DST Forever...?

[conception_native_0123]

Government is at its peak performance when it is shut down

No argument here my friend

 

[JonXL]

The closer you are to the equator, the more stable your day-night ratio is during the year. At the poles, you alternate between 100% daylignt and 100% darkness. At the equator, it is closer to 50% every day.

Right. That's the time of sunlight vs dark. DST impacts the amount of sun before noon vs after.

The real effect of DST is where you are E-W in your time zone. Each time zone is ~ 1 hour wide so it gets light earlier at the east edge than at the west edge. On the east edge if the sun rises at 7, it is still dark at 7 on the west edge and sunrise doesn't reach you until 8. So, the further west you are in your TZ, the more likely you are to dislike DST because you don't like it still being dark at 9 AM.

On standard time, the middle of the time zone sees the sun in the middle of the sky at 12:00 - or close to.

For me, I spend the winter in depression because it gets dark before 5PM and I feel like it is always bedtime.

Does DST impact that? Would having sun later into the evening help or is it just the fact that there's not much sun overall? Around here, even an hour more of sun in the evening would still leave it dark at suppertime in the dead of winter.

 

[JonXL]

Not true. On Saturday, the sky was getting dark around 6. Now it gets dark closer to 7. DST moves an hour of daylight from before noon to after noon. That is the point of DST - moving that hour from morning to afternoon when more people are active.

I think you and I are saying the same thing but with different words.

On standard time in the middle of the timezone on any given day, there will be X hours of sunlight before 12:00 and X hours of sunlight after. When on DST, there will be X-1 hours before 12:00 and X+1 hours after.

Standard time more accurately reflects the reality of the middle of the day per the clock aligning with the middle of the day per the sun.

The year-round movement is pushed by the green movement and is intended to reduce the need for heat and electricity by giving us more light and warmth during our active hours.

I was also thinking this as being pushed in part by energy-savers. But I read a recent article that turns that on its head: the current push might be more attributable to commercial interests looking to extend the day's shopping time; more not less consumerism...

Push to make daylight saving time permanent has longtime backers

The Senate’s swift passage of a proposal to make daylight saving time permanent caught members and the public off-guard this week and led to plenty of cheering on social media about ending the “spr…

thehill.com

Permanent DST is bad for small children who have to go to school in the dark and it is bad for farmers who have to live by the actual sun times as their crops and animals do. Putting off darkness until 5:30 in the dead of winter isn't enough justification for me to advocate for permanent DST but I'm glad they lengthened it by a month.

And I think that's the thing... there are folks cheering this for non-commercial reasons who are probably under the illusion that DST all-year-round will make every day feel like summer. And that's just not the case. Winter will still be almost entirely dark outside of working hours. Unless you shift things by like three hours or so, you're just not getting around that.

 

[conception_native_0123]

what's the underlying reason though, Jon? to keep the sun up longer perhaps, so they can inject more economic activity into the day and make more money for the government. don't ya think? makes perfect sense to me. there's always an untold reason.

 

[kevlray]

Somewhat DST related. Many years ago I had gone vacationing with my family to Yellowstone in the middle of the summer (For those who do not know. Yellowstone is located in the northern part of the US). So with the sun still high in the sky, we noticed we were getting hungry (it appeared to be about 3-4 pm). But when I checked the time, it was 9 pm. So with being in a more northern latitude and DST in the summer. We were very fooled about what time we thought it was.

 

[Isaac]

I'm not really sure about the voting options, but for the love of God, GET RID OF DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME OR ELSE MAKE IT PERMANENT

stop changing - that is utterly retarded and I've never heard anyone, ever, in my life, say "i'm so glad we do this".
if nobody likes it, why do we do it?
I think we are just scared to change as it's a familiar rhythm - the rhythm of hurting ourselves twice a year.

In Arizona, we never change our clocks, and let me tell you, EXCEPT for the confusion of being "the same as pacific half the year, and the same as mountain the rest of the year", it's BEAUTIFUL.

Never changing your clocks is AWESOME. Everyone here loves it. Take that as a possible piece of evidence of what might happen?

Plus, we'd all have more daylight hours - like we do here in AZ. I think everyone would like that, no?

 

[JonXL]

Plus, we'd all have more daylight hours - like we do here in AZ.

No. Switching to permanent DST won't give Bismarck more daylight hours. You literally can't do that. Available daylight is determined by the tilt of the earth at a given time of year.

Arizona (which is on permanent standard time, by the way ) is sunny because it's Arizona - not because you've all discovered some secret clock magic that keeps the sun out longer...

 

[Isaac]

No. Switching to permanent DST won't give Bismarck more daylight hours. You literally can't do that. Available daylight is determined by the tilt of the earth at a given time of year.

Arizona (which is on permanent standard time, by the way ) is sunny because it's Arizona - not because you've all discovered some secret clock magic that keeps the sun out longer...

Exactly ... standard time ... we don't use daylight savings time.
It would mean days that are too long and we would have to air condition businesses and schools longer.

But we sure enjoy never changing it, and 100 senators seem to agree with me, which is rather unheard of for most bills.

 

[Isaac]

I chose above,

I think here in the UK I'm quite happy with the way is. I wasn't at first. You have to go around changing all the clocks and you might forget one, and it used to produce a bit of angst in me, wondering whether I was losing or gaining something... But not anymore All the important Clocks switch over themselves, just the car clock and the one on the living room wall and the one in the kitchen that have to be changed. The ones you rely on on your phone, the TV, computer, they automatically change.

We used to have and radio controlled clock and that would reset itself. Reminds me, I've been meaning to get another one! I must put it on my Christmas list!

As for whether moving the amount of useful daylight to the morning or the evening, I would prefer the evening, you can get more done when you get home from work.... Doesn't really matter in the morning you're half asleep anyway! When we All have self-driving Tesla cars, it won't matter a damn, just get in the car, snooze, or eat your serial, and then you're at work!

I tend to agree I would rather that everyone simply join arizona.
@The_Doc_Man i agree, I would rather standard Time but whatever stops us from the craziness of changing our clocks would be welcome.

 

[Isaac]

Available daylight is determined by the tilt of the earth at a given time of year.

Of course.

but you're confusing "available" daylight with what time you choose to consider it as a human being with a clock while it's daylight.

But anyway I'm really just playing devil's advocate, I would rather we do standard Time but whatever stops us from changing the clocks which I think is just madness.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The closer you are to the equator, the more stable your day-night ratio is during the year. At the poles, you alternate between 100% daylignt and 100% darkness. At the equator, it is closer to 50% every day.

The real effect of DST is where you are E-W in your time zone. Each time zone is ~ 1 hour wide so it gets light earlier at the east edge than at the west edge. On the east edge if the sun rises at 7, it is still dark at 7 on the west edge and sunrise doesn't reach you until 8. So, the further west you are in your TZ, the more likely you are to dislike DST because you don't like it still being dark at 9 AM. For me, I spend the winter in depression because it gets dark before 5PM and I feel like it is always bedtime.

Then there are the time zones that are wider than 1 hour because they try to group populations to avoid having towns have two time zones. Those might be 1.5 hours difference for sunrise/sunset from east to west.

It could be worse though. China is 5 time zones wide and everyone is on Beijing time which is in the Eastern part of the country. So when it is 8 AM in Beijing it is 3 AM (real time) for those poor people at the wrong edge of the country.

Try Russia before WW II, when they had half-hour time zones and something like 6 or 7 hours difference from one end to the other. Train schedules used to have to take 28 different zones into account because they were not uniformly declared. I may have got the exact numbers wrong, but I know Russian train schedules were horrendous to understand because of time zones.

 

[Galaxiom]

I live just south of a state border where they don't do DST north of the border. (Queensland and NSW Australia.)

The state border runs down the middle of a street in a built up area so it is a different time on opposite sides of the street. Many people live in one state and work in the other. A lot of medical facilities and specialists we use are north of the border.

To add more complexity, some businesses located south of the border choose to run on Queensland time. That way people turn up early for appointments rather than late.

The time on phones can jump back and forwards near the border depending on which tower it connects to.

We are so double time zone conscious around here that it really isn't the problem some would expect.

BTW It was extra fun during the Covid epidemic when Queensland closed its border and we had to get permits to cross. Massive queues for hours to cross into Queensland.

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[JonXL]

But we sure enjoy never changing it, and 100 senators seem to agree with me, which is rather unheard of for most bills.

They weren't all there for the vote. And some that weren't have expressed their dissatisfaction with the bill being fast-tracked as part of mundane other business.

... but whatever stops us from changing the clocks which I think is just madness.

I guess that's where you lose me. Living in Arizona, you don't change your clocks anyway. This bill won't change what time you're on or how often you change your clocks (which is already never).

Oddly, your senators seemed to have the same take on this matter as you - despite it having no impact to them or their constituents, they voted in favor.

As to this being better than what we do today, evidence suggests that's not true. DST has less negative impact during summer when it's already brighter longer and most of the negatives from springing forward actually come from being offset for 8 months, not just the one-time loss of an hour. Permanent DST literally delivers no benefits and only negatives... It's the worst of the three possible options (keep switching clocks, permanent standard, or permanent DST).

 

[JonXL]

BTW It was extra fun during the Covid epidemic when Queensland closed its border and we had to get permits to cross. Massive queues for hours to cross into Queensland.

But you got that hour back once you crossed over, right?

 

[Isaac]

I guess that's where you lose me. Living in Arizona, you don't change your clocks anyway. This bill won't change what time you're on or how often you change your clocks (which is already never).

I think you're forgetting that we don't live in an island. By us I obviously mean the nation, not me personally. We still have to interact with everyone else you know. We are not a nation unto ourselves even though we have the fastest growing cities in the nation!

I have family members all over the country as well as colleagues in various time zones and keeping up with how different they are for me which is changing several times a year is a pain in the butt, just like it is for everyone across the country.

So to help you understand, the rest of the nation only has to navigate changing their clocks and then experiences an equal difference with everyone else year round. We have to coordinate being different than other people but the difference is different depending on the time of year. One could argue that's actually even MORE more inconvenient and annoying ... to coordinate not just a time difference, but a changing time difference

 

[Isaac]

despite it having no impact to them or their constituents, they voted in favor.

And this is where you lose me. I'm not sure how you fail to understand that we still have to interact with the rest of the world. We have to navigate the fact that the difference in time between us and others is constantly changing.

Imagine right now that you have family in california. You maintain an awareness of the difference in time between you and them for phone calls, interaction, etc. Factor in a job too. Now imagine that every few months the amount of time that's different between you actually changes.

So yeah, we don't change our clocks, but the fact that everyone else changes theirs while we don't is quite impactful.

 

[JonXL]

And this is where you lose me. I'm not sure how you fail to understand that we still have to interact with the rest of the world. We have to navigate the fact that the difference in time between us and others is constantly changing.

Imagine right now that you have family in california. You maintain an awareness of the difference in time between you and them for phone calls, interaction, etc. Factor in a job too. Now imagine that every few months the amount of time that's different between you actually changes.

So yeah, we don't change our clocks, but the fact that everyone else changes theirs while we don't is quite impactful.

Oh I get why having everyone around you constantly changing their time would be a PITA and understand wanting to stick with just one time. I, too, want to stick with just one time.

What surprises me is that you prefer that time to be DST vs standard. Does Arizona not like being on standard time or do you just wish you were in a different time zone?