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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.

38 of 393 comments (clear)

  1. Permanent daylight saving time... by Chuq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't they mean "Atlantic Standard Time" ?

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    1. Re:Permanent daylight saving time... by Athanasius · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  2. PLEASE by markdavis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:PLEASE by sgage · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:PLEASE by markdavis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >"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.

    3. Re:PLEASE by null+etc. · · Score: 3, Funny

      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.

    4. Re:PLEASE by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:PLEASE by jdavidb · · Score: 2

      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.

    6. Re:PLEASE by Goldsmith · · Score: 2

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

  3. Re:Why not work 7 to 4 by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

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

  4. Re:This is stupid... by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:Idiots. by sgage · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  6. Re:This is stupid... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Informative

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

  7. Re:Cluster fuck coming by Narcocide · · Score: 2

    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.

  8. Re:This is stupid... by Nostalgia4Infinity · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why?

  9. Congress has to pass this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Florida will probably get shot down.

    Too soon?

    1. Re:Congress has to pass this by Scarletdown · · Score: 2

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

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    2. Re:Congress has to pass this by Hans+Lehmann · · Score: 2

      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.

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  10. Re:This is stupid... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  11. The closer you are to the equator by sandbagger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The less your opinion about Daylight Savings matters.

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    1. Re:The closer you are to the equator by clovis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  12. Re:This is stupid... by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:Gonna suck. by erice · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  14. Re:Idiots. by markdavis · · Score: 2

    >"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.

  15. Re:Cluster fuck coming by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well Arizona is already in their own timezone.

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

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  16. Re:Down with Winter Darkness time! by Required+Snark · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

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  17. Re:Cluster fuck coming by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Funny
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  18. Re: Cluster fuck coming by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!

  19. Time zones suck by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    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.

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  20. Re:Idiots. by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  21. Re:This is stupid... by Darinbob · · Score: 2

    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.

  22. Re:Idiots. by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  23. Re:Cluster fuck coming by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

    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.

  24. Re:Gonna suck. by hazardPPP · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  25. Re:Cluster fuck coming by PrimaryConsult · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  26. Re:Gonna suck. by Rakarra · · Score: 2

    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.

  27. Re: Gonna suck. by Rakarra · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  28. Re: Cluster fuck coming by brunnegd · · Score: 2

    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.