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Are The Alternatives Even Worse Than Daylight Saving Time? (chron.com)
The New York Times notes an important caveat to Florida's recently-approved law observing daylight savings time year-round: it specifies that their change will only go into effect if "the United States Congress amends 15 U.S.C. s. 260a to authorize states to observe daylight saving time year-round."
"In other words: Even if the governor signs the bill, nothing will happen now... States can choose to exempt themselves from daylight saving time -- Arizona and Hawaii do -- but nothing in federal law allows them to exempt themselves from standard time." Meanwhile one California legislator exploring the idea of year-round standard time discovered that "youth sports leagues and families worried that a year-round early sunset would shut down their kids' after-school games." But the Times also acknowledges problems in the current system. "In parts of Maine, for example, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sun sets before 4 p.m. -- more than an hour earlier than it does in Detroit, at the other end of the Eastern time zone." So is there a better alternative?
An anonymous reader quotes Business Insider: Standardtime.com has a unique suggestion. Their proposal has only two time zones in the continental U.S. that are two hours apart, which The Atlantic calls "a simple plan to fix [DST]"... Johns Hopkins University professors Richard Henry and Steven Hanke have come up with yet another possible fix: worldwide adoption of a single time zone. They argue that the internet has eliminated the need for discrete time zones across the globe, so we might as well just do away with them...
No plan will satisfy everyone. But that doesn't mean daylight-saving time is good. The absence of major energy-saving benefits from DST -- along with its death toll, health impacts, and economic ramifications -- are reason enough to get rid of the ritual altogether.
The article associates Daylight Saving Time with "a spike in heart attacks, increased numbers of work injuries, automobile accidents, suicides, and more." And in addition, it also blames DST for an increased use of gasoline and air conditioners -- adding that it will also "rob humanity of billions of hours of sleep like an evil spacetime vampire."
"In other words: Even if the governor signs the bill, nothing will happen now... States can choose to exempt themselves from daylight saving time -- Arizona and Hawaii do -- but nothing in federal law allows them to exempt themselves from standard time." Meanwhile one California legislator exploring the idea of year-round standard time discovered that "youth sports leagues and families worried that a year-round early sunset would shut down their kids' after-school games." But the Times also acknowledges problems in the current system. "In parts of Maine, for example, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sun sets before 4 p.m. -- more than an hour earlier than it does in Detroit, at the other end of the Eastern time zone." So is there a better alternative?
An anonymous reader quotes Business Insider: Standardtime.com has a unique suggestion. Their proposal has only two time zones in the continental U.S. that are two hours apart, which The Atlantic calls "a simple plan to fix [DST]"... Johns Hopkins University professors Richard Henry and Steven Hanke have come up with yet another possible fix: worldwide adoption of a single time zone. They argue that the internet has eliminated the need for discrete time zones across the globe, so we might as well just do away with them...
No plan will satisfy everyone. But that doesn't mean daylight-saving time is good. The absence of major energy-saving benefits from DST -- along with its death toll, health impacts, and economic ramifications -- are reason enough to get rid of the ritual altogether.
The article associates Daylight Saving Time with "a spike in heart attacks, increased numbers of work injuries, automobile accidents, suicides, and more." And in addition, it also blames DST for an increased use of gasoline and air conditioners -- adding that it will also "rob humanity of billions of hours of sleep like an evil spacetime vampire."
I tried reading the whole summary. I don't understand what's trying to be said. It looks like English, a language I swear I can read. But the words, and the way they're put together, just don't make any sense. Either it's in a foreign language or the entire thing is utter nonsense, assumedly ginned up as a joke using a neural net, as no human could possibly type so many words just to spit out utter nonsense.
What Florida is voting for is to move from EST/EDT to AST (no daylight savings). They are not exempting themselves from Standard Time, they are voting to adopt a different standard timezone. They are voting to eliminate daylight savings time. Standard time in most of the world follows political borders not some raw calculated mean position every 60 minutes apart.
If you have to call someone on the other side of the globe (and trust me, a LOT of businesses have to do that), now you can't even do simple math to say, "Oh hey, California is nine hours ahead of me, and now it's noon for me. Maybe I shouldn't call right now." Instead you are going to HAVE to have a program or similar that'll show you what kind of sunlight people have
Uh, what? Nine hours ahead is nine hours ahead, all you'd have to consider is where you'd be in nine hours. If that would be after business hours for you it's after business hours for them. It's not like they'd magically cease to actually be 9 hours ahead just because we change the notation unless we made everyone work at the same time. Right now you translate the meaning with math, use UTC and you'd translate the meaning without math.
Like say everybody works 9-17 in current terms, well 9-5 but you'd have to lose the AM/PM business. In California (PST = -8 UTC) that'd be 1-9. In New York you'd work 4-12, UK 9-17, Moscow 12-20, Tokyo 18-2. If you want to schedule a meeting it's the time that actually overlaps. If you have an event like say a SpaceX launch it's at 13:00 (UTC). If you're traveling things would happen at "odd" times but on the other hand there's no chance of confusing times. You lift off from London at 8:15, land in California 17:15, eat some breakfast at 00:15 and report to work at 01:00 because that's when the Californian workday begins.
I think the shock of the body's rhythm changing is much bigger than the mental translation that noon here is 04:00 and midnight at 16:00. If you're travelling a lot maybe your watch would have a small static "noon/midnight" arrow you could set to remind yourself. That way you could easily "anchor" yourself and effortlessly schedule a meeting after lunch to be at 05:00 when you're in California, 08:00 when you're in New York and 13:00 when you're in London. The workday would always be noon-3 to noon+5. It's just the understanding of where noon is on your watch that'd change.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You're just using time zones but specifying times in a reference zone. Lots of people already do that:
"Let's meet at 8 am UTC!" "Yeah, no."
This suggestion always makes me smile. You're absolutely free to do it any time you like. Americans, just set your clock to UTC. Very few people do this, because there's no point, unless you frequently interact with people in other time zones, in which case you have to do the math whichever way your watch is set.
It baffles me to no end that it is apparently easier to convince people that the entire world should operate on a different schedule, than it is to convince people that individual buildings should have opening hours that make sense based on their requirements.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I repeat, you're still using timezones, but setting your watch to a single standard like UTC. People's schedules are what they are because of the nature of society, circadian rhythms, and the Earth's rotation, not what their watches say. You would still have the same jumps between timezones where political entities on the edge chose to align their customary time with their closest trading partners. Basically, everything would look like it does now, except people would wander around with different numbers on their watches.
Except they wouldn't. There are people who keep UTC or some other timezone on their watches now. But not many. It's very convenient to have a common numerical system for keeping time. When you travel to a new place, all you have to do is adjust your watch to local time, and most of your knowledge about general schedules works fine: when stores are likely to open and close, when meals are likely to be served, when daylight is, etc.
I suspect this UTC suggestion is more likely to be made by people who don't travel much. Wouldn't it be great if the whole world just used the same time (read: my time) and nobody (read: I) had to worry about adjusting for timezones?
Hi Crazy! Why would you think its okay to expect that of everyone once or twice a year? That is ridiculous. We can just stop changing the clocks and alleviate crazy schedule manipulation.
Ive got a simpler solution, stay on standard time.