Should Daylight Savings Time be eliminated?

masseya

There was a time zone question in OTG that prompted me to wonder how many people here would like to see Daylight Savings Time eliminated. I certainly do.

Here's a cheesy website with some information, including all the places where normal people live within States and Territories of the United States:

Arizona
Hawaii
The eastern time zone portion of Indiana
Puerto Rico
the U.S. Virgin Islands
American Samoa
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rac · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 5:25 am Post subject:

I actually thought about posting a similar poll. I love DST, and I wish that it were in force year-round. I am not much of a morning person, and I appreciate it being light later in the evening much more than it being light earlier in the morning. In Tokyo in the summer, it gets light before 4 in the morning. Who enjoys this? I keep hoping that Japan will see the light and adopt DST.
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EzInKy · Veteran Joined: 11 Oct 2002 Posts: 1734 Location: Kentucky

Working nightshift most of my life, all the time change really means to me is having to work an extra hour in the fall and working an hour less in the spring. Oh, and usually half the morning staff is late when the time springs forward and they forget to set their clocks an hour ahead.

uncle_meat · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 25 Nov 2002 Posts: 93

Well, it makes planning a lot easier if we can just assume that everyone's hours stay the same year round. But while our hours may stay the same, the hour of sunrise is variable. Rather than make small children go to school in near darkness, we have elected to roll the clocks back when it starts getting dark at 7AM. So I guess I'm for it.

uncle_meat · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 25 Nov 2002 Posts: 93

EzInKy · Veteran Joined: 11 Oct 2002 Posts: 1734 Location: Kentucky

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 18168

I voted yes, mainly because I want the uselessness of jacking with clocks stopped. I don't care which way it goes, though I doubt DST would be adopted as THE time.
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mooman · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 7:49 pm Post subject:

My opinion is basde entirely on the fact that I'm a programmer. I have pulled out more hair in dealing with daylight savings and timezones, and particularly the fact that different countries use different DST rules!

If there were just some standard, I'd gripe less. But with Indiana, and Arizona not cooperating in the US, and some countries using 2-hour shifts rather than 1-hour shifts, and everyone and their dog starting on different days, I'm ready to axe the whole system....

Making international software sucks when timing is important (I'm working on international shipment-tracking software for a major US automaker...) Yarrghhh.

All you folks whining about setting your clocks back get no sympathy from me. :twisted:

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Lovechild · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 7:58 pm Post subject:

Yes, because it's inpratical - and it annoys the shit out of me to wake up one day and notice I'm an hour late because I forgot to fiddle with my alarmclock.

simulacrum · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 8:39 pm Post subject:

I vote to do away with DST. I hate fiddling with every clock in my apartment twice a year. Plus it just seems rediculous to me to follow a modified time standard so we can get the most light out of it. Icky.

guero61 · l33t Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 811 Location: Behind you

It's a dinosaur of WWII, and should be retired as such. What does it gain us? Extended daytime hours mean nearly nothing in this age of relativism, only that some have to wait to come out until later so they don't burn up....

In computer terms, it's a workaround, not a fix. In the WWII era, they wanted more time to get things done during the day, as lighting technology was not nearly so advanced. So, they said, "We'll pretend" and we all know that pretending to fix a problem doesn't do anything -- it still remains. We now have the technology and society that make it possible to break free of the biannual foolishness.

mooman · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 9:58 pm Post subject:

Actually the WWII may have been its origin, but isn't why it's still in use. It's used because it actually does save a fair amount of electricity. By adjusting the clock to better make use of sunlight, there is less demand for lighting during the peak usage evening time. (when many kitchens, televisions, and so on are running at full tilt).

That's the reason some countries want to do 2 hour daylight savings shifts, to reap even *more* reductions in electrical usage... Other countries have talked about doing DST year-round, effectively moving every day one hour!

But it's just a pain from an electronics standpoint.. It's like a mini Y2K bug happening every year! Automated tracking systems, punchclocks, anything that does sorting by time, and so on... all have to cope with freaky local rules for when DST is needed...
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rac · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:04 pm Post subject:

mooman · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:16 pm Post subject:

rac · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:29 pm Post subject:

mooman · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:39 pm Post subject:

rac · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:43 pm Post subject:

I bet it stores things internally in some universal zone: comparisons would be a big hassle otherwise.
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phong · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:51 pm Post subject:

I'm in favor of having the same time all year round, set to standard time (winter time). As much as I hate morning, I think that noon should roughly correspond to the traditional idea of noon (when the sun crosses the meridian). Also, that would make the time between sunrise and noon approximately the same as the time between noon and sunset. As an alternative to having savings time all year, I'd prefer that work and school schedules be adjusted to something more natural.

Also, having DST all year presents a safety problem. I've heard kids tend to get run over when going to school in the dark. Also, the way the work/school day is arranged currently is completely unnatural. Your body is not designed to a) wake up before it gets light, or b) go to sleep before it gets dark. There is a lag time between when light hits your face and the associated hormones wake you up naturally. Parents and teachers always complain that kids come in to school acting like zombies and never eat breakfast. Children and teens need an hour or two more sleep than adults (growing bodies and minds), AND their circadian cycle is shifted forward, yet we expect them to get started EARLIER than most adults working the 9-5 or 8-5 job (when I went to High School, classes started around 7:30am).

On the other hand, I'm way in favor of the 28 hour day.
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gfunkmonk · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:53 pm Post subject:

Being from Indiana I do not deal with wussy daylight savings time.
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rac · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 11:01 pm Post subject:

Another thing that complicates this discussion is that one's opinion is probably dependent on one's latitude and relative position within the timezone. I grew up in Seattle, where it would stay light until well after 9PM in the summer. That's on the trailing edge of its timezone, and at 47 degrees N. When I moved to Tokyo, which has no DST, is on the leading edge of its timezone, and is closer to the equator down at 35.5 N, it doesn't stay light past 7PM even on the longest days.
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phong · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 11:37 pm Post subject:

For those wondering, the reference longitude for your timezone is equal to 15 degrees times your offset from GMT. For example, the reference longitude for Eastern time is 5*15, or 75 degrees West. For every degree you are away from that, your solar time (the time that it would seem to be according to the position of the sun) is four minutes off. I'm quite close to 83 degrees West longitude, so my local solar noon is at about 12:32pm. During the summer, it's shifted an additional hour forward, 1:32pm. To someone in Augusta, ME, local solar midnight happens around 11:39pm during the winter.

In other words, I have it rougher in the morning than those east of me in my time zone, and therefore deserve to be coddled.
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Pigeon · Guru Joined: 21 Jun 2002 Posts: 307

ebrostig · Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 12:03 am Post subject:

phong · Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 12:20 am Post subject:

dripton · n00b Joined: 16 Aug 2002 Posts: 65 Location: Virginia USA

I understand the argument for daylight savings time -- it forces people to get up an hour earlier and go to bed an hour earlier, so they waste less daylight in bed in the morning and burn less power at night.

But I haven't seen a *recent* study saying that it's worthwhile overall. You have to balance the power savings against all that futzing with clocks and software, the extra confusion when people cross time zones, etc.

Besides, it's a disgusting hack.

Get rid of it, and just encourage businesses to open and close earlier in the summer.