers that be prefer to change work shift hours indirectly and create problems (like midnight happening twice, or not at all, in a given 24 hour span of time).

Re:Gonna suck.

[knorthern knight]

> DST is the invention of Nazi Germany where the hope was that they would
> save resources by making people get up earlier and have fuller use of daylight.

Obviously didn't do too well in history in school. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary introduced DST (Sommerzeit)) on April 30, 1916. The Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National-Socialist German Workers Party) arose after WWI.

BTW, one of the biggest propaganda coups ever by the MSM, was conflating a socialist workers party (and its atrocities) with right-wingers in the public mind. The Nazis were socialists, and nationalized banks, etc.

Re: Gonna suck.

[brunnegd]

I don't know anyone who works 9-5. Not even a 40 hour week. 8-5, 7:30-4:30, maybe. Not 9-5.

Re: Gonna suck.

[brunnegd]

No stinking DST!

Re: Gonna suck.

[brunnegd]

Agree, get rid of DST!

Re:Gonna suck.

[suutar]

I thought the biggest coup was getting people to conflate political systems, economic systems, and social status systems into one term. Go figure!

Re: Gonna suck.

[semilemon]

We already do here in Saskatchewan, Canada. Not really a big deal itâ(TM)s still light out until 9 or 10.

Re: Gonna suck.

[cthulhu11]

Lunch is for the weak.

Re:Gonna suck.

[lsatenstein]

I am for it. I have digital timers that are not "Atomic". Atomic in this sense is the timer that listens to the low frequency transmitted time-signal, and corrects itself. So, twice a year I do the tour of heating systems, a/c systems, lighting systems and access control stuff.

I would just like to set the time once and forget it until the batteries fail

Re: Gonna suck.

[toddestan]

The only people I know are shift workers. If a factory runs 24/7, then you get three shifts of 8 hours. Though it tends to be more like 7-3 for first shift than 9-5.

Office workers have been 9 hour shifts with an unpaid hour lunch for a long time now.

Re:Gonna suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the right-wingers get compared to Nazi's because they both tend to be authoritarian and nationalistic, which is a whole lot more visible than the socialist part.

Re: Gonna suck.

[toddestan]

I've never understood why places that are really far north (or south) bother with DST. I can kind of see why from about 30 to 60 degrees from the equator, but once you get close enough to the poles the difference in daylight between winter and summer is so extreme what's the point of shifting your clocks around by an hour twice a year?

Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

This needs to be done at the national level or you get a patchwork of states on or off DST . A true PITA for anyone needing to coordinate time across state lines.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

goddamn, if you arenâ(TM)t capable of working across disparate time zones then you are utterly useless

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[Narcocide]

Well Arizona is already in their own timezone. It's confusing for sure, but the world won't end. True, the extra time savings in clock management will be initially overshadowed by the training and recuperation costs... too bad we don't have some sort of complex machinery to take care of this for us.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[sgage]

Back in the day (don't know if it's true anymore), the Navajo Reservation went on and off DST while AZ didn't. I was traveling there in the 70's and got mightily confused until I figured out what was going on...

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[ShanghaiBill]

This needs to be done at the national level or you get a patchwork of states on or off DST .

We already have a patchwork. Arizona, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico do not have DST. Some Indian reservations have different practices from the states they are in.

DST makes little sense for southern states, where the difference in daylight doesn't change much with the seasons. DST also makes little sense in Alaska, where daylight changes so much that just a single hour makes little difference and changing the clocks is just a pointless annoyance.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Time zones don't necessarily change at state lines. Take south Dakota for example. Half the state is central. The other mountain.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

goddamn, if you arenâ(TM)t capable of working across disparate time zones then you are utterly useless

Ironic. Being capable of working across disparate time zones means having to assume OTHERS are 'utterly useless' at working across disparate time zones.

When I send meeting requests outside my org, I know I don't really know what time zone others might be in. I don't know what time zone their system is set to use. I don't know how up to date their clock's rules are for DST changes. I don't know if their system clock actually matches their OS clock. For timing, I don't know if someone is using a self updating clock or a paper day planner. I don't know if the CMOS battery died so I don't know that when they booted up that their OS clock thinks its 2003. I don't know how their system's scheduler handles send/receive times. I don't know if they see the invite via desktop Outlook, Outlook 365, an Outlook app on Android, an Outlook app on iPhone, an Outlook app on Android via ATT, a stock app on Android via Verizon....

DST is a problem, but dealing with time will be an issue with or without it.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[PopeRatzo]

Well Arizona is already in their own timezone.

It's true. Right now in Arizona, it's 9:12pm, March 8, 1952.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[DontBeAMoran]

https://xkcd.com/1883/

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Darinbob]

Well, given that the state does not even want something closest to natural time, where the sun is at the highest point closest to noon, but instead wants the artificial DST in effect permanently, is weird. The alternative of getting rid of DST permanently does make a sort of sense at least.

It's Florida! People on the beach don't care what time it is, the retirees don't care what time it is, so why insist on DST? Business won't make more money, you won't save more energy, and you've got a surplus of sunlight already. If DST is a pain, why not get rid of it?

Why not make it UTC time then they can have daylight in the middle of the night, that would be good for business too!

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Just get rid of DST.
Change official business hours if you want, not the goddamn clock.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[bickerdyke]

There is no thing as "natural time" (except maybe the steady rise of entropy in the universe)

There is sunrise and sunset, everything else is convention, even calling the time when the sun is highest "noon". If you want to split the day into more handle-able slices AND being closer to the natural rhythm, you would need to take the time between sunrise and sunset and split that up in any arbitrary number of units. Yes, a working day in summer will be longer than in winter, but days will naturally be longer in summer, too.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[thegarbz]

where the sun is at the highest point closest to noon

Who cares about that arbitrary point? People are at work at noon. It's about a bit of extra sunlight after hours. Despite what you think of the population of Flordia it has the 4th highest GDP in America. You don't get that with a population made up entirely of retirees and jobless beach hobos.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

You already have a patchwork of timezones. Really, it's no big deal.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Moochman]

The argument "it nets you more sunlight after hours" sounds great on the surface but is ridiculous when you think about the fact that it's essentially a "hack" to work around jobs that require you to work until a specific time. Not only that but the long- term efficacy is questionable because many people will stick to the same (natural) rhythms and businesses will be required to be open even longer, in other words a lose-lose. If you really want sunlight after hours "protected" by the law, pass a law to curtail working hours. Or, my preferred solution, get rid of daylight savings and let the market adjust itself as to when people are required to be at work.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[Applehu Akbar]

Well Arizona is already in their own timezone.

No, we just stay in Mountain Standard all year.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[Applehu Akbar]

Well Arizona is already in their own timezone.

It's true. Right now in Arizona, it's 9:12pm, March 8, 1952.

Hey kids! Did you know that on that date, we had a party whose voters believed that dental fluoride was poisonous to our vital body fluids and that the Russians were conspiring against us everywhere?

And in those days, it was the Republicans.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

You attempt to make a case that nobody cares, but then contradict it with stating that it's a pain? You can't have it both ways.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[thegarbz]

The market won't adjust because doing so requires society to adjust, and it's almost impossible to get a group that large to adjust anything without some central oversight. You can see this in cities what provide extended trading hours. De-regulate and they turn into a clusterfuck. But say: Friday is extended trading hours day, and everyone is open at the same time.

I challenge your assertion that people will stick to natural rhythms. Some workplaces offer flexible working hours as part of their package and nearly all people adjust themselves according to their own needs. What I see in my own workplace is that very few people show up at the pre-flex time of 9am. The vast majority of people opted to come in between 7-8 and some departments which need to provide coverage have then asked people to stay behind. That's the thing business activities prevent companies from just doing what they want. They need to sync with each other.

The only people who are open for even longer end up being restaurants which win with the additional length of patronage, especially if they have beer gardens and outdoor areas.

Passing curtail working hours laws don't work because they don't reflect the reality of different businesses. It is much easier to move the sunlight an hour later than expected. And I hear no good reason for noon to align with high sun point, especially since it doesn't do so in many countries around the world anyway (where I live the sun is at its max at 12:50 in winter, and 13:50 in summer)

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[hazardPPP]

It's Florida! People on the beach don't care what time it is, the retirees don't care what time it is, so why insist on DST? Business won't make more money, you won't save more energy, and you've got a surplus of sunlight already. If DST is a pain, why not get rid of it?

In Florida, no one goes to work? Only retirees, tourists, and idlers live there? The post-work automation techno-utopia has arrived in the Orange State? Didn't know that.

Of course the people at the beach care what time it is...they care whether they can have 1, 2, or 3 hours at the beach before it gets dark once they got off work. Not to mention there are other things daylight is good/useful/necessary for other than sitting at the beach...

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[hazardPPP]

This. Time-telling (beyond day & night) is a man-made convention created to suit human purposes. We can and should shape it anyway we want if it suits our purposes.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely agree...however I'm glad at least one state is moving forward. They'll start paving the path for everyone else to follow suit!

While maybe not the best example, but look at the current state of MJ tolerance. Colorado started us off, and other states have started to follow suit. If we can get even a handful of states to "break tradition", that will make it easier for everyone else to just say "me too!" Now, hopefully year-round Standard Time doesn't have the same stigma as a controlled substance!

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no issue with using UTC. I also don't have an issue with the Sun rising at 11am and setting about Midnight. I just want time to ~monochronically move forward. I want time to be a tool that I can use, I don't want to be a tool of time.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[cayenne8]

I"m curious about the part that the FL state legislature approved the change, and that even if the Gov signs it into law...they have to also get approval from the US Congress to enact this?

WFT do they have to get US approval for a state law?

Exactly what interstate commerce is affected here with this?

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, given that the state does not even want something closest to natural time, where the sun is at the highest point closest to noon, but instead wants the artificial DST in effect permanently, is weird.

At which longitude is noon at 12 in the eastern time zone? Today, in the big bulge of central Florida, noon is at 12:37pm.
Since my link lets me answer my own critique of your comment, central Haiti.
By the end of this month, noon will be at 12 in Guyana, far east of any part of Florida.
On January 1st, noon was at 12 for New York City, which for many people is enough to anchor all our timetracking to that one observation.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[PrimaryConsult]

Puerto Rico is in Atlantic time, which matches Eastern Daylight time. So with this change, Florida and Puerto Rico would always be in the same time zone.
MA also wants to join Atlantic time. NYers when asked also want to stay in EDT permanently (aka join Atlantic time).

Let's make this real easy. Move all states that touch the Atlantic ocean to year-round Atlantic time. Sorted.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[PrimaryConsult]

The alt-text on that one is brilliant.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[anegg]

Your claim that it is almost impossible to get a large group to adjust to anything without some central oversight is interesting. There is, to the best of my knowledge, no law requiring workplaces to observe 8 am to 5 pm (roughly) as "working hours," yet this observance is reasonably well represented across the United States. Some variances - 7:30 am to 4:30 pm, and so on. More similarities than differences, though. In your second paragraph you say just that - "the vast majority of people opted to come in between 7-8"; and they did so without a central authority.

As for noon aligning with the high sun point, that is all "noon" originally was - the dividing point marked by the observable fact that the sun was at its highest point in the sky. Whatever conventions were developed did so because that is what people decided made sense. If people were having lunch at noon, it is because that is the point in the daylight cycle that made sense to them, not the fact that the clock said "noon." The reason why the sun's high point doesn't always match exactly with "noon" on the clock probably has more to do with standardized time zones than DST. That the alignment is as radically different at different points in the year (12:50 versus 13:50) is probably attributable to DST. Although I'm not a fan of DST, I do think that standardized timezone's make sense. An alternative would be either one time zone for everyone (which has been suggested before), or "micro-timezones" which adjust so that every city and town can have noon at the point when the sun is at the highest location at their longitude. Wouldn't that be fun?

The real problem, in my mind, is that a central authority decides that it would be a good idea for EVERYONE to show up for work an hour earlier, or an hour later, which they obviously can't legislate (at least not without serious pushback). So they move the clock around instead, and people, being creatures of habit, maintain their clock-based schedules and go to work an hour later, or an hour earlier (than the sun-based time), just like the legislature wanted to make them do.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[Maxo-Texas]

We used to have 3 areas off DST and there was coding for them.

In most cases, it will be adding to a table, or updating a comparison statement.

More of a problem for code that's hard to update.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

I do business with a company in AZ. Their web site lists their hours as being in the PT time zone.

The Trans Siberian Railroad runs on Moscow time. Meals are served at a different time each day.

I read that the western border of China has a 3:45 difference to the next country.

I read that a South Pacific island nation changed its clocks 24 hours so that it would be the same time as its neighbor, New Zealand.

I've been to Anchorage, John O'Groats, St. Petersburg, and Hawaii. DST has no benefit there. I've lived in Pittsburgh, DST shines.

Son has had three continent conference phone calls. Some are missed because they get the time wrong.

If I work from 2000-0500 UTC time, what do I call that day? MonTueday?

Time is hard. DST has its place and should not be abandoned just because it's not perfect where you live.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[Green Mountain Bot]

Yeah, they do that because they have land in UT, NM, and CO, all of which observe DST. That keeps all of their territory on the same time.

My favorite DST oddity is that the Hopi, whose reservation comprises a couple of enclaves within the Navajo Nation, do not observe DST. Further, the town of Jeddito is a Navajo enclave within Hopi territory. If you take Navajo Rt 3 (AZ 264) from Desert View to Gallup, you will need to change you clock seven times in the four hours it takes you to go 230 miles.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[thegarbz]

There is, to the best of my knowledge, no law requiring workplaces to observe 8 am to 5 pm (roughly) as "working hours," yet this observance is reasonably well represented across the United States.

Actually it's well represented across the world, something which has built up over a period of a century. Now try and change that within a shorter period. The world constantly changes, but to effect a change across an incredibly large group in a short period of time requires oversight.

As for noon aligning with the high sun point, that is all "noon" originally was - the dividing point marked by the observable fact that the sun was at its highest point in the sky.

Where? As I said, certainly it wasn't everywhere, and there's no real sense to stick to this definition either especially considering we already move it off noon for half the year.

The reason why the sun's high point doesn't always match exactly with "noon" on the clock probably has more to do with standardized time zones than DST.

Exactly. People working in a common frame of reference is far more important than where the sun is. My point exactly.

The real problem, in my mind, is that a central authority decides that it would be a good idea for EVERYONE to show up for work an hour earlier, or an hour later, which they obviously can't legislate (at least not without serious pushback). So they move the clock around instead, and people, being creatures of habit, maintain their clock-based schedules and go to work an hour later, or an hour earlier (than the sun-based time), just like the legislature wanted to make them do.

I don't understand why you consider this a problem. The authority used the tools at their disposal to enact the policy that they were elected to enact. And did so without a potentially unworkable and confusing regulation opting for something really simple while at the same time removing something that people hated (clock changes). This is probably one of the best example of good legislature solving the problem they were trying to solve. People hate clock changes, people love sun and warm afternoons, people hate pointless over regulation.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Rakarra]

pass a law to curtail working hours

That will not happen. I doubt such a thing would pass any serious court challenge.
Just changing what the labels "6am, noon, 6pm" actually mean has been the only plausible way that we've been able to do this.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Rakarra]

Change official business hours if you want, not the goddamn clock.

How about a solution that actually has a chance of happening instead?

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Dragonslicer]

Well, given that the state does not even want something closest to natural time, where the sun is at the highest point closest to noon, but instead wants the artificial DST in effect permanently, is weird.

Without DST, how close to noon is the sun's highest point over Florida? And which point in Florida gets to be the one that defines noon? Are you suggesting that every state should define noon as the time when the sun is at its highest point over some part of the state, that way we get every state being offset somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes from each of its neighbors?

Abandoning "natural time" came with time zones, not with DST.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[rogoshen1]

Oregon is similar. there's a few little towns out in eastern OR which are on mountain. Similarly there are parts of the Idaho panhandle which are on pacific.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[Dragonslicer]

Maine has been considering it for several years. Not so much because of anything related to DST, but because it's so far east compared to the rest of the time zone. During the winter, it's dark by 4:00 PM, and during the summer, it would be dark at about 8:00 PM without DST.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

By that logic, NY and MD will become Atlantic while PA remains Eastern. Nix to that.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

The alt-text on that one is brilliant.

All I have to say to that is "Daylight Savings Time Puts Kid in Jail for 12 Days".

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[mmascari]

Let's make this real easy. Move all states that touch the Atlantic ocean to year-round Atlantic time. Sorted.

Poor Vermont. Left behind, stuck between NY and NH both an hour ahead.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[PrimaryConsult]

If Vermont asks really nicely, maybe someone can let them join the Atlantic club.
Elsewhere an AC mentioned PA. I completely forgot those poor bastards have NJ's fat arse blocking them from the ocean. They can join out of pity. Plus western NY would get lonely being surrounded on all sides by eastern time.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[KingMotley]

Actually, noon is supposed to be literally the half way point between sunrise and sunset. That's what the AM and PM are for. AM being latin for something like "ante meridiem" or before the half way point, and PM being latin for "post-meridiem" or after the half way point. Our time keeping is quite literally defined in relation to the movement of the sun.

That said, I *hate* the concept daylight saving time. If I had my way, I'd abolish all timezones everywhere and everyone would use UTC, period. So your normal work period is 03:00UTC-11:00UTC instead of 9-5. Everyone else in your general area is also likely working a similar schedule. It would make working with businesses that have more than one location so much easier.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[Anonymous Coward]

"So with this change, Florida and Puerto Rico would always be in the same time zone."

*HEADDESK*

No, there's the half of the state that's in the Central Time Zone that everyone forgets about, too.

So, in addition to us living in a timezone no one believes we live in, we'll also be one of a few oddball locations not keeping DST time changes?

BRILLIANT!!!

Sigh

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[jfdavis668]

Vermont would try to join Canada, except they border Quebec, which wouldn't like that.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[PrimaryConsult]

... so that part would now be in the Eastern time zone and is essentially what Indiana was until a decade or so ago.

And don't worry too much about the DST discrepancy. Florida might be starting a trend which will hopefully sweep the entire country.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[jfdavis668]

In Pennsylvania, staying on DST would have the Sun rise at 8:30am, yet still set by 5:45pm. So, it is dark in the morning when you are trying to get to work/school, and is dark soon after you get home. Not much help. Might as well stay on standard time and have some light in the morning.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[angel'o'sphere]

You don't get that with a population made up entirely of retirees and jobless beach hobos.
Depends on how much pension the retirees receive, don't you think so?

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[Darinbob]

In Florida are all the workes slave to the 9-to-5 schedule? Even if they do, there's sunlight at 5:pm in Florida even in winter (maybe getting dark up north though in the panhandle). And you don't have to follow the schedule most of the time, adjust your own schedule by an hour either way and most bosses won't complain.

DST is what happens in Summer, it was never intended to remedy the effect of shorter days in Winter. Extending it year around is the equivalent of moving East an hour and joining the Atlantic time zone. On the other hand, Florida is the far west of the Eastern time zone, so for solar time they are off by a half hour anyway. Historically, Florida was in Central time zone for a long time, so it's already changed time zones once.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[knorthern knight]

> If Vermont asks really nicely, maybe someone can let them join the Atlantic club.

Well, the NHL has Toronto, Ottawa, and Detroit in the "Atlantic Division". https://www.nhl.com/standings/... Mind you, the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence river do drain into the Atlantic Ocean.

Re:Cluster fuck coming

[PrimaryConsult]

Light in the morning is completely useless except to help people wake up. A 150 watt equivalent daylight bulb on a timer will do the same thing.
Even with DST "turned off", during the winter months if I see sunshine and am still in bed, I'm already late for work.

Conversely, light in the evening makes, at a bare minimum, going home safer against crime. This also has a financial impact: for example due to incidents of robbery, rape, and carjacking the local university is required to provide any employee who requests an escort to their car after dark. During DST when the sun sets before the standard departure time of 5PM, this results in a need to hire more escorts. Similarly, the local state offices begrudgingly allow people to move their cars from farther lots to the closer higher seniority / visitor lots after 3PM. The productivity loss of government employees and contractors casing parking lots for closer spaces every afternoon is surely incurred somewhere.

And then there's the Jewish reason. Since they can't do any work (which includes driving) after sundown Friday, early sundown causes staffing issues.

I fail to see any legitimate reason for light in the morning hours that isn't overshadowed by a correspondingly better reason for light in the evening hours.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[brunnegd]

I used to live in AZ. Every few years someone from "Back East" would push for DST. When asked why, the response was always, "That's how we did it back east", and after lots of laughter, there was no more discussion.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[brunnegd]

Driving to work in the dark, when most people are not fully awake, is dangerous, DST in the winter gains almost no time in the evening for any useful activities. Plus, it is too cold to be outside. I know no good reason for winter DST. The US tried winter DST in the mid-70s, it was a disaster. How soon we fofget.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[thegarbz]

Depends on how much pension the retirees receive, don't you think so?

4th largest in America behind 3 manufacturing states. No I don't think so at all even in the slightest.

Re: Cluster fuck coming

[angel'o'sphere]

Well, then thinking is not your strength.

If every retiree would be a multi millionaire and spent a few $100,000 every year it would be a great contribution to the GPD.

So yes: retirees can have an influence.

Permanent daylight saving time...

[Chuq]

Don't they mean "Atlantic Standard Time" ?

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the idiots don't understand that they are not setting daylight savings they are moving timezones and abolishing daylight savings. Only real way to set the time on computers. They are smart enough to abolish daylight savings switching; which I wish my state would do.

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[b0s0z0ku]

Yep, they should stay in standard time all year around, not move to a "fake" timezone.

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, they should stay in standard time all year around, not move to a "fake" timezone.

Perhaps we could just dump DST all together. I'd rather see a greater spread on start and stop times at work. That way we reduce traffic/accidents/etc. Once you do that DST or not is kind of irrelevant.

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Darinbob]

Just move to UTC. No more DST, no more changing time zones as you cross state or county borders, and you always know what time it is in Nome, Alaska.

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Athanasius]

The issue with this is that business hours aren't centred around mid-day. I don't think we'll ever have the necessary cultural shift to change *that*, thus shifting timezone to +1 permanently is the best that can be hoped for. As many others have said at least this gets rid of the sleep pattern disturbance of changing the clocks twice a year.

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Athanasius]

This would be the pure 'sensible' solution, yes. You change from needing to know what the offset is in order to cite the correct time to instead needing to know what the offset is in business hours instead, so no absolute difference in necessary mental gymnastics there. You gain being able to say "at 15:30" and everyone knowing what you mean.

Now try to get 7 billion (and counting) human beings to agree on doing that, and do so consistently. In the UK we've been officially decimal and metric for decades, yet even people younger than me (coming up on 46) will still cite weights in "stones and pounds" and small lengths in inches.

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Athanasius]

I also could have mentioned "and it would mean not needing to maintain zoneinfo any more", which is a clusterfuck with various governments deciding to change when/if they do DST on a whim, some crazies wanting to use local solar time (so a continuous change in 'now' across the whole country), and other shenanigans. Although, as mentioned above, you'd probably still end up having to maintain a "local business hours" database for some uses, given it *would* be crazy to base that on local solar time.

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Anonymous Coward]

No you aren't, at least not fully. You are still using 60 second minutes, 60 minute hours, and 24 minute days. So, not fully metric/decimal.

Re: Permanent daylight saving time...

[jecowa]

With local solar time, you could be on different sides of the city and have a 15-minute difference in times. On the bright side, maybe Flintstones sundial watches would become popular.

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Athanasius]

I do sometimes muse about 10 "hour" days, which would make a work day 3 decimal-hours (d-hours, dours?), 'spare' time another 3, sleep 3, and 1 left over for some slop/leeway. You can bet employers would want 3.5 or even 4 dour work days though.

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is beyond stupid because not Florida will have a different time than their neighboring states that are in the same 'real' timezone and require constant calibration. For fucks sake, shouldn't the Florida legislature be working on protecting students from gun violence instead of grandstanding and promoting distractions like this?

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Anonymous Coward]

i work from 8-5 UTC
london works from 3-11 UTC
japan works from 1-9 UTC

how is this any harder to remember then what we do now

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[sfcat]

I do sometimes muse about 10 "hour" days, which would make a work day 3 decimal-hours (d-hours, dours?), 'spare' time another 3, sleep 3, and 1 left over for some slop/leeway. You can bet employers would want 3.5 or even 4 dour work days though.

Its been done a few times already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Rakarra]

No, it is beyond stupid because not Florida will have a different time than their neighboring states that are in the same 'real' timezone and require constant calibration.

Then those other states should do the sensible thing and follow Florida's lead, for once ("for once" meaning that it's rare that following Florida's lead is the sensible thing).

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Florida wants to remain on the same time all year, then why don't they choose the (correct) time zone in which the state exists? [This is a no-brainer.]

Re:Permanent daylight saving time...

[martinfb]

Nope. They actually mean DST, NOT EST. Read the article.

Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope the rest of the country ditches it too. Completely outmoded idea.

Idiots.

[msauve]

Sure, DST is evil, pointless, doesn't save any time or energy. So making it permanent is just plain stupid.

Noon is when the sun is at its peak, and changing that is foolish. If people want more daylight after work is done, then they should push for working hours to change to 8-4.

Re:Idiots.

[sgage]

I agree - time of sunrise and sunset should be symmetrical around noon.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of changing one thing (the time zone), people should push to change lots of things (work hours, school hours, television broadcast times, more ...)?

Noon is when the sun is at its peak
That's how it was historically defined; it's not a requirement. We can make noon mean whatever we want it to.

The legislature had to pick from two different clock settings - summer / DST, and winter / standard time. They picked one.

Re:Idiots.

[glenebob]

Sounds good on paper, but it sucks up north. Getting dark at 4:30 PM is just shit.

Re:Idiots.

[msauve]

"Getting dark at 4:30 PM is just shit."

Why, exactly? Do you think DST somehow provides more daylight? Get off your lazy ass and get up earlier (in wall clock time) to enjoy the full day.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still going to get dark at 4:30PM. You live in northern latitudes, the days get far shorter in the winter and far longer in the summer. That's how the planet works.

You can call it something else, but that doesn't change how time works and how day and night works. If you want longer days in the winter, you're going to have to change the planet's tilt, and good luck with that.

Re:Idiots.

[alvinrod]

Why does it matter what time it gets dark? Get up and go to work earlier so you can leave sooner if it's that much of a concern. Calling the point in time that it gets dark 2:30 PM, 8:30 PM, or 5:15 AM doesn't change the total amount of daylight that you get. If you really think you absolutely need to be in sync with the southern states to get business done, then that's a price you'll have to pay.

Re:Idiots.

[Waffle Iron]

No.

Nobody gets up an extra hour before work and does a little bit of personal stuff with the whole workday looming in front of them.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shove your suggestion up your ass.

Re:Idiots.

[markdavis]

>"Why does it matter what time it gets dark? Get up and go to work earlier so you can leave sooner if it's that much of a concern."

You act as if most of us CAN set what time we go to work. And that is not reality.

Re:Idiots.

[Waffle Iron]

It has nothing to do with whether you like your job, nor with how smug you are about your own occupation.

It's the combination of trying to do something useful an/or enjoyable while you're still bleary from sleep along with knowing that it will be interrupted in less than an hour.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone likes to suck dicks all day, though.

Re:Idiots.

[Darinbob]

It's going to get dark early in the winter no matter what. Half the state is pissed that it is dark early, but you turn on DST and then the other half of the state is pissed that it's still dark in the morning. If you don't like it being dark at 4:30 then just wake up one hour early, go to work one hour early, and go home one hour early. It's just like DST except that you don't have to do unnatural acts with the clock.

If you think that you get more daylight just by moving the clock ahead, then try telling the boss that you are working an extra hour by moving the clocks ahead.

Re:Idiots.

[Darinbob]

You know, I think the flat earthers are on to something here. Equal daylight for everyone!

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

So it would be appropriate to go to work at a time that violates your circadian rhythms but not to do your own thing?

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone, just your mom.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

That would work if employers and shops also placed key times earlier in the day. But there is too much inertia behind a 9-5 schedule. For Florida, using EDT lines up better with how people actually live/work than EST. While moving the working times would be a better choice, that just isn't going to happen.

Re: Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even worse is sunrise at 10 am.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

The 9-5 schedule is there so that the employers get the best hours of your day on average according to everyone's natural circadian rhythm. It would take time, but if we went to AST as our time zone, the work schedule would eventually be adjusted to 10-6 because people wouldn't be up and going to stores and banks at 9.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

'Lazy ass' my ass... get a grip...
https://www.sciencealert.com/s...

Waking up at 6 in the morning will make me into a zombie for the full day... Waking up at 7, or preferably 8, will make me a lot more productive and have a lot more energy. Have had a 2 year period where i was had to get up at 6 and during those years i was a complete zombie and had to spend most of the weekend in bed... I have more energy if i sleep 4 hours and get up at 8 instead of sleeping 8 hours and get up at 6.

It is easier in the summer when i require less sleep, because of more sunlight, but my head still gets screwed up if having to wake up too early.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

You should move to Sweden. Even in southern Sweden it gets dark at 2pm...

Re:Idiots.

[thegarbz]

Noon is when the sun is at its peak

Yes, at one single given longitude in any timezone. Otherwise the sun isn't at its peak at noon. Also who really cares where the sun is at noon? It could be the middle of the night at noon and all the office workers stuck indoors unable to flex away from their regulated 9-5s wouldn't give a crap. But give people an extra hour of sunlight in the afternoon is a major change in lifestyle in a positive way too.

Now Florida already has enough sun, but there are many parts of the world that could benefit from this kind of change and with it tangibly improve afterwork life, reduce SAD, and reduce Vitamin D deficiency. (Though I think Florida may see a skin cancer increase as a result of this).

Re:Idiots.

[thegarbz]

I agree - time of sunrise and sunset should be symmetrical around noon.

Why?

Re:Idiots.

[thegarbz]

Get up and go to work earlier so you can leave sooner

Oh look, a person of privilege. Guess what, the vast majority of people's lives don't work like that.

Re: Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not up on my flat earther craziness. How do they explain the different day lengths?

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want longer days in the winter, you're going to have to change the planet's tilt, and good luck with that.

No-one is talking about getting longer days. They just what what little light there is to be at a time it is usable.
The big point of interest isn't so much winter and summer. It is spring and autumn when offsetting the clock a bit actually makes it so that you have a bit of sunlight when you get back home from work.

In winter it doesn't really matter where those two hours of sunlight are placed, it is going to be dark when you go to work and dark when you get home either way.
In the summer it is bright a 5 am and and full sunlight at 6 and you will probably go to bed before the sky is completely dark.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

>"Why does it matter what time it gets dark? Get up and go to work earlier so you can leave sooner if it's that much of a concern."

You act as if most of us CAN set what time we go to work. And that is not reality.

Since we can't control when we go to work... we just change what time it is!

Think about how moronic that is.

Anyway, I'm a 3rd shift worker and don't care one way another (EST or EDT), as long as we don't keep changing timezones.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or.... work less hours, productivity has risen many times over enough to do it.

Re:Idiots.

[AmiMoJo]

If you have perfect 1 hour timezones then noon with be with the sun overhead +/- 30 minutes. In practice timezones are not perfect by any stretch, they tend to follow political boundaries.

A few countries have fractional timezones, like +8 hours 15 minutes or something, but I imagine they also have a lot of problems with broken software.

Re:Idiots.

[TeknoHog]

Noon is when the sun is at its peak, and changing that is foolish. If people want more daylight after work is done, then they should push for working hours to change to 8-4.

Here in Finland, traditional office hours are 8am to 4pm (or as we call them, 8 to 16), and many people still want their idiotic DST.

DST is really a "solution" to a particularly stubborn set of requirements: (a) I want to go work earlier, and (b) I still want the clock to show the same time as I start work. Even if that means changing the entire system of measurements for everyone.

While (b) is downright stupid, I'm not even sure if (a) is a good thing for most people. The argument is about getting more free time in the evenings, at the expense of being even more tired at work. All this while governments are keen to increase national productivity.

While we're at it, let's change measures of length for the summer because of thermal expansion.

Re:Idiots.

[dcw3]

"Getting dark at 4:30 PM is just shit."

Why, exactly? Do you think DST somehow provides more daylight? Get off your lazy ass and get up earlier (in wall clock time) to enjoy the full day.

What a lame comment. People who work for a living don't often get to select their working hours. The vast majority get stuck driving into work in the dark, and then driving home at dark in the winter. It's not about "more daylight", it's about being able to use some of it, when you're not stuck at the office.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree with part of this statement. 430 is too early for dark.

What I hate is when its not dark an hour before I have to go to work (9 pm) or not dark an hour after I get home say around 7 am.

Whatever time you guys want to set is fine as long its dark from 9pm-7am , time to think about others and stop being so selfish.

Re:Idiots.

[hazardPPP]

I agree - time of sunrise and sunset should be symmetrical around noon.

In order to actually achieve this, you would have to change time zones every couple of miles...by some small amount, minutes, seconds, whatever.

You do realize that time zones are ALSO a convention, don't you? You don't think that when you cross that bridge in Florida which is the boundary between Central and Eastern time that on one side of the bridge, the sun is at its highest point one hour earlier than on the other side of the bridge? You realize that time zones were invented exactly in order to PREVENT people from setting their clocks "naturally" based on the sun at their location, since that created a total mess and made it very difficult if not impossible to keep to things such as train schedules? So time zones were invented to "artificially" divide the Earth into 1 hour-sized chunks with defined borders so we can always know which time it is in a particular location and have that consistent?

Re:Idiots.

[dcw3]

...then the other half of the state is pissed that it's still dark in the morning

Said nobody, ever. Seriously, have you ever heard that complaint?

Re:Idiots.

[Gavagai80]

It's not that people care what the clock says. It's that most people don't get to choose when they go to work, and legislating what times jobs start would be an impracticable disaster of governmental micromanagement.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

What you said has nothing to do with what you're arguing about. You're talking about changing time as the solution to the Sun's hours shifting. Just change what time, instead of time. If the Sun rises at 11pm, who the f*ck cares?! Time is just arbitrary numbers, make them work for you instead of you working for them.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be nice that all these people get to set their own work hours.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that you get more daylight just by moving the clock ahead, then try telling the boss that you are working an extra hour by moving the clocks ahead.

Exactly what I do. My clocks at home that tell me when to go to work are 1 hour behind, of course.

Re:Idiots.

[anegg]

If you were in my household, you would hear it often. In the spring time, just as it is starting to actually be light outside when we are all getting up and ready for the day, along comes DST and fucks it back up again. I detest having to get up before the sun rises, and I hate getting a hint of daylight as I rise only to have it snatched away again by DST, especially since DST was moved earlier in the spring in the mid-2000s so that the effect hit more noticeably. So, yes, I get pissed that it is still dark in the morning due to DST, and I'll be cursing it next Monday morning.

Re:Idiots.

[TeknoHog]

legislating what times jobs start would be an impracticable disaster of governmental micromanagement.

Heh, it already is, even if they are effecting the same change via DST. At least that's how I understand micromanagement -- unnecessary and annoying control when the individual worker knows much better.

In this case, you have a group of people that are genuinely happier to start work earlier than usual, but they still choose jobs with fixed hours. Their "solution" is a government mandate that everyone must start work an hour earlier, no matter what. If that isn't some kind of micromanagement, I'm not sure what is.

Re:Idiots.

[MorePower]

If you don't like it being dark at 4:30 then just wake up one hour early, go to work one hour early, and go home one hour early.

You do realize almost nobody has a job that allows this, right? On many of my job assignments, going to work an hour early would mean waiting at a locked gate for a while. And at many (most?) jobs, the work day starts with the 7:00am safety meeting. If you are there at 6:00, you can't pick up your tools and do any work before the safety meeting. And if you work at any kind of operator (or monitoring, security, customer service) type job, it doesn't matter when you started, you leave when your replacement arrives to take over. Most people don't come to work at a computer and shuffle bytes all day.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself only... I, for one, have complained bitterly, and constantly, about having to get up and go to work in the dark every damn morning because of selfish jerks like you. I need that sunlight in the morning and could care less about having it in the evening. But then, according to you, my opinion doesn't count, only what you want matters.

You sir, are an idiot. You want more light in the evening then get up earlier and don't try to force the rest of the world to your schedule. Noon is when the sun is at it's highest point in the sky. That's why they call it STANDARD time.
--
Steve (AC because I haven't bothered to register in all these years)

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

What does being sugar-free have to do with it?

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

it would like a hell of alot more sense to just have businesses open an hour earlier then to change the clocks.

Re:Idiots.

[fedos]

What's bad is the shifting back and forth. DST is actually better that standard time from an across-the-year perspective..

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you change the symmetry to 1:00 PM, then in a few decades we'll be clamoring for changing it to 2:00 PM as we continue to get up later and go to bed later.

Re:Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Your assertion that the number of people who complain about waking up in the dark is zero is as unfounded as the GP's assertion that it's 50%.

I hope you don't run a polling company.

Re:Idiots.

[angel'o'sphere]

Regarding work hours you could change the laws. Or introduce laws where you have none.
I for my part have no fixed hours when I have to show up at work.

As long as my time period overlaps significantly enough with my coworkers and I'm present at meetings, that is fine.

Re:Idiots.

[angel'o'sphere]

but I imagine they also have a lot of problems with broken software.
Not really.

Most operation systems handle time zones quite fine. And it is long a go that MS office software programs where in the news because of wrong handled time zones.

However the shift from and to DST causes a lot of headaches (and bugs).

Re:Idiots.

[Darinbob]

Yes, I have. From parents whose kids are walking to school in the dark.. Especially after congress changed to have DST end in November. A few weeks in and people get used to it.

This also depends upon where you are. It may be pitch black on one area of the US, and then within the same time zone the sun will be fully up over the horizon.

Re:Idiots.

[Darinbob]

I said half, not 50% :-) As in, when I was a kid and I got 3/4s of a cookie and my friend got 1/4, I'd say "this is my half, and that's your half". Of course, he's been unable to properly do math throughout his life because of me.

Re: Idiots.

[brunnegd]

Yes, many of us want daylight in the early morning.

Re: Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes because the answer to everything is to regulate

Re:Idiots.

[Quirkz]

Get up and go to work earlier so you can leave sooner if it's that much of a concern.

Is it safe for me to assume that this is how you deal with your summers? You change your clock, but keep the original circadian schedule and just go in to work and do everything else an hour later for those 7 months?

This is stupid...

[b0s0z0ku]

If you want to stay on the same time all year around, stay on Standard Time. Being in a fake time zone an hour ahead of solar time is almost as stupid as changing time artificially 2x a year.

Re:This is stupid...

[sjames]

Other than sunrise, sunset, and high noon, all of our measured time is "fake". Since the clocks don't care, might as well set them conveniently.

Re:This is stupid...

[b0s0z0ku]

Solar noon/midnight should be as close to 12am/pm as possible.

Re:This is stupid...

[Nostalgia4Infinity]

Why?

Re:This is stupid...

[b0s0z0ku]

Because time is the measure of a day's progress -- faking it to appease stupid people who can't change their or their employees working/school hours is just lying to oneself.

Re:This is stupid...

[sjames]

It remains a measure of the day's progress even if the sun reaches it's height at 1. Even with the current timezones, there are very few places where solar noon coincides with exactly 12:00:00 anyway.

Re:This is stupid...

[b0s0z0ku]

Might as well not fragment time zones further.

Re: This is stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather have more clock time daylight in the evening so i can do things outside after work.

Re:This is stupid...

[RhettLivingston]

They did it this way because it has no effect. It's making a statement while doing nothing.

If they had gone to permanent standard time, it could have taken effect without the approval of the US Congress. But actually changing time zones requires the approval of Congress.

It would be hilarious if Congress approved it and everybody else just switched to standard so they could be the oddballs with primetime showing from 9 to 12 instead of 8 to 11. Kind of appropriate in Floriduh.

Re:This is stupid...

[markdavis]

>"If you want to stay on the same time all year around, stay on Standard Time. Being in a fake time zone an hour ahead of solar time is almost as stupid as changing time artificially 2x a year."

No it isn't. All time is "fake". MOST of the year, we are in DST, and that *is* the time during those months. Being on DST is much more convenient for the vast majority of people- regardless of the month. If time is a construct and we can make it so we don't keep changing it AND we can make it more convenient and enjoyable at the same time by staying on DST, then why not do it? I don't give a damn if the sun is at its highest at noon.... I expect most don't care. I DO care about not having to get up in the dark AND getting home in the dark in the winter months, and moving to DST permanently would help with that. Besides, those living close to a different time zone are already a minimum of almost an hour off of high noon being high sun for ALL of the year.

Re:This is stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome! By your reasoning we can just use GMT worldwide. There is no need for time zones at all. That's so revolutionary!

Re: This is stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

They would just move the time work starts. Seriously. Work starts when it does for most because it matches our circadian rhythms.

Re:This is stupid...

[Darinbob]

Well, by that logic, why even have time zones in the first place? Put everyone in the world on the same time and eliminate confusion. The sun would be at its peak at 7am instead in parts of the US.

Re:This is stupid...

[Darinbob]

Before they had time zones, it was pretty much established in most of the western world that 12:00am was when the sun was the highest. That's how they set the clocks. When it took several hours to ride a horse to the next town then the time difference wasn't much of a bother. But with railroads it became more annoying, and the railroads set up the timezones in order to have better consistency with each town and provide better schedules.

Re:This is stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Before they had time zones, it was pretty much established in most of the western world that 12:00am was when the sun was the highest.

Am I missing something? 12:00 am is midnight.

It would be pretty weird to have 12:00 am immediately followed by 12:01 pm.

Re:This is stupid...

[amorsen]

Not significantly more weird than having 11:59 am immediately followed by 12:00 pm. That would be daft, surely no one would come up with a time keeping system that stupid.

Re:This is stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just numbers. It doesn't really matter whether solar noon happens at 12:00, 11:00 or 13:00. If it's easier to change the clocks than to convince employers to adopt an 8-4 or 7-3 working day, then what's the problem?

Re:This is stupid...

[thegarbz]

Because time is the measure of a day's progress

It is nothing of the sort. Time is just a system used to synchronise activities between people.

Re:This is stupid...

[bickerdyke]

Why?

Convention. Symmetry makes some easier calculations Not more, not less. But the whole concept of measurable time is human made, so probably any convention would work somehow.

I like DST in the summer, but it's a convention. And as with all conventions: Feel free to ignore it and do your own stuff. They are not mandatory, but it just makes life much easier when interacting people use the same ones. Go ahead and split your day between sunset and sunrise into 42 flumps! If you schedule your breakfast at 2 flump, it will always be in sync with the break of daylight. Farmers and cows would probably love that! (I heard it confuses both when they do a hard adjust of milking times twice a year) Have your farm running on flump time! Work 30 flumps every day and your working hours will adopt to available daylight and amount of work neccessary on your farm.

But you can us flumps as office worker, too. You only need to accept that your regular 9-5 jobs starts at a different flump time every day and that in winter you have to work way more flumps at the office than in winter. (which corrosponds to the fact that you spent a smaller fraction of daylight at the office during summer when days are longer but you're on 8 hr days)

Re:This is stupid...

[bickerdyke]

Before they had time zones, it was pretty much established in most of the western world that 12:00am was when the sun was the highest.

Am I missing something? 12:00 am is midnight.

It would be pretty weird to have 12:00 am immediately followed by 12:01 pm.

Now that you mention it, it's no less weird than having 11:59am followed by 12:00 pm. But if 12:00 is noon, it is technically neither ante or post noon (meridian)

Re:This is stupid...

[sjames]

I'd be fine with the whole country staying sprung ahead.

Re:This is stupid...

[sjames]

Never claimed anything revolutionary. I suspect most people would rather stay with timezones. It's one thing to have high noon at 1:00 P.M. and work starts at 9:00 A.M., wuite another to have high noon at 3:00 A.M.

Re: This is stupid...

[sjames]

That hasn't been true for a very long time due to artificial lighting. If work actually started based on natural waking time, few would need alarm clocks and practically nobody over the age of 20 would hit the snooze button.

Re:This is stupid...

[jalet]

Isn't that exactly what ships at sea do ?

Re:This is stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for Canadians. They're in bed by 9pm, anyway.

Re:This is stupid...

[DontBeAMoran]

No we're not.

We're in bed by 21:00.

Re:This is stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

wuite another to have high noon at 3:00 A.M.

Why? you would get used to it inside a week.

Re:This is stupid...

[mdm-adph]

Because Eratosthenes, that's why :p Give the man some credit.

Re:This is stupid...

[sjames]

Too much signage would have to change, too many other changes to various records and policies.

Re:This is stupid...

[Dragonslicer]

Solar noon/midnight should be as close to 12am/pm as possible.

Where?

Re:This is stupid...

[angel'o'sphere]

Depends I guess.
As tide charts usually are in local time, I see no point in sticking to GMT.
Put perhaps they, do, no idea.

Re:This is stupid...

[angel'o'sphere]

That is why most of the world uses 24 hours ...
I find it rather weird that people at some places (e.g. Thailand) still regularily use AM and PM

Re:This is stupid...

[angel'o'sphere]

Well,
my GF lives in Thailand. That is 6:00 away from me.
With time zones I can easy calculate when she is likely awake.
Without timezones I have to memorize when she is awake.

Obviously I still again only would need to memorize the 6h difference ... but it would be somehow strange in my mind.

Re:This is stupid...

[angel'o'sphere]

(I heard it confuses both when they do a hard adjust of milking times twice a year)
Except that they don't do that. What would be the point?

Re:This is stupid...

[sjames]

A big reason to have a federal mandate (or occasionally state) is to get past manager's inertia and avoid nobody wanting to be the first mover who opens an hour before anyone cares and closes an hour before the competition. By moving the clock instead, everyone moves together and managers don't have to actually change anything to make it happen. Nobody has to reprint signage.

Re:This is stupid...

[jalet]

Around here (New-Caledonia) marine weather forecast is in UTC.

It seems to be the same in Australia : http://www.bom.gov.au/products...

Re:This is stupid...

[bickerdyke]

I never got that. But why are they complaining thai DST messes up their milking schedule then?

Re:This is stupid...

[angel'o'sphere]

Because they milk at a different time of the day.

Suppose you milk 5:00 in the morning and 17:00 afternoon.

Now with DST on you have to milk at 4:00 and 16:00. Perhaps your kids come home from school at 16:00 and you are busy with milking ...

Re: This is stupid...

[jgdnavy]

US Navy ships pick a reasonable time zone close to solar time on the open ocean, and the time zone for the next/previous port call when near land. UTC is used for scheduling between ships and other activities as occasionally they may be operating with a ship that is observing a different time zone.

Re:This is stupid...

[bickerdyke]

Wait wait wait.... now... ARE they adjusting the milking times according to DST or aren't they?

Re:This is stupid...

[angel'o'sphere]

In Europe they usually are not.

Why would they? That was the original question.

If you milk your cows 5:00 UTC and 17:00 UTC, you do that regardless of ordinary or DST at exact those times.

Re:This is stupid...

[bickerdyke]

In Europe they usually are not.

Why would they? That was the original question.

If you milk your cows 5:00 UTC and 17:00 UTC, you do that regardless of ordinary or DST at exact those times.

I AM posting from Europe.

And I completely agree that that would be an easy way to avoid DST related problems on farms. But still, "cows confused by changing milking times" is one of the major points in every article that tries to get rid of DST.

If you say they don't, the "why" is a pretty obvious conclusion: The actual problem is solved since ever (by sticking to UTC milking times - or probably rather a propriatary farm time that corrosponds not with UTC but with non-DST local time) and the argument as a con-DST point is pure BS.

Re:This is stupid...

[angel'o'sphere]

But still, "cows confused by changing milking times" is one of the major points in every article that tries to get rid of DST.
I guess most articles simply are "fear mongering" (for the lack of a better word).

The main problems for farmers are that they stick to the rhythm of the day, but the world around them shifts an hour. That is e.g. a problem with kids going to school or kindergarden.

The real problems of DST are train schedules and power plant schedules. Power plants because of notorious software bugs, train schedules because when DST was introduced and you had an extra hour, the trains simply stopped next train station for one hour.

I guess there are plenty more, but those tow I have on my mind :D

Re:This is stupid...

[denbesten]

So, are you are proposing 1440 timezones, so that everyone's solar noon matches 12:00pm, or are you reserving that special characteristic for just a small sliver of people in each time zone?

daylight savings all year round?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just not have daylight savings time? back to normal GMT times?
#americuh

Re:Get the name right

[sgage]

Actually, no. It's officially Daylight Saving Time. Yes, the /. editors got it right!

PLEASE

[markdavis]

PLEASE bring this to my State (and all States). I am so over changing time twice a year for absolutely no real reason my whole life. And picking to stay on Daylight Saving Time year-round ("permanent daylight saving time" is the best possible choice. I am very jealous. And yet, this could be the start of something great...

-Changing time-
Saves energy: FALSE
Helps farmers: FALSE
Gives extra sleep: FALSE
Reduces accidents: FALSE
Causes lots of lost productivity: TRUE
Causes a nightmare for people with sleep disorders: TRUE
Causes minor health problems even for normal people: TRUE
Generates a lot of hassle and confusion: TRUE
Hurts the economy: TRUE

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Extra hour of drinking every fall: TRUE
Summer gets here one hour quicker: TRUE

Re:PLEASE

[sgage]

I'm for staying with Standard Time year round. The sun should be at its highest at noon, not 1:00. 12:00 noon should be sun on the meridian, more or less - it depends on how far east or west you are from the center of your timezone.

Re:PLEASE

[zieroh]

Gives whiny people something more to whine about: TRUE

Honestly, I find the whining about Daylight Savings Time much worse than Daylight Savings Time itself.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Not me. I hate when it gets dark early in the evening. Daylight savings in the winter would be awesome! I don't mind if it's dark in the morning, it's that winter 4PM darkness that really freaks me out (I have an anxiety disorder). My anxiety ramps up massively when the "fall-back" time change occurs. It's already getting dark really early, then we set the clocks back so it instantly jumps the darkness 1 hour even earier. Fuck that!

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

most people don't live their day symmetrically around noon, and would rather have more daylight in the pm than have the sun rise at 4a

Re:PLEASE

[markdavis]

>"I'm for staying with Standard Time year round. The sun should be at its highest at noon, not 1:00. 12:00 noon should be sun on the meridian, more or less - it depends on how far east or west you are from the center of your timezone."

Like you said, if you are on the edge of a timezone, it wouldn't be noon at high sun, anyway. We already engage in DST for most of the year anyway, and nothing falls apart that noon isn't at the highest point in the sky for the sun. I would go for anything that doesn't change time, ever. But I still would prefer "summer time" year-round.

Re:PLEASE

[rtb61]

Here you go https://www.safework.sa.gov.au.... Just keep in mind other people are not as selfish as you and families spending more daylight hours together is a good thing and if you want more https://www.safework.sa.gov.au.... By your logic, I want the entire worlds clock adjust to when it is noon over my house, screw everyone else. As you go from west to east, so noon differs by the metre.

Re:PLEASE

[null etc.]

The sun should be at its highest at noon, not 1:00.

I wholeheartedly agree. The sun needs to be directly above me as I eat my lunch, otherwise the strong gravitational forces from the sun will suck my sandwich back up my throat and make me vomit all over my keyboard.

Someone once suggested that I eat lunch at 1pm instead of noon, but the asymmetrical offset would interfere with my polyphasic sleep schedule.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

You hate having to relearn what lighting level corresponds to each hour of the day, or you hate that your work hours won't shift with the switch to standard time?

Re:PLEASE

[fox171171]

I'm for staying with Standard Time year round. The sun should be at its highest at noon, not 1:00. 12:00 noon should be sun on the meridian, more or less - it depends on how far east or west you are from the center of your timezone.

So, better to have it astronomically correct than to be more convenient for most people? That's dumb. Especially since as you move across the time zone, noon isn't going to be when the sun is directly overhead anyway. (Half an hour either side of center in theory. Not exactly in practice.)

Spring ahead, then stay there permanently.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

By your logic, I want the entire worlds clock adjust to when it is noon over my house

Then live in Greenwich.

Re:PLEASE

[Goldsmith]

Sticking to one time all year is great, but is this noon = peak sun comment a joke? You do realize this view is at least a century out of date. This is not how time zones work, this is how the (antiquated, broken) system we had before time zones worked.

Re:PLEASE

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

If there is one U.S. State in the "Contiguous 48" which really does not need Summer/Winter time changes it is Florida, at that distance from the Equator there is not a lot of fluctuation anyway.
Have a look at Spain though, Franco was an admirer of Hitler and "moved" Spain to the same timezone as the Nazi Reich - it has remained there ever since. In winter they are one hour away from where they should be, in summer it is two hours. Spaniards have compensated by doing everything an hour or so later than anyone else.

Re:PLEASE

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

afaik Saudi Arabia still uses that "antiquated, broken" system.

Re: PLEASE

[houghi]

Time is for people. The sun does not care. I would understand that we would see to it that ot is dark when we work and becomes light when we have pur free time.
We live in times that when we work we are inside with artificial light and outside when it is dark.

That would mean serveral hours shift.

Re:PLEASE

[thegarbz]

The sun should be at its highest at noon

Why? Time is nothing more than a system used to synchronise activities between groups of people. There's no reason why noon needs to be set to the highest point of the sun.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

The numbers on the clock are just numbers. Nothing wrong with having 13:00 noon. It'll only be astronomically true if you happen to live right on the meridian anyway. Elsewhere in the state you'll have 12:43 noon, 13:08 noon etc.

Equally, there would be nothing wrong with keeping noon at approximately 12:00 and everyone just agreeing that standard office hours should be 08:00 - 16:00, but for whatever reason it seems easier to alter the clocks than working times.

Re:PLEASE

[jez9999]

Trouble is, I have exactly the opposite opinion to you. I expect it to get dark in the evenings but waking up in the dark I find really depressing.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot all about Miller time.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care what time is astronomically correct as long as its dark from 9pm-7am so I can enjoy the calming moonlight/nighttime (I work nights btw) so don't go changing time just because its "convenient for most people" Think about others needs as well.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Except its not any more convenient.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, someone who is "antiquated, broken" would find no problems with a "antiquated, broken" concept.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so over changing time twice a year

FOUR times a year when you have devices that have DST hard coded into their clocks, many stoves, microwaves, clocks, etc made before the time change was moved all have this problem.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

All these people complaining about idiocy of the parent... If you spend a second to think, it's pretty obvious that s/he is implying that about either (a) geometric center (more likely) of the timezone area or (b) average longitude of easternmost and westernmost extremities (less likely).

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Just hold your phone directly overhead at 1pm, you'll be fine.

Re:PLEASE

[jdavidb]

Me, too. It is absolutely ridiculous that solar noon in my area is after 1:30 P.M.

That said, staying on Daylight time would still be an improvement over what we have today.

Re:PLEASE

[DaFallus]

Why does it matter whether the sun is at its highest at noon or 1 pm?

I'm for staying with Daylight Saving time because I prefer to have more sunlight after I get home from work. With Standard Time, the sun is rising while I'm driving to work and setting while I'm driving home. Lucky for me, I have to drive East in the morning and West in the evening so the sun is in everyone's eyes the entire time. And no, I don't believe its very realistic to expect businesses and employers to shift everyone's start times by an hour. If you were going to do that, wouldn't be a lot easier to simply shift the time over to Daylight Saving?

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

I find whining about whining about DST worse than whining about DST, but much better than DST.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Then disable DST on those devices. The hard-coding is only for the dates that DST begins/ends, not for whether or not you live in a location that follows DST.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

That's 5 Trues vs 4 False. Go Daylight savings!

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to quit the job and go on disability! Get a Psychiatric Service animal (e.g. dog, cat, llama). The latter takes up more room when you go to a steakhouse, but nobody will (or can) question you! You should get started RIGHT NOW! VAMOOSE!

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll go you one further, I think the world should be on UTC.

"But then the sun won't be overhead at noon!", they'll complain.

Well, yes, it will. Define 'noon' to be 'that time at which the sun is directly overhead'. The actual time of that occurrence will vary from place to place, and that is entirely acceptable.

If I'm on the phone with a friend across town and say "Hey, lets go fishing just after noon on saturady", he'll immediately know both the time of day (based on the sun) and the actual time (based on the clock) that I mean. If I'm on the phone with a business colleague on the other side of the country, I'd never use noon as a time marker to begin with, because he's in a different time zone anyway.

Those nebulous markers, noon, morning, evening, etc, remain entirely valid locally if the world switches to UTC, while remaining just as unusable then as they are now when dealing with people outside your timezone.

Re:PLEASE

[PrimaryConsult]

I have to drive East in the morning and West in the evening so the sun is in everyone's eyes the entire time.

Me too, but I'll throw in a further annoyance. Not only do I have that unpleasantness on the highway, but after exiting I drive west on local roads in the morning (/east in the afternoon), which means the sun is shining on the traffic lights at just the perfect angle that I have no idea what they read, unless I'm 3 cars back. The pedestrian lights only change if someone pushes the button, so whoever the first car is has to deduce whether the light has changed based on how long the cross traffic has stopped and if no one is confidently turning left in the opposite direction.

Re:PLEASE

[Goldsmith]

Last country to use solar observations to set their time was Nepal in 1986.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

The sun should be at its highest at noon

Why? Time is nothing more than a system used to synchronise activities between groups of people. There's no reason why noon needs to be set to the highest point of the sun.

Because that is the definition of (solar) noon:

Solar noon is the time when the Sun appears to contact the local celestial meridian. This is when the Sun apparently reaches its highest point in the sky, at 12 noon apparent solar time. The local or clock time of solar noon depends on the longitude and date.[1]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noon

Now there's some fudging involved because timezones are quite wide geographically, but that's a practical trade-off about them.

I'm a "purist": Standard Time all the time. It is after all /Standard/ Time, and was generally accepted in the past just fine before all of this DST non-sense.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Sticking to one time all year is great, but is this noon = peak sun comment a joke? You do realize this view is at least a century out of date. This is not how time zones work, this is how the (antiquated, broken) system we had before time zones worked.

This is how reality works. Noon is when the sun is at its zenith. Dawn is when it rises. Dusk is when it sets. Timezones are a mental fiction to assist train schedules and telegraphers in nearby locations.

Re:PLEASE

[gmiller123456]

There's a big problem with that. The apparent motion of the Sun is not constant, and solar noon vs. wall clock noon differ by 30 minutes over the course of the year. It's called the "Equation of time", and sun dials would actually have the number of minutes to add or subtract for a given date engraved on them. So imagine having to adjust your wall clock every day.

For the curious. This is caused by the fact that the Earth's rotational speed is fairly constant, but its orbital speed varies significantly. Same thing happens with the moon, so we do actually get to see more than just one side of it.

Re:PLEASE

[Pseudonymous Powers]

I'm for staying with Standard Time year round. The sun should be at its highest at noon, not 1:00. 12:00 noon should be sun on the meridian, more or less - it depends on how far east or west you are from the center of your timezone.

First, let me start by saying that I'm with you, friend. Setting the high point of the sun permanently at 1:00 is like someone having a house full of misaligned picture frames and solving the problem by gluing them all to the wall... at an angle of 15 degrees clockwise of perpendicular.

"Four score and seven years ago, we the people set the sun's height permanently at 1pm, because we all agreed that changing the clocks every year was an idiotic atavism, but also because we all agreed that sleeping in that extra hour 88 years ago was TEH BOMB".

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Like you said, if you are on the edge of a timezone, it wouldn't be noon at high sun, anyway.

While this is true, it's at least somewhat close. Staying on DST year round means that the people at the far west edge of the time zone have "noon" on the clock be at what should be 10:30 or so according to the sun. That gets pretty significant, especially when leaving for work at 7AM is going to have the sun be where it would be at 5:30AM.

Re:PLEASE

[angel'o'sphere]

Causes a nightmare for people with sleep disorders: TRUE
WRONG.

If you have sleep disorders the time around you does not matter at all ...
If I have not slept 36 hours or slept 24hours in a row (with 3 breaks for drinking water or going to the toilet) has nothing to do with the number on the clock.

Re:PLEASE

[angel'o'sphere]

There is no need, but it is convenient.
E.g. to know where north and south is ... but well, plenty of people don't know that the sun is in the south at noon (on the northern hemisphere).

Re:PLEASE

[angel'o'sphere]

Then wake up later :D
Problem solved!

E.g. spend one more hour at night watching youtube ...

Re:PLEASE

[bigdavex]

The sun is at its highest at noon by definition.

Suppose:

1. People like to eat big sandwiches.
2. Sandwiches are 8 inches at Jimmy Johns.

Do we:
A) Make 10 inch sandwiches
B) Keep making 8 inch sandwiches, but redefine inches as 3.75 cm, so that the sandwiches will be bigger

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Until other whiny-ass people like yourself complain that they can't get out of bed at 8:30am, because the sun hasn't risen yet. You are never going to please everyone. The current system does a decent job at keeping the sunniest part of the day centered on when most people are awake. Suck it up snowflake.

Re: PLEASE

[mapkinase]

Headache for Muslims who would have otherwise enjoyed early Fajr time at tje Masjid and easy commute after that: TRUE.

Re: PLEASE

[brunnegd]

Agree

Re:PLEASE

[thegarbz]

Suppose:

1. People like to eat big sandwiches.
2. Sandwiches are 8 inches at Jimmy Johns.

Do we:
A) Make 10 inch sandwiches
B) Keep making 8 inch sandwiches, but redefine inches as 3.75 cm, so that the sandwiches will be bigger

We already do B in a way. I just came back from Subway where I ordered a 30cm sub which happens to not be 12" But that comes back to your first point...:

The sun is at its highest at noon by definition.

Negative. Noon is 12pm during the day by definition. What you are thinking of is "Solar Noon" a definition that is not used outside of the astronomy field for hundreds of years. Definitions evolve over the years as our understanding of topics and our needs change. The need here hasn't changed much, we need time synchronisation between people. 500 years ago the way to achieve this was to monitor the movement of your shadow. 12pm on the sundial mean that this synchronisation didn't work between people as they moved. This became a big problem when we invented ships, which is also the point where we decoupled our concept of time from the position of the sun. The sun was not a stable reference in the sky. Instead time was defined by the position of the stars. Shortly after we identified a more stable definition of time: atomic clocks and realise how stupid it was relying on a reference that used change (the earth's orbit and rotation is not stable).
You see relying on the sun to set the time has shown us that depending on where you are in the world and what day of the year it is you could be anywhere from +14min to -16min off from an accurate time. If you want to melt your brain, look up The Equation of Time. The Wikipedia article even has a picture of a nice clock in Naples that has two faces, one showing what the time is that we use, and the other showing how far off the time is from solar time (where your precious 12 noon reference sits).

As for the sun being highest at noon. Not where I live. It's highest at around 12:50 in the winter here, and 13:50 in the summer, and the reason is simple: Reality doesn't follow your arbitrary definition.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems this story has a TON of "facts" with absolutely NO proof.. but on that note, no change in times would ensure the crocs would be 10% less likely to eat children and half the sink holes in Florida will also just disappear.

Re:PLEASE

[ebvwfbw]

Sounds good. Do you happen to have a reference for this or did you just come up with this yourself? You see, I have friends that don't believe things without a reference.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Pedantry, that's why.

Noon == midday. And, midday is the middle point of the day. Can't be the middle of the day if the sun is already past it's zenith. That's afternoon.

Re:PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever had to change the time on a sundial?

Re:PLEASE

[Astfgl]

Causes ~13% more unnecessary traffic deaths: TRUE
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...

Why not work 7 to 4

[Anonymous Coward]

All year instead of calling it dst?

Also on the topic, tom scott has a fun youtube video on time zones and computers.

Re:Why not work 7 to 4

[b0s0z0ku]

Speak for yourself, I'm a night owl. Screw waking up at 5-6 am to get ready for work.

Re:Why not work 7 to 4

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that, I don't see why I should have to get up an hour earlier just because you have your panties in a bunch over DST.

Re:Why not work 7 to 4

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the l33t Japanese biker gang leader.

Re:Why not work 7 to 4

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a tip for you.. Whenever someone says your are lazy give them this link
https://www.sciencealert.com/s...

Night owls who struggle to get enough sleep are often diagnosed at sleep clinics with delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD), and researchers estimate that around 10 percent of the global population is affected by this condition.

Re:Why not work 7 to 4

[Anonymous Coward]

Am a graveyard shift guy, and I set the coffeemaker to 'brew' a pot at around 5-6.I get the prime mug, the day shift gets the rest of a fresh pot. Might as well stick with DST for Dade county saving time, where the work really takes place mañana (tomorrow, which it already is for this worker). Been there.

Re:Get the name right

[sgage]

Or then again, it could be Daylight's Savings Thyme. Or Daylites Sayvings Times. Whatever you call it, I'd like to be rid of it.

Down with Winter Darkness time!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it stupid to see the sun go down at 4:30pm instead of 5:30pm? I'd rather have that hour of light int the afternoon. I'd love to see an end to standard winter darkness time.

Re:Down with Winter Darkness time!

[sgage]

You live on a planet whose axis of rotation is tilted with respect to its orbital plane - get over it. Maybe you should consider a move to the tropics ;-)

Re:Down with Winter Darkness time!

[mark-t]

Sounds all wonderful until you realize that the sun isn't up until after 10am in the winter in a lot of places by pushing that clock ahead like that. That lack of daylight in the morning disrupts your body's natural sleep cycle,causing you to be more tired, and has pronounced negative effects on one's mood and oversell health. There's a reason we should be keeping our clocks synchronized with solar time.

Re:Down with Winter Darkness time!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are countries already "ahead by an hour: See Spain being on the same time zone as Poland. Heck, you can get pretty close to that offset in the US already: most of Western Indiana shares a time zone with Boston, same as West Texas and Chicago.

If your statements were true, this kind of thing would be trivial to find in the literature, and you'd see those regions screaming for the "right" time zone.

Re:Down with Winter Darkness time!

[Required Snark]

We just need to change the axial tilt of the earth. Why has this simple solution not been adopted already?

Re:Down with Winter Darkness time!

[mark-t]

Spain is south of 45 degrees, where the problems of a late rising sun in the winter are not as keenly felt.

I suppose you could use standard time for everything north of about 45 and then offset everything by an hour for everything closer to the equator, but I suspect that would have a lot of logistical problems.

Of course, one could also offset the problems of a later sunrise by starting work later in the winter, but that would entirely offset the benefits of a later sunset, so in the end, the simplest solution is probably the best one: leave the clocks fixed to reflect solar time.

Re:Down with Winter Darkness time!

[angel'o'sphere]

"Mommy! Why is the earth rotating?"

"Whats up with you kid, did you suck from the spirits bottle again?"

Re:Get the name right

[ArmoredDragon]

He meant to say Auld Lang Syne.

https://youtu.be/Hm1hwxc92Mo?t...

This one goes to 11

[swm]

n/t

Easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Just have everybody change their working hours during standard time, duh! Then congress doesn't have to do squat

Isn't year round DST

[rsilvergun]

not DST? If you're not setting your clocks back/forward it's not really DST is it?

Re:Isn't year round DST

[AvitarX]

No, summer time year round would be year round daylight saving time.

Winter time year round would be no DST.

I assume this is why they need Congress to approve too (a state can choose to have DST or not, but the federal government sets the days).

Re:Isn't year round DST

[PrimaryConsult]

Correct, actually. This is moving the state of Florida into Atlantic time.

wait a minute

[slashmydots]

Did they just pass a law saying agreeing to send the entire state of Florida into the future by one hour? I don't think the technology exists to do that. Just kidding. But seriously, how about make the time be what time it actually is?

Re:wait a minute

[markdavis]

>"Did they just pass a law saying agreeing to send the entire state of Florida into the future by one hour? But seriously, how about make the time be what time it actually is?"

And what exactly would that be? MOST of the year, we are in DST, and that *is* the time, if everyone agrees it is. So just do DST the rest of the year too and be done with it!

Congress has to pass this

[Anonymous Coward]

Florida will probably get shot down.

Too soon?

Re:Congress has to pass this

[Scarletdown]

Nah. A Scwewwy Wabbit will just take a hand saw and cut the state loose from the rest of the continent. :D

Re:Congress has to pass this

[sconeu]

But... but... it's America's wang!

Re:Congress has to pass this

[Anonymous Coward]

chop it off and move it next to michigan's hand.

Re:Congress has to pass this

[schwit1]

What if all the FLA residents and FLA governments(state and local) agreed to use DST or AST year round. Seems like a 1st amendment issue.

Re:Congress has to pass this

[Anonymous Coward]

Thoughts and prayers. Maybe God will issue a patch that gives little Timmy more sunlight at the bus stop.

Re:Congress has to pass this

[Hans Lehmann]

Time zones also effect interstate commerce, which is then the jurisdiction of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. From what I distantly recollect from history classes, many Supreme Court cases revolved around it. I don't imagine the courts would give much credence to the idea that time zones are a 1st amendment issue.

Re:Congress has to pass this

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't imagine the courts would give much credence to the idea that time zones are a 1st amendment issue.

So what do you feel they'd do, lock up anyone who has their clock set to something the judge didn't like, or who gave an 'unofficial' answer when asked what time it is (hard to imagine how that couldn't be first amendment)? Or do you just mean they'd strike out contact terms that specify a time zone they feel is incorrect for the area?
   

Re:Congress has to pass this

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's floppy. Probably like that of your president.

Re:Congress has to pass this

[asylumx]

The sun should just carry a gun. Clearly it could then protect all of us!

Re:Congress has to pass this

[Anonymous Coward]

the idea that time zones are a 1st amendment issue.

or the idea that time zones are an interstate commerce issue.

Re:Congress has to pass this

[XeXeN]

Florida will probably get shot down.

Too soon?

"Too soon?" <--- Only to the under 21 crowd...

Good. More daylight*

[Anonymous Coward]

The better to see you with, and shoot you.

Said the big bad wolf.

(Florida, the state with the most permissive gun laws in the nation.)

* And yes, I know it's the same amount of daylight, so don't get your panties in a twist telling me.

Me too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself, I'm a night owl. Screw waking up at 5-6 am to get ready for work.

I sleep in so late, I don't wake up until 6AM the following morning!

The closer you are to the equator

[sandbagger]

The less your opinion about Daylight Savings matters.

Re:The closer you are to the equator

[clovis]

The less your opinion about Daylight Savings matters.

That's true, and also the closer you are to the "land of the midnight sun" the less you care about DST.

Furthermore, people on the eastern side of a time zone have a different feeling about DST than those on the western side, because on the western side the sun rises and sets an hour later than for those on the eastern side so they have a built-in DST advantage, or punishment, depending on how long before sunrise you have to get up to get the kids to school.

Re:The closer you are to the equator

[fox171171]

I'm almost exactly at 45N. It matters quite a bit to me. Switch to DST in the Spring and stay there.

Re:The closer you are to the equator

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm at 60 degrees north, and the switch to Summer Time only gives maybe a week or so of noticeable extra sunlight.

The sunlight in May through August lasts until 9-11 in the evening. Summer Time or no Summer Time, I don't think it matters one bit.

It's the start of March now, and there's sunlight past 6/7 pm already. Which I think is plenty. And it's rapidly increasing.

They're turning the clocks in about three weeks... Frankly, it makes no sense at all.

Re:The closer you are to the equator

[Daneel Olivaw R.]

Funny, it applies to when you are closer to the poles as well. I get 23.5 hours of sunlight in summer and 3-4 hours in winter, and yet they shoved down DST on us...

Re:The closer you are to the equator

[Megane]

For most of my life, I've lived in central CST, but for a year at high school age, I lived in Louisiana. The sun came up so much earlier (even though it was only half an hour) that I didn't even notice the earlier sunset.

Re:The closer you are to the equator

[Anonymous Coward]

For most of my life, I've lived in central CST, but for a year at high school age, I lived in Louisiana. The sun came up so much earlier (even though it was only half an hour) that I didn't even notice the earlier sunset.

From what I've read, the problem with DST in some locations is that people now have to get up an hour earlier relative to the sunrise, and due to their circadian rhythm being tied to the periods of daylight, they are losing a cycle of REM sleep. Teenagers seemed to have a shifted circadian cycle that favors sleeping late and staying up late. Was that your experience?

Re:The closer you are to the equator

[Anonymous Coward]

idc if their the least effected, DST is utterly bullshit and needs to be done away with.

I am about as far north as you can get. Normal seasonal changes are hard enough, i don't need an hour offset instantly ninjakicking me in the crotch twice a year.

Re:The closer you are to the equator

[Megane]

My problem is that I'm normally an early riser, and in the fall, I have trouble waking up an hour later.

Dissenters?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious what reasoning the dissenters could possibly have had....

Standard Time all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds good on paper, but it sucks up north. Getting dark at 4:30 PM is just shit.

As someone who lives in Toronto, Canada, I'm fine with year-round Standard Time.

We live in a post-Edison / post-(Nikola)-Tesla world: turn on the damn lights. The last time it was truly "dark" here was during the 2003 blackout.

Re:Standard Time all the time

[PrimaryConsult]

You're in the western edge of the time zone, so it's fine for you. Your earliest sunset each year is 4:41 PM, and the sun sets before 5PM From November 8th to January 10th. In Boston for example, the earliest sunset is 4:11 PM, a full half hour earlier, and the sun sets before 5PM from November 5th (instantly when DST ends) to Feburary 3rd.
In other words, this translates to an entire extra month of not seeing the sun after work for a typical office worker, a problem that would disappear if us east coasters were in Atlantic time (year round) instead of Standard time for those few months DST is not in effect.

Re: Standard Time all the time

[brunnegd]

But on the west edge of the Eastern zone, there are two months of no sun before almost 8 am. If on DST in the winter, this would mean darkness until almost 9 am, which is a horrible thought.

Finally!

[Narcocide]

Someone's listening to sense anyway. It's a start at least.

Domino Theory

[jep77]

Hopefully the Domino Theory will come into effect and neighboring states will follow suit and force congress to allow states to choose to stay on DST forever. It probably would have been easier to just stay on Standard Time... maybe that was their plan. Make it look like they're changing things while doing it the hard way so that it just stays the same. Not that I'm jaded or anything.

Typical lawmaking stupidity

[ScooterComputer]

This is the worst kind of "bend reality to yield to human fantasy" lawmaking. Instead of doing away with the stupid DST convention, they are ADOPTING the stupid as default. They are not FIXING the problems caused by the switching of clocks, they are embracing the flawed solution... seemingly oblivious to the yet-more unintended consequences doing so will bring.
I can't even. "Traditional Daily Routine" has now become more rigid than physics. Thank you, lawgiving morons and the morons who chose them. Dumber and dumber the rabbit hole goes.

Re:Typical lawmaking stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

DST is completely arbitrary just as standard time is.

Speaking of being oblivious to consequences: the important thing to keep in mind in the bigger picture here is that ultimately the options are:

1) keep things as they are
2) make changes

Option #2 leads to discussion and flexibility, and hopefully an eventual solution.

Option #1 is where we already are.

Re:Typical lawmaking stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

They are not FIXING the problems caused by the switching of clocks

Yes they are. The problem with daylight saving is that the time changes twice each year. As long as they leave the time consistent all year it resolves the problems. It doesn't matter what time they standardise on, and they can use UCT if they want, just as long as they stick to it all year.

Re:Typical lawmaking stupidity

[thegarbz]

Given how most of the complaints about daylight savings are about the clock switching and that they are adopting it, what makes this decision flawed? Your arbitrary idea that noon should be the time when the sun is highest? Guess what, no one cares about that. Hell in my country the closest the sun at its highest point is to noon is winter solstice, and then it's just shy of 1pm. In summer it's 2pm, and no one gives a crap.

People however do give a crap that they can walk in the park and enjoy sunlight at 6pm after work.

As for your complaint about traditional daily routine being rigid, yes that's kind of the point. Time exists because of routine. There needed to be a way to synchronise activities between humans in order for a society to properly function. Did that surprise you? No Time does not exist so someone can figure out 12pm is the high point of the sun. That's just arbitrary. What's not arbitrary is the restrictions most people have on their worktime, or how much they enjoy sunlight, or vitamin D deficiencies further north because of the stupidity of winter time.

Re:Typical lawmaking stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said.

Re:Typical lawmaking stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

The decision is stupid because they could just as easily have done away with DST and changed their timezone by one hour.
Now instead everyone has to adjust application to a fucking florida timezone.

Re:Typical lawmaking stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

Just adopt UTC globally.

Re:Typical lawmaking stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

People however do give a crap that they can walk in the park and enjoy sunlight at 6pm after work.

I don't get this argument. What's wrong with going to the park and enjoy sunlight at 5pm after work?
Or if your personal needs are to work late, then why not move Florida to whatever_timezone+3, so you can enjoy sunlight at 8pm after work?
"9-5" is just as much, if not more, of a man-made convention as DST.

I predict you a prediction. In 20 years time, in Florida, the "normal" working day will be 10-6, and Florida will re-instate DST (on top of this current DST turned standard) after 10 years of people bitching they can't go to the park and enjoy sunshine after work.

This just in

[Anonymous Coward]

State full of morons makes moronic decision.

Staying on Standard?

[ffejie]

Shouldn't Florida consider staying on standard time year round? (Panhandle excepted) With year round DST in Jacksonville (most populous) and Miami (highest GDP for metro), the sun won't come up until 8:15, or 8:25 in the early days of January. This seems like a major drawback to the morning commute. Florida is naturally blessed with longer days than most states due to its southern geography. It probably can "afford" to not have to start its days in darkness (like the northern states do). Further, if Florida decides to go to DST year round (or Atlantic Time as many have accurately pointed out) that will put it to the EAST of the Eastern Timezone for several months a year, putting it east of NYC/DC/Boston. This doesn't make a ton of logical geographical sense, but worse, it fragments the country to 5 major time zones (sorry HI/AK). It's hard to imagine this not hurting Florida economically, to be decoupled from the major economic centers. (I'm not sure entirely on this point, but there was a study a few months ago about how there would be economic benefit to getting the country down to 2 timezones.)

Re:Staying on Standard?

[angel'o'sphere]

Florida is naturally blessed with longer days than most states due to its southern geography
In winter.

In summer every state farer north has longer daylight. That is actually the point about summer and winter.

Re:Staying on Standard?

[ffejie]

Point taken.

Miami minimum daylight is 10:32/day in December. Maximum is 13:45 in June.

Boston, the northern most big (US) city in the eastern timezone, minimum daylight is 9:05/day in December, Maximum is 15:17 in June.

Pretty much everyone is in agreement that Florida shouldn't be shifting on and off of daylight time. Because the swing (~3.25h) isn't so big, they should pick a timezone and stick with it. What I was trying to point out in my original post was that it makes decent sense for them to be on central (standard) time, especially considering they'll create a 5th US timezone 4 months a year otherwise. This has the added benefit of making it so 90% of the population won't be going to school/work in the dark at 8am (in Miami) for 112 days a year (Nov 12 - Mar 4)

In general, daylight saving screws a lot of things up, but there's something to be said for more northerly climates where the swings are greater actually needing to adjust the clocks. It always seems insane to me that Boston and Detroit can be on the same timezone, since their dawns are generally about an hour apart. I don't know how to fix it, other than having Boston/NYC move to Atlantic Time, and have the rest of the country shift east with them, but allowing the border states to switch if they'd rather stay on their existing time zone. I know for sure that daylight saving time isn't doing anything to fix the problem.

Time zones suck

[PopeRatzo]

They should just do away with time zones and make everyplace the same time. I don't like the fact that where I live Monday Night Football comes on at 5pm and Saturday Night Live starts at like 8:30. When I go online a 10pm to fuck around with my friends back in the Midwest or East Coast, they're all like, "Oh, we're sleeping because it's one in the morning." Fuck that.

Starting Sunday at 2am, the entire world has to go on Pacific Standard Time. No, make that, Pacific Daylight Time.

And put Saturday morning cartoons back on the networks. I mean, what the fuck is wrong with whoever decided to take cartoons off Saturday morning? Motherfucker, do I come over there and mess with your life?

Now excuse me, I gotta go get a refill and go pee. Save my spot.

Re:Time zones suck

[Anonymous Coward]

No, make that, Pacific Daylight Time.

I disagree. I think we should standardize to Mountain Standard Time.

Re:Time zones suck

[angel'o'sphere]

"Oh, we're sleeping because it's one in the morning." Fuck that.
How dumb are you?

If you change the time to be the same everywhere they would yell at "what is wrong with you? It is XX we are sleeping" What ever XX is at your place then.

Re:Time zones suck

[PopeRatzo]

How dumb are you?

You sound like my mother.

the equator

[n329619]

The closer you are to the equator

The less your opinion about Daylight Savings matters.

Your opinion matters less if you are closer to equator? Now that's just mean to the equators. I demand equal opportunity for equators!

/joke

Re:the equator

[Anonymous Coward]

"Some of us are more equator than others",George Orwell from Animal Farm.

Poor opening sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

Should read: Florida takes half baked idea and makes it fully baked.

Or: Florida continues to do stupid things so you donâ(TM)t have to.

100% GMT

[Anonymous Coward]

Better idea : Get rid of Daylight time. Get rid of all timezones.

People can easily adapt to working from 13:30 to 23:30, and that the sun rises & sets at 11:30 and 01:30 respectively.

Only farmers, sailors, and maybe priests need to know about solar time – and none of them are required to care about wall-clock time very much.

YAY

[Anonymous Coward]

I love DST and hate it when it gets dark early. And I live in Florida. Yay for me.

I like to get up early

[Max_W]

They had to cacel the DST, but not make it permanent. Now it will be total confusion. Some countries cancel it, some make it permanent.

Uh...this would appear to be the wrong option

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesnâ(TM)t save power and it takes a toll on our health, apparently.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/04/the-daylight-savings-change-no-savings-no-point/

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/02/daylight-saving-time-isnt-worth-it-european-parliament-ministers-say/

The only thing it seems to be good for is helping the economy, which is both more important than our health (clearly) and our most salient reason for existing. /s

This is Slashdot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once a bastion of nerds, many of whom were mediocre at best - their most exalted heights being spelling Microsoft with a dollar sign.

But I digress: All the bitching here is likely because people don't want to have to program around even more weird ass date math.

Why ask why?

[antdude]

http://www.google.com/search?q..."why+ask+why%3F"+bud :P

1520582230

[Oceanplexian]

If people would just switch to UNIX time we wouldn't have this problem.

Re:1520582230

[djinn6]

UNIX time still has leap seconds. I think we should all switch to TAI and fully detach our clocks from the planet's orbit and rotation.

Logistical nightmare

[aviators99]

I live in FL and normally love DST. I've been told I'm an OG programmer, and I'm up late and sleep in. I don't care about the morning, and like it when it stays light later.

However, I don't see how FL being on AST all year will work? TV networks aren't going to devote a satellite/fiber feed just for Florida, and although it seems like stations *should* be able to timeshift easily, there's not often a process for this ("we now join our regularly scheduled programming, already in progress").

So, primetime will end at midnight, followed by local news? What about local sporting events that are covered by networks? Monday Night Football will end an hour later (locally)?

Re:Logistical nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

People still watch TV in real time?

Re:Logistical nightmare

[aviators99]

Yes. Local news and sporting events, among other things.

This is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't they just stay on standard time, and then change their timezone?
Now we need to create some stupid Florida timezone just for them.

Re:This is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, two.

Breaking News - Not all of Florida is in the Eastern Time Zone.

Yes, yes, shocking, I know.

So, rather than me being in a timezone no one ever believes I'm in, I'll also be in an area that doesn't observe DST...

I'm sure this will make things better?

Mornings

[jabberw0k]

Speak for yourself. I prefer to arise at 6am, start a load of laundry, chop vegetables for dinner and stow them in the fridge, make my lunch and put it in the cooler, take my time getting dressed, eat breakfast, read the paper, and then go to work. I was 30 before I ever stayed up much past 10pm. I love walking in the quiet morning, pre-dawn even, when there's no traffic just the stoplights and their silent color rotation. Can't understand why folks want to stay up into the night, when mornings are the time for getting things done around the house.

Re:Mornings

[Anonymous Coward]

My internal clock won't let me get tired until 11p-1a and I need a solid 8-9 hours of sleep to function correctly. Even if I get 2-3 hours of sleep the night before, I have extreme difficulty being able to fall sleep before ~11p. Someone at my work has it worse. She can't get to sleep until 1a-4a and has seen many doctors about it.

I wish sleeping was as easy as getting physically exhausted then closing my eyes.

Get up earlier, go to bed earlier

[jabberw0k]

Or aren't you old enough to set your own bedtime yet?

Re:Get up earlier, go to bed earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

What does a bedtime have to do with your employer mandating that you be there at exactly 6:50am to 7:00am?

Re:Get up earlier, go to bed earlier

[thegarbz]

And do what with my earlier time? It's not like I can start a variable length activity in the morning. Maybe I'll get up at 6am and mow the lawn, will that make you happier? I'm sure it will.

I set whatever bed time I want. I also am capable of using my brain to think about more than one narrow topic at the time. I suggest you try it sometime. Or did your neurons stop growing too early? If so we have some bad news for you. https://science.slashdot.org/s...

Re:Get up earlier, go to bed earlier

[angel'o'sphere]

Actually no.
As my body is on a 29,5 hour rhythm and I can not find sleep when I go to bed "early".

Just wait a month to change the time

[reboot246]

I live in the Central Time zone. Today when I leave for work it will be daylight. When I leave Monday morning it will still be dark. I could go along with the time change IF they waited about a month to do it.

I have plenty of daylight left after work right now and a month from now I'll have more, but a month from now it would be daylight when I leave for work. Just wait until about April 15 to change it and I'll be a happy camper.

New Timezone

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are permanently in DST, why not create a new timezone and forget about DST

permanent day lights saving time or turning it off

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I have read it appears that they have determined that they will be permanently on day light savings time, and not that they turned it off like Arizona.

Back in the 80's New Mexico tried the exact same thing and rescinded the decision after a number of school kids where killed by being hit by cars while they were walking to the bus stops. The problem is that if you retain DST throughout the year, you are starting much everyone's earlier than before in the winter time, and that can cause problems. So while I fully support repealing DST, let's not repeat that mistake and kill more people by it.

Sigh...

[dcw3]

Another reason never to go to Florida now. Living on the east coast and heading south, we shouldn't have to change our timezone half of the year. I'm all for states rights in many cases, but this isn't one of them. Do it as a nation, or don't do it, but don't do it piecemeal, state by state.

Re:Sigh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Living in one place and never going anywhere, we shouldn't have to change our timezone every half of the year.

small progress

[Anonymous Coward]

An improvement, but not the whole job. Wake me up when they adopt GMT.

Very likely place, actually

[gatkinso]

It is very sunny there, and being further south they have less variation in the length of their day.

morning rush-hour availability bias

[epine]

I checked three books on chronobiology out of my local library late yesterday morning, and by the time I went to bed—at 19:00, because I'm presently resetting my sleep clock—I had read 80% of the first book, the meatiest chapter of the second book (the most technical of the three books), and about 25% of the third book.

The problem with with cramming all this at the end of a long day (all this reading took place after an intense ten hours at the keyboard) is that while I remember quite a bit, it's all halfway blended together until I sit down with all these books again, to properly sort provenance.

Basically I over-filled my memory bucket yesterday until it was splashing out all over the floor. According to one of my recent sleep science excursions, a major reason that memory degrades with sleep deprivation is that your short-term bucket doesn't get enough opportunity to empty out, through the sleep system that relays short-term memory into long-term cortical storage. In computer science, on a hash collision you either chain or rehash. In wetware, you just use the same partially occupied bucket, but with a lower margin of signal to noise. The margin of signal to noise declines throughout the waking interval, as more and more unfiled short-term memories stack up to compete with inbound data.

My three books, as ordered above:

* Internal Time (2012) by Till Roenneberg
* Rhythms of Life (2004) by Russell Foster
* Chronotherapy: Resetting Your Inner Clock to Boost Mood, Alertness, and Quality Sleep (2012) by Michael Terman

Turns out, Roenneberg and Foster are members of the mutual blurb club. This was pretty funny, because the Foster's blurb on Roenneberg's book doesn't really say who he is, it basically reads: Some Guy, Oxford University. I went to myself, "who the hell is this guy, really?" because that's not normal blurb etiquette (axe murder, body odour, what are they hiding?).

An hour later I picked up Foster's book, made the instant connection, "ah, that's who is, I bet's he's got a Roenneblurb on his own back cover" and sure enough, there it was.

Anyway, that's a long-winded way to explain that this three-headed book monster contains some of the deepest material on DST I've yet to come across. Wish I could accurately relate which and where.

Roenneberg is the data scientist of the three, and he has a huge database that covers unified Germany. So large, he can actually plot a linear relationship between German longitude and individual chronophase (it really is a linear relationship moving west to east, almost entirely indifferent to the social time zone, which one can see by comparing West Germany with former East Germany, which share many points of longitude, while operating—at least during much of the data collection phase—in different socially constructed time zones).

The shocking chart (I'm pretty sure now this is another Roenneberg) was phase adjustment at the biannual standard/daylight adjustment boundaries. The chronophase of larks took four full weeks to fully adapt to the onset of DST, while the owls never returned to the same phase structure on DST that they had previously had on ST. (I was too groggy at this point to precisely factor out the pros and cons of a typical owl's before/after phase structure; the narrative seemed to imply that after was worse, without giving direct justification.)

One thing to note, however, is that whether a person prefers a year-round DST or ST logically depends on a mixture of chronotype and which edge of the time zone a person inhabits (it's the same one hour shift accomplished either legislatively or geographically—even if you colour government evil, your biological clock is too ideologically deficient to detect this all-powerful moral discriminant).

Also, the issue of DST is logically different for a nation which is exactly one hour wide, and whether it nests snugly inside one natural time zone, or str

It will be fine

[sjbe]

This needs to be done at the national level or you get a patchwork of states on or off DST . A true PITA for anyone needing to coordinate time across state lines.

We already have a patchwork of states doing their own thing with DST and you didn't really notice. Arizona doesn't do DST. Which states are in which time zones is moderately arbitrary. Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Idaho and Oregon all have the time zone boundaries not tied to state boundaries. Having some places observe DST and not others is barely different than living near a time zone boundary. It's all slightly annoying but genuinely not the end of the world.

I think year round DST is a great idea. Maximize the daylight in the evening when it is of the most value to the most people.

Arbitary conventions

[sjbe]

Well, given that the state does not even want something closest to natural time, where the sun is at the highest point closest to noon, but instead wants the artificial DST in effect permanently, is weird.

There is no such thing as "natural time". The definition of noon as the point when the sun is highest in the sky is an arbitrary convention. Arbitrary conventions can and should be changed when no longer sensible. It is no longer particularly useful in today's world. Given that most people get up in the morning and head straight to work and spend essentially all their free time in the evening, it makes a huge amount of sense to adjust our clocks to deal with that reality. Maximize free time when the most people can get the most value from it.

It's Florida! People on the beach don't care what time it is, the retirees don't care what time it is, so why insist on DST?

Right because nobody in Florida actually goes to work. Everyone in the state is a beach bum or a retiree... You should be able to hear my eyes rolling about now.

If DST is a pain, why not get rid of it?

They are getting rid of it. It's the twice per year change that is the hassle. So they are getting rid of the pointless change and going with the time definition that makes the most sense. DST year round makes a ton of sense.

Re:Arbitary conventions

[Darinbob]

Solar time then. We've had a 12 hour clock since ancient times.

Florida wants to keep DST all year long, they're not getting rid of it. What they're getting rid of is the twice a year time changes. Daylight Saving Time is explicitly not Standard Time. They could instead join Atlantic time zone while getting rid of DST and achieve the same result.

It's moot though, I don't expect congress to approve the change.

Idiotic traditions

[sjbe]

Because time is the measure of a day's progress -- faking it to appease stupid people who can't change their or their employees working/school hours is just lying to oneself.

Time progresses regardless. You didn't answer the question. Why does it matter what we define noon as? Why can't we define 1PM as the time when the sun is highest? It's an equally valid and equally arbitrary convention but one that carries greater utility for most people. Your argument is basically "that's the way we've always done it" which is almost always a stupid argument.

faking it to appease stupid people who can't change their or their employees working/school hours is just lying to oneself.

Ok smart guy. Explain how we get millions of schools and businesses to change their work hours simultaneously just so we can keep your pointless defintion of noon being the point in the day when the sun is highest. Oh that's right, the easiest way is to change the time zone convention.

Re:Idiotic traditions

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't we define 1PM as the time when the sun is highest?

Because it's "mid-day". Like that "midnight" thing at 12AM, only the opposite.

More clock adjustments please!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that we have the technology for Internet connected smart watches, let's get rid of the hard to adjust circadian rhythms to 1 hour jump/fall back. Let's set our watches ahead 15 minutes, the first four Sundays after the spring equinox and back 15 minutes every Sunday after the vernal equinox.

Yes, this is confusing and difficult for everyone. But we will make the watches (patented, closed source, DRM'd) and sell them to you for only $1000 (with a 30 day warranty). If you make minimum wage we will give you a $5 discount.

Thanks very much,

Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook

Note that connection to "TimeService TM" may cost extra.

Absurd logic

[sjbe]

Well, by that logic, why even have time zones in the first place?

Because time zones do have utility and nobody is making stupid and irrelevant arguments that they don't. Plus good luck getting rid of time zones at this point. How about we stick to the reality we actually live in and do things that are actually possible and useful?

Florida doesn't have common sense?

[GLMDesigns]

[quote]outbreak of common sense from one of the most unlikely places.[quote]

Oh. You must be one of those who believes that inanimate objects causes people to do things. Right.

Don't believe the hype :
News channels which say: "Hey look at this AR-15" (Oops. It was a fuking shotgun)
Or how about the chainsaw attachment (According to USA Today)

Next thing you know you'll be trying to ban 4 wheel-drive assault motorcycles.

Old Indian saying

[p51d007]

Only white man, could cut bottom off blanket, sew it to top, and think he have longer blanket. Just put the clocks at one time and leave them the hell alone!

Re:Old Indian saying

[Quirkz]

Yes, this gets quoted every time, but the analogy is a terrible straw man. It's not the length of the blanket, it's the positioning. If your toes are cold and exposed while the blanket is smothering your face, it's perfectly sensible to shift the blanket down a foot for more ideal coverage.

My problem with DST

[Cro Magnon]

When we spring forward, I lose an hour of sleep. We should lose that hour in the middle of the workweek instead. I'd still lose an hour of sleep, but it would be in the middle of a boring meeting.

Re:My problem with DST

[TeknoHog]

+1

If that 1 hour shift is so great, why not shift the clock a full 24 hours? We'd get so much more done in that extra day, with no jetlag. Extra points if each year we'd lose a Monday and gain a second Sunday.

The WHAT protection act??

[Anonymous Coward]

> the Senate overwhelmingly passed the Sunshine Protection Act
They're going to ban clouds?

Is is not a big deal for Florida.

[Anonymous Coward]

Florida is the state that's furthest south so the difference between when the sun rise or set during the winter and the summer isn't as bad as Maine. Maybe what they can do further North is change the starting time for schools instead of changing the clock.

25 hours of daylight

[Anonymous Coward]

Thule Greenland observes Daylight Savings time and they are above the Arctic Circle!
That means that in the summer when the Sun never sets they get 25 hours of Daylight.

I'll bite

[cascadingstylesheet]

I'll bite ... why is Florida one of the most unlikely places to show common sense?

Because it isn't NY or CA? (Those bastions of common sense?)

Will make one of my hobbies easier...

[bobcardone]

I collect and restore antique mechanical clocks for a hobby. Currently, I have about 11 clocks running in the household, and bulk changing them twice a year is a pain, particularly the fall back part. Most mechanical clocks don't turn back gracefully, you have to go clockwise 11 hours to reset them. Also, being a cranky retiree, I look forward to yelling "Get Off My Lawn!" at neighborhood kids even later in the extended daylight. Being a Florida resident, I welcome my time defining overlords.

Re:Get the name right

[LynnwoodRooster]

It's spelled Daylights Saving Thyme

I prefer parsley and sage, you insensitive clod!

Can't be arsed

[Anonymous Coward]

CBA about DST, said the IRC man.

DST? Screw that! said the vampire who likes clubbing in Miami (more victims to feed on)

Change time everyday!

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue with DST is we only change time twice a year - we should change time everyday!

In each timezone, pick a location that will always have sunrise at 7 am (for example). This keeps all the changes to daylight at the end of the day. Since each daily change would be at most a minute or so, people's sleep cycles would not be noticeably affected.

For the most part, we already get time from our cell phones, so it isn't like each of us would have to adjust our clocks each day - the time getting broadcasted would be changed. All timezones would adjust in sync.

--XYZZY--

Re:Change time everyday!

[Locke2005]

Good Muslims set their watches to midnight at sundown every day...

Indiana

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when Indiana was on EST all year, people in places just like Slashdot relentlessly made fun of them for it. I still see people making fun of Arizona. Eventually, Indiana switched to EST/EDT because apparently, being different from your neighbors is too confusing (seemed to me that the TV stations were the biggest complainers, since they had to time-shift to maintain the illusion of consistent time). Also, why call it EDT all year long, when it's really "Let's change time zones while we're at it". People who advocate for "Daylight Saving" all year-round are idiots who think that government-mandated time changes are better than convincing businesses to change their hours. At least in Indiana, businesses who cared about such things just opened an hour earlier in Summer.

Not good..

[SuperDre]

oh that's not good.. it's the Daylight Savings Time that is not the original time, and to be honest, I have more problems during the DST period than the normal period..It should go back to the original time, otherwise in the wintertime the time you have in the light is even much shorter.. But than again, politicians aren't really smart and they only start workingr 10 and stop working before 16:00, so for them it doesn't really matter for them, they always only work during the light............

Bad solution

[Locke2005]

So apparently just scheduling everything an hour earlier all year 'round wasn't an option? (Don't get me started on how stupid Daylight Savings Time is... it breaks all the sundials too.)

Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of the top 5 things I would change first as President (still waiting on the winning lottery ticket so I can run without owing anybody anything).

Others are stuff like:
- Implement the Metric System
- Term limits for all elected offices, especially Congress/Senate
- Net neutrality, forever
- Redo the tax system, make it all fit within a few pages (or tens of pages), not thousands. Probably a flat tax or a luxury tax, need tax/economic advisors to assist.
- Reduction if not complete removal of money as a factor in elections
- Create an actual militia to help out with gun control
- Completely changing the military promotion system (no auto-officer for college anymore, elitism crap).
- Close Gitmo
- Stop attacking the world
- Peace with NK already
etc, etc.

Got 2 tickets, both $175M or higher cash (minus taxes). Cross your fingers!

CONGRESS has NO SAY

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress has no say in the issue. The power to regulate clocks was not granted to the federal government by Constitution so its reserved to the states and to the people per the 10th Amendment.

Meh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather see all of Florida be in the same time zone. DST or not.

That would make an actual difference to me, my business, my family.

I'm sure still being in a timezone no one believes I'm in, in one of only three states w/o a DST time change will make things... better?

Sigh.

Re:Get the name right

[Curunir_wolf]

Will you turn your clocks back an hour before going to bed Saturday night?

Of course not. That would make me 2 hours late for everything!

Backwards

[brunnegd]

AZ and HI are smart, stay on standard time all year. FL is stupid, want to go on DST all year. The US tried this in the mid-70s, it was a disaster. Fortunately, it will take an act of Congress before this becomes real, which won't happen.

Going soft

[ebvwfbw]

Just give in to those who whine a bitch too much. Oh it's too hard to change clocks. bla bla bla.

Should be STFU, change 'em. You know it's the right thing to do. No, you're not a victim. Shut up.

Florida moves to the Atlantic Time Zone

[LinuxLuver]

In going ahead one hour permanently, Florida effectively moves to the Atlantic Time zone, but won't use Daylight Saving Time.

judi online

[Anonymous Coward]

[url=http://7asiabet.com/]7Asiabet[/url]
[url=http://7asiabet.com/]Agen Bola[/url]
[url=http://7asiabet.com/]Judi Bola[/url]
[url=http://7asiabet.com/]Judi Online[/url]
[url=http://7asiabet.com/]sbobet[/url]
[url=http://7asiabet.com/]7asiabet[/url]
[url=http://7asiabet.com/]7asiabet.com[/url]
[url=http://7asiabet.com/]asiabet7[/url]
[url=http://goal4d.com/]Togel Online[/url]
[url=http://goal4d.com/]Togel Singapura[/url]
[url=http://goal4d.com/]Togel Hongkong[/url]
[url=http://goal4d.com/]Judi Online[/url]
[url=http://goal4d.com/]Agen Bola[/url]
[url=http://goal4d.com/]Sbobet[/url]
[url=http://goal4d.com/]Judi Bola[/url]
[url=http://goal4d.com/]Goal4d[/url]
[url=http://goal4d.com/]Goal4d.com[/url]
[url=http://flashbet338.com/]Judi Bola[/url]
[url=http://flashbet338.com/]Casino Online[/url]
[url=http://flashbet338.com/]Judi Online[/url]
[url=http://flashbet338.com/]Agen Bola[/url]
[url=http://flashbet338.com/]Agen Sbobet[/url]
[url=http://flashbet338.com/]flashbet338.com[/url]
[url=http://flashbet338.com/]Maxbet338[/url]
[url=http://flashbet338.com/]Maxbet[/url]
[url=http://flashbet338.com/]Ibcbet[/url]
[url=http://flashbet338.com/]Maxbet338.com[/url]
[url=http://model18plus.com/]Cerita Dewasa[/url]
[url=http://model18plus.com/]Cerita Sex[/url]
[url=http://model18plus.com/]Cerita Hot[/url]
[url=http://model18plus.com/]Cerita Porno[/url]
[url=http://model18plus.com/]Film Semi[/url]
[url=http://model18plus.com/]Video Hot[/url]
[url=http://model18plus.com/]Video Mesum[/url]
[url=http://model18plus.com/]Majalah 18+[/url]
[url=http://model18plus.com/]Video Porno[/url]
[url=http://dutaprediksi.com/]Prediksi togel[/url]
[url=http://dutaprediksi.com/]prediksi hongkong[/url]
[url=http://dutaprediksi.com/]prediksi singapura[/url]
[url=http://dutaprediksi.com/]berita bola[/url]
[url=http://dutaprediksi.com/]prediksi parlay[/url]
[url=http://dutaprediksi.com/]prediksi bola[/url]
[url=http://dutaprediksi.com/]prediksi hk[/url]
[url=http://dutaprediksi.com/]prediksi sgp[/url]