Oh fuck this spring forward/fall back crap
November 2, 2015 6:49 AM Subscribe
See, I actually appreciated the extra hour this morning. I've been getting more sluggish in the morning lately; my circadian rhythm is pretty tied into the light level in the morning, and it's been getting harder and harder to really wake up on time for the past few weeks; usually the alarm goes off and I end up lying in bed for nearly 45 minutes because it's still dark and I'm groggy. But this morning, I woke up about 40 minutes before the alarm, and I used the extra time to write, like I want to.
Yeah, we lose an extra hour at the end of the day, but I quite like having that extra hour of daylight at the beginning of the day.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:59 AM on November 2, 2015 [31 favorites]
Yeah, we lose an extra hour at the end of the day, but I quite like having that extra hour of daylight at the beginning of the day.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:59 AM on November 2, 2015 [31 favorites]
I like the extra hour of sleep once a year, and I really like the week of early rising that makes me feel ambitious and energetic and about to accomplish something (but only actually reading Metafilter an hour earlier than usual).
posted by notyou at 7:01 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by notyou at 7:01 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
We don't do that shit in AZ.
posted by ph00dz at 7:08 AM on November 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by ph00dz at 7:08 AM on November 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
This plan is not: "cancel daylight savings time". It does not pass the simplicity test. Anything that changes timezones is not a simple plan.
This is another "let's fuck-up time-keeping for the whole western hemisphere because DST offends me on an aesthetic level" plan. Again.
posted by bonehead at 7:08 AM on November 2, 2015 [58 favorites]
This is another "let's fuck-up time-keeping for the whole western hemisphere because DST offends me on an aesthetic level" plan. Again.
posted by bonehead at 7:08 AM on November 2, 2015 [58 favorites]
This year, Americans on Eastern Standard Time should set their clocks back one hour (like normal)...After that we won’t change our clocks again—no more daylight saving.
Sunset here in Boston is at 4:36pm today, which is what happens when you're near the eastern end of a big time zone. Keeping our clocks back all year long would result in sunsets here around 7:30pm at the latest. No thanks. I'd much rather New England joined the Atlantic time zone but a lot of people around here prefer to see the sun before 8am (many for good reasons), so I guess we're stuck with the current arrangement.
posted by A dead Quaker at 7:11 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Sunset here in Boston is at 4:36pm today, which is what happens when you're near the eastern end of a big time zone. Keeping our clocks back all year long would result in sunsets here around 7:30pm at the latest. No thanks. I'd much rather New England joined the Atlantic time zone but a lot of people around here prefer to see the sun before 8am (many for good reasons), so I guess we're stuck with the current arrangement.
posted by A dead Quaker at 7:11 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
In an age when 90% of people carry around a device that can automatically update and adjust for world time zones and daylight savings anomalies its hard to take this article seriously.
Personally I like Daylight savings. It means that in the summer it doesn't get dark till REALLY late here, so you get a whole afternoon of doing stuff before its too dark. Rather than it wasting away in the morning when i'm asleep.
posted by mary8nne at 7:13 AM on November 2, 2015 [24 favorites]
Personally I like Daylight savings. It means that in the summer it doesn't get dark till REALLY late here, so you get a whole afternoon of doing stuff before its too dark. Rather than it wasting away in the morning when i'm asleep.
posted by mary8nne at 7:13 AM on November 2, 2015 [24 favorites]
Won't someone think of the children? You know, the ones who swear up and down it's not possibly bedtime because it's not dark yet?
posted by resurrexit at 7:15 AM on November 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by resurrexit at 7:15 AM on November 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
I don't mind DST, though I'm sure it's because I haven't thought about it all that much.
Research based on time use surveys found American’s schedules are determined by television more than daylight.
On behalf of our friends in the PST (who seem to get the short end of the stick wrt anything TV-related), I would fully support rearranging the United States time system around television.
Also isn't there a state or city somewhere around Michigan or Ohio where a small subset already does what the author is proposing - either doesn't change their clocks or has a city where one half is in one time zone and one is in the other? I can't remember what place I'm trying to think of.
Also, I think Russia, which spans ELEVEN time zones, is always an interesting study when the subject is DST. Last year they set their clocks back for the last time and are now on permanent winter time (mefi thread here).
posted by triggerfinger at 7:16 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Research based on time use surveys found American’s schedules are determined by television more than daylight.
On behalf of our friends in the PST (who seem to get the short end of the stick wrt anything TV-related), I would fully support rearranging the United States time system around television.
Also isn't there a state or city somewhere around Michigan or Ohio where a small subset already does what the author is proposing - either doesn't change their clocks or has a city where one half is in one time zone and one is in the other? I can't remember what place I'm trying to think of.
Also, I think Russia, which spans ELEVEN time zones, is always an interesting study when the subject is DST. Last year they set their clocks back for the last time and are now on permanent winter time (mefi thread here).
posted by triggerfinger at 7:16 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
I hate this week after the clocks have gone back, all of a sudden its dark at 5pm. Miserable. It doesn't help that it coincides with being the week they allow dickheads to have fireworks here.
posted by biffa at 7:18 AM on November 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by biffa at 7:18 AM on November 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
Personally I like Daylight savings. It means that in the summer it doesn't get dark till REALLY late here, so you get a whole afternoon of doing stuff before its too dark. Rather than it wasting away in the morning when i'm asleep.
Yeah, which is why we shouldn't 'get rid of' DST; we should KEEP IT. ALL YEAR.
As of now, in NY it will be DARK BEFORE 5PM EVERY DAY and that should be FUCKING ILLEGAL.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:19 AM on November 2, 2015 [85 favorites]
Yeah, which is why we shouldn't 'get rid of' DST; we should KEEP IT. ALL YEAR.
As of now, in NY it will be DARK BEFORE 5PM EVERY DAY and that should be FUCKING ILLEGAL.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:19 AM on November 2, 2015 [85 favorites]
Daylight Savings Time is pretty useful north of the 49th, otherwise in late May and for the month of June it would be broad daylight at 4am.
When I moved to Japan I thought it was odd that it would be broad daylight out by at least 5am but nothing stirred on the streets.
posted by Nevin at 7:20 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
When I moved to Japan I thought it was odd that it would be broad daylight out by at least 5am but nothing stirred on the streets.
posted by Nevin at 7:20 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
has a city where one half is in one time zone and one is in the other
NSWC-Crane, Indiana?
posted by elsietheeel at 7:21 AM on November 2, 2015
NSWC-Crane, Indiana?
posted by elsietheeel at 7:21 AM on November 2, 2015
Put the whole world on GMT and be done with it. I am fine with getting up at 11AM GMT.
posted by caddis at 7:22 AM on November 2, 2015 [19 favorites]
posted by caddis at 7:22 AM on November 2, 2015 [19 favorites]
Yeah, Day Light Saving time is awesome. Without it, a lot of people wake up in the dark and leave work in the dark.
posted by I-baLL at 7:22 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by I-baLL at 7:22 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
China, which is roughly the size of the US, has one time zone, picked to be most convenient for those in the East (pacific coast). It completely fucks over the people who live in the western part (e.g. Tibet and the Wigur). This idea isn't that bad, but 2 time zones for the whole contiguous states makes not a lot more sense.
posted by bonehead at 7:25 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 7:25 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
I love DST. Living far west into the Eastern Time Zone, sundown around here during the summer isn't until almost 9:00 PM.
posted by octothorpe at 7:25 AM on November 2, 2015
posted by octothorpe at 7:25 AM on November 2, 2015
Actually, timekeeping in Indiana is all sorts of fucked up.
Arizona is kinda cray-cray too... the state itself does not observe DST, but the Navajo nation (presumably because it's also partially located in Utah) DOES observe DST. And then the Hopi nation, which is completely surrounded by Navajo land but located completely in AZ does NOT follow DST.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:26 AM on November 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
Arizona is kinda cray-cray too... the state itself does not observe DST, but the Navajo nation (presumably because it's also partially located in Utah) DOES observe DST. And then the Hopi nation, which is completely surrounded by Navajo land but located completely in AZ does NOT follow DST.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:26 AM on November 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
Daylight Savings Time is pretty useful north of the 49th
But pretty much meaningless above 60 degrees. You wake up in the dark, leave work in the dark, and eat lunch under a dismal gray.
posted by three blind mice at 7:26 AM on November 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
But pretty much meaningless above 60 degrees. You wake up in the dark, leave work in the dark, and eat lunch under a dismal gray.
posted by three blind mice at 7:26 AM on November 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
I hate non-DST. That total lack of light when I'm out of work just depresses the shit out of me.
Also, the weather always changes immediately from fall to shitty cold (usually wet) winter within a day of the change here, which is depressing and freaky.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:32 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Also, the weather always changes immediately from fall to shitty cold (usually wet) winter within a day of the change here, which is depressing and freaky.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:32 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Daylight Savings Time is pretty useful north of the 49th, otherwise in late May and for the month of June it would be broad daylight at 4am.
Growing up in Edmonton (53° N), 4 am to 11 pm days were normal in middle summer. An hour either end didn't make much difference. Saskatchewan, which is one of the most rural provinces the country, runs without it just fine. Field prep and harvest runs 24-7 the the beginning and end of season now anyway. There's not reason at all, any more, for DST for farmers.
posted by bonehead at 7:32 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Growing up in Edmonton (53° N), 4 am to 11 pm days were normal in middle summer. An hour either end didn't make much difference. Saskatchewan, which is one of the most rural provinces the country, runs without it just fine. Field prep and harvest runs 24-7 the the beginning and end of season now anyway. There's not reason at all, any more, for DST for farmers.
posted by bonehead at 7:32 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I hate dst with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns. I'd vote for George W Bush to have a third term if I thought he'd manage to get rid of it. I don't adjust sleep cycles easily at all and it is close to a month after each change before I stop feeling groggy all day.
Further, research shows that accidents increase in the weeks following the change. It is a stupid, pointless, system that gains us nothing and may cost billions in increased traffic problems and lost work. The only sensible solution is to end it now.
Since that would be sensible, I fully expect we'll be using it for the next few centuries. Given America's love of stupid shit I imagine we could suffer an atomic war and in the post apocalyptic wasteland they'd still be changing their clocks twice a year.
posted by sotonohito at 7:34 AM on November 2, 2015 [30 favorites]
Further, research shows that accidents increase in the weeks following the change. It is a stupid, pointless, system that gains us nothing and may cost billions in increased traffic problems and lost work. The only sensible solution is to end it now.
Since that would be sensible, I fully expect we'll be using it for the next few centuries. Given America's love of stupid shit I imagine we could suffer an atomic war and in the post apocalyptic wasteland they'd still be changing their clocks twice a year.
posted by sotonohito at 7:34 AM on November 2, 2015 [30 favorites]
For all the reasons people don't like George W Bush, one of mine is more banal:
I had bought my first "big boy" alarm clock, with all kinds of nifty features, including automatically accounting for DST. A year later he changed the dates for DST.
Screw that guy.
posted by parliboy at 7:35 AM on November 2, 2015 [25 favorites]
I had bought my first "big boy" alarm clock, with all kinds of nifty features, including automatically accounting for DST. A year later he changed the dates for DST.
Screw that guy.
posted by parliboy at 7:35 AM on November 2, 2015 [25 favorites]
Every single time-keeping device in my house updated itself. Which was its own brand of confusing, when you're used to manually falling back.
posted by graventy at 7:39 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by graventy at 7:39 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
After experiencing my first daylight savings time change with a 7-month-old baby, I am now totally supportive of ditching this sadistic practice forever.
posted by castlebravo at 7:42 AM on November 2, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by castlebravo at 7:42 AM on November 2, 2015 [13 favorites]
"Further, research shows that accidents increase in the weeks following the change."
Maybe that's because more people start going out since it's Spring?
posted by I-baLL at 7:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Maybe that's because more people start going out since it's Spring?
posted by I-baLL at 7:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Daylight Savings Time"fall back" is mostly notable in our house for providing 3-6 days of us being able to put our kid to bed an hour early without him being any wiser and then making use of him waking up early to help us get and go in the morning.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
I, too, would vote for any political candidate that promised to do away with the switching back and forth. I'd only let that be the determining factor in my vote once, mind you. But still. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 7:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Spathe Cadet at 7:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Thank you, sotonohito! I've been trying to come with something coherent about how much I hate DST and failing miserably.
A quote that I keep seeing on the internet but can't find a legit source: "When asked about the time change, a native American leader once said, ‘Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket.’"
posted by Melismata at 7:45 AM on November 2, 2015 [20 favorites]
A quote that I keep seeing on the internet but can't find a legit source: "When asked about the time change, a native American leader once said, ‘Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket.’"
posted by Melismata at 7:45 AM on November 2, 2015 [20 favorites]
Jesus. So much grar over a one hour move.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:46 AM on November 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 7:46 AM on November 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
Here'so a great solution: just add the time change to one of those unimportant yet frequent conversation pieces you have with random acquaintances - you know, like the weather?
Bah. It is what it is. If you don't like it, just wait a while - it'll change.
posted by Nanukthedog at 7:49 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Bah. It is what it is. If you don't like it, just wait a while - it'll change.
posted by Nanukthedog at 7:49 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Would much prefer to stay on DST all the time, to keep the daylight in the evenings. Sure it was nice that it was bright again when I got up for work this morning, but there's really not anything I can do with that time other than the standard get-up get-ready-for-work routine. I would rather keep the daylight in the evenings, when I'm done with work, and the time is mine to enjoy.
posted by dnash at 7:51 AM on November 2, 2015 [21 favorites]
posted by dnash at 7:51 AM on November 2, 2015 [21 favorites]
Speaking as someone who gets up at five am for fitness classes between 6 and 7 am, I do appreciate having a little extra light when walking alone to get to them. I mean, the 6 am will still be scary and suck because of the dark, but the 7 am one will be less scary.
posted by Kitteh at 7:51 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 7:51 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
I don't really care whether it is DST or regular, but I hate the switching back and forth. It is even worse when you are traveling (like I am right now) and already feeling confused about time zones. Leave it one or the other and be done with it.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:54 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 7:54 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:55 AM on November 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:55 AM on November 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
Further, research shows that accidents increase in the weeks following the change. It is a stupid, pointless, system that gains us nothing and may cost billions in increased traffic problems and lost work. The only sensible solution is to end it now.
Not just accidents. Heart attacks.
I like it getting dark early, because then I go to bed on time for once. And my kid does too. Getting up for work is easier. Spring forward is like a kick in the face every year, and all the happy sunshine time in the evenings doesn't make it suck less.
posted by emjaybee at 7:56 AM on November 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
Not just accidents. Heart attacks.
I like it getting dark early, because then I go to bed on time for once. And my kid does too. Getting up for work is easier. Spring forward is like a kick in the face every year, and all the happy sunshine time in the evenings doesn't make it suck less.
posted by emjaybee at 7:56 AM on November 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
I'd prefer to go back to Daylight time (I prefer light in the evening, thanks) and never change again. Complicating it turns the whole deal from something any sane person can agree on, into a painful debate on the merits and advantages of alternate schemes. Just fix the damn time.
posted by graymouser at 7:57 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by graymouser at 7:57 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
and everyone knows this was the final solution and we blew it
Thanks a lot, people.
(I'm kidding people, please don't take me seriously, I'm here till friday, tip your barstaff)
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:57 AM on November 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
Thanks a lot, people.
(I'm kidding people, please don't take me seriously, I'm here till friday, tip your barstaff)
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:57 AM on November 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
Jesus. So much grar over a one hour move.
I liked things back in the good old days, where we Hoosiers didn't change clocks, we changed time zones.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:58 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I liked things back in the good old days, where we Hoosiers didn't change clocks, we changed time zones.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:58 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
i came in here expecting to ask: “does anyone actually LIKE daylight savings time?”, but after a quick run-down of the posts, that question was answered with a statistically validated YES.
i moved to phoenix, AZ eight years ago, from pittsburgh, PA. not shoveling snow and not changing clocks have been two nice perks of the move (also, in the summer, when it's 115º, the sooner that sun can set, the better. so leaving it daylight savings all year would not be ideal for me either. i'm perfectly happy with just staying on standard time all year.
posted by rude.boy at 8:01 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
i moved to phoenix, AZ eight years ago, from pittsburgh, PA. not shoveling snow and not changing clocks have been two nice perks of the move (also, in the summer, when it's 115º, the sooner that sun can set, the better. so leaving it daylight savings all year would not be ideal for me either. i'm perfectly happy with just staying on standard time all year.
posted by rude.boy at 8:01 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
We just flipped as a country from EST to AST without Daylight Savings, and it's glorious. We're pretty low down near the equator, so having the sun set at 7pm instead of 6pm is just perfect.
The only downside that I didn't expect is from people who watch standard cable TV, because their shows have now shifted an hour later since we'll continue to get the EST feed.
posted by Static Vagabond at 8:07 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
The only downside that I didn't expect is from people who watch standard cable TV, because their shows have now shifted an hour later since we'll continue to get the EST feed.
posted by Static Vagabond at 8:07 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
We don't do that shit in AZ.
But we do have to remember to switch back and forth with the annoying math, like whether we're equal to CA time or not and whether we're two or three hours behind the East coast. So I'm in favor of the proposed year-round, two-time-zones-only plan.
posted by fuse theorem at 8:09 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
But we do have to remember to switch back and forth with the annoying math, like whether we're equal to CA time or not and whether we're two or three hours behind the East coast. So I'm in favor of the proposed year-round, two-time-zones-only plan.
posted by fuse theorem at 8:09 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Count me among those who would gladly trade dark skies on the way in to work for daylight on the way home from work. It's always depressing when the fall change back to standard time means it's suddenly dark outside when I leave the office.
posted by slkinsey at 8:10 AM on November 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 8:10 AM on November 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
Jesus. So much grar over a one hour move.
It makes no sense, but I have more of a problem doing the one hour shift than I do with jetlag and a much larger shift. Trying to convince my body of the correct time is somehow easier when the larger world is clearly operating on its own correct schedule which I need to adjust to, than with the one hour change, where that external world just seems off. Or something.
Then again, this past spring, I did a Trans-Atlantic crossing east to west, and had 25 hr days, falling back an hour most nights, and had no problem readjusting. Maybe it was a sunshine thing, that it wasn't lights out at quarter to five and what the hell is going on. No idea. Bodies are weird.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:10 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
It makes no sense, but I have more of a problem doing the one hour shift than I do with jetlag and a much larger shift. Trying to convince my body of the correct time is somehow easier when the larger world is clearly operating on its own correct schedule which I need to adjust to, than with the one hour change, where that external world just seems off. Or something.
Then again, this past spring, I did a Trans-Atlantic crossing east to west, and had 25 hr days, falling back an hour most nights, and had no problem readjusting. Maybe it was a sunshine thing, that it wasn't lights out at quarter to five and what the hell is going on. No idea. Bodies are weird.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:10 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I like the stare on the cats' faces as I explain to them that, because of DST, dinner is being served an hour later.
posted by bendybendy at 8:11 AM on November 2, 2015 [50 favorites]
posted by bendybendy at 8:11 AM on November 2, 2015 [50 favorites]
sundown around here during the summer isn't until almost 9:00 PM.
Here in Victoria, which is actually south of Vancouver, by mid-June it's still light out until about 9:45, and the western sky is still faintly lit at 10pm.
I remember flying into Prince George once in June (PG is about the same latitude as Edmonton) and it was still faintly light out at 11pm. Amazing!
posted by Nevin at 8:17 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Here in Victoria, which is actually south of Vancouver, by mid-June it's still light out until about 9:45, and the western sky is still faintly lit at 10pm.
I remember flying into Prince George once in June (PG is about the same latitude as Edmonton) and it was still faintly light out at 11pm. Amazing!
posted by Nevin at 8:17 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Good luck enjoying daylight savings with young children in the house. Try explaining to a 3 year old who is ready to go at the new 4am that he can go ahead and go back to sleep for an hour cause we changed the clocks.
posted by cubby at 8:18 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by cubby at 8:18 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
The irony of people who complain about the arbitrary nature of DST is that the entire concept of time zones based on the Greenwich meridian was invented to ensure the London Stock Exchange remained at the center of the business universe. As stock exchanges in the east were closing, New York was just starting and London was right in the middle of it.
posted by Nevin at 8:19 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Nevin at 8:19 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
In an age when 90% of people carry around a device that can automatically update and adjust for world time zones and daylight savings anomalies its hard to take this article seriously.
It's not really automatic - some programmer somewhere sacrificed their sanity and immortal soul to make this happen.
posted by Dr Dracator at 8:20 AM on November 2, 2015 [38 favorites]
It's not really automatic - some programmer somewhere sacrificed their sanity and immortal soul to make this happen.
posted by Dr Dracator at 8:20 AM on November 2, 2015 [38 favorites]
I read a great piece once on the history of Daylight Savings Time and the big push the idea got from Little League Baseball and candy makers, who had a vested interest in being able to play ballgames in more daylight and to get trick or treaters an extra hour of sun. I'm trying like hell to find it, but am having no luck.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:20 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:20 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think I might be the only one here that kinda likes time switching. I'm going to say that this is due to my general dislike of routine and my like of things that change things up now and then. I know that this is just part of my general nature so I promise everyone here that hates this sort of change to not hold any sort of keep it as it is position. I know I'm in the minority here.
posted by Jalliah at 8:20 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by Jalliah at 8:20 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Last year they set their clocks back for the last time and are now on permanent winter time
Wasn't that how The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe started?
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:22 AM on November 2, 2015 [20 favorites]
Wasn't that how The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe started?
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:22 AM on November 2, 2015 [20 favorites]
So many people to agree with...
Like the Empress, I enjoyed getting up to daylight.
Like many others, I do not look forward to getting off work in darkness.
Like Caddis, I think GMT is a great idea. (And is a much better way of dealing with database updates)
Pretty much everybody except the FPP suggestion, which is really stupid.
(And of course, those who think it's plural...)
posted by MtDewd at 8:22 AM on November 2, 2015
Like the Empress, I enjoyed getting up to daylight.
Like many others, I do not look forward to getting off work in darkness.
Like Caddis, I think GMT is a great idea. (And is a much better way of dealing with database updates)
Pretty much everybody except the FPP suggestion, which is really stupid.
(And of course, those who think it's plural...)
posted by MtDewd at 8:22 AM on November 2, 2015
Personally, I enjoy the time change.
It reminds me that time is an artificial construction, and it gives me the opportunity to reflect upon that twice a year.
posted by fairmettle at 8:24 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
It reminds me that time is an artificial construction, and it gives me the opportunity to reflect upon that twice a year.
posted by fairmettle at 8:24 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
This plan is not: "cancel daylight savings time". It does not pass the simplicity test.
The simplest solution is just to cancel time completely, and replace it all with "whenever". "When does work start? Whenever." "When will we meet for the date? Whenever."
Of course I could not sleep at all last night, so I may be a bit biased, but my plan IS simple.
posted by happyroach at 8:24 AM on November 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
The simplest solution is just to cancel time completely, and replace it all with "whenever". "When does work start? Whenever." "When will we meet for the date? Whenever."
Of course I could not sleep at all last night, so I may be a bit biased, but my plan IS simple.
posted by happyroach at 8:24 AM on November 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
In a similar vein, Dave Gorman has an plan for fixing the calendar.
posted by pipeski at 8:25 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by pipeski at 8:25 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I guess I don't understand why this article is bitching so much about the END of Daylight Savings Time. What we are doing now is going back to NORMAL time. Getting dark at 4:30 pm is what our time system is NORMALLY calibrated to do. People should be arguing that we should STAY on DST, not get rid of it altogether.
It’s true that larger time zones would seem to cheat many people out of daylight by removing them further from their true solar time. But the demands of global commerce already do that.
Sooo . . . the solution to having a system that messes with our times and rhythms is to . . . create more chaos? When the global economy screws our sense of time up, that's ok, but when we do it so I don't have to go to work when there are still stars out, it's heinous?
posted by chainsofreedom at 8:25 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
It’s true that larger time zones would seem to cheat many people out of daylight by removing them further from their true solar time. But the demands of global commerce already do that.
Sooo . . . the solution to having a system that messes with our times and rhythms is to . . . create more chaos? When the global economy screws our sense of time up, that's ok, but when we do it so I don't have to go to work when there are still stars out, it's heinous?
posted by chainsofreedom at 8:25 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Daylight Savings Time but only for calling whenever I get up "8 AM" and whenever I go to sleep "midnight"
posted by The Whelk at 8:28 AM on November 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 8:28 AM on November 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
This Sunday, and the end of DST, marked the end of being able to go for social bicycle rides with people after work.
This week, we'll convene on Wednesday in some dim restaurant, with most of the folks having DRIVEN there (bah!), and toast the eight daylight months when we approached something resembling fitness and social ease. At the end of the meal, we'll say the dark chant loosely translated as: "may we grow fat over the winter and return, grousing about it, in March."
posted by introp at 8:30 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
This week, we'll convene on Wednesday in some dim restaurant, with most of the folks having DRIVEN there (bah!), and toast the eight daylight months when we approached something resembling fitness and social ease. At the end of the meal, we'll say the dark chant loosely translated as: "may we grow fat over the winter and return, grousing about it, in March."
posted by introp at 8:30 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Like a few others here, I like the present system. I actually sleep much better on standard time; it suits my sleep patterns well. But I also like adjusting to shift the daytime daylight in summer so as to provide longer summer evenings and bright mornings at the same time. For instance, I once worked at a summer camp where a big part of the program was all-group games after dinner that ran from about 6:30 - 8:00 pm. This was fine most of the summer, but as the sunset grew earlier, we actually had to change our clocks in order to maintain a schedule that worked for the kids and allowed them to play these big all-group games in the woods without it getting so dark as to be dangerous, which let them get good and tired out before sleep. Those who have school-age kids will know that had we just said "Oh, it gets dark earlier now so we'll just have dinner at 5 and go to bed at 8 and somehow you magically won't get up at 5:00 AM" it would have been a total non-starter. Darkness all winter in the early morning is problematic for morning transit and school transportation, as well. On the whole, I think the system has dividends for most people, which is why most people don't really want to change it.
I've read what feels like hundreds of these articles outlining why it should never have happened, why it benefits or disadvantages one industry or another, and how easy it would be to fix, but I think all of these analyses tend to miss that it's become a part of our culture, and culturally embedded things are much harder to reform. Time discipline is not simply an economic problem that can be decided with a balance sheet of gains and losses. It's a human problem, and one that sits pretty well within the history of the changing habits people practice with the seasonal round. We've adapted our lives to this system, most of us (especially people more toward the edges of their time zones) adapt fairly easily to it and weave it into other activities and needs we have, and change would be disruptive even if it seemed more practical on its face.
posted by Miko at 8:35 AM on November 2, 2015
I've read what feels like hundreds of these articles outlining why it should never have happened, why it benefits or disadvantages one industry or another, and how easy it would be to fix, but I think all of these analyses tend to miss that it's become a part of our culture, and culturally embedded things are much harder to reform. Time discipline is not simply an economic problem that can be decided with a balance sheet of gains and losses. It's a human problem, and one that sits pretty well within the history of the changing habits people practice with the seasonal round. We've adapted our lives to this system, most of us (especially people more toward the edges of their time zones) adapt fairly easily to it and weave it into other activities and needs we have, and change would be disruptive even if it seemed more practical on its face.
posted by Miko at 8:35 AM on November 2, 2015
Put the whole world on GMT and be done with it. I am fine with getting up at 11AM GMT.
Why not go all the way and switch to .beat time !
posted by fairmettle at 8:38 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Why not go all the way and switch to .beat time !
posted by fairmettle at 8:38 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
You all realize that the days get longer and shorter all on their own without moving the clocks around, right? Keeping DST isn't going to make it stay light out at 9:00 p.m. in the middle of winter no matter how much you want it.
Let's just settle on one and stick with it and stop moving the clocks around.
posted by briank at 8:39 AM on November 2, 2015 [18 favorites]
Let's just settle on one and stick with it and stop moving the clocks around.
posted by briank at 8:39 AM on November 2, 2015 [18 favorites]
We can get rid of daylight saving time but only if everybody gets to take November through February off.
posted by mellow seas at 8:41 AM on November 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by mellow seas at 8:41 AM on November 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
Dave Gorman has an plan for fixing the calendar.
Grâce à L'Empereur, aujourd'hui est le 224e Année de la République, mois de Brumaire, le jour du Quartidi, décade troisieme.
posted by bonehead at 8:42 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Grâce à L'Empereur, aujourd'hui est le 224e Année de la République, mois de Brumaire, le jour du Quartidi, décade troisieme.
posted by bonehead at 8:42 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
I like it, or at least don't mind it, and thus do not get the grar over it, but as I am often in favour of incoherent fury over something that others might find inconsequential, I am here for all of you DST haters. I validate your pain.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:43 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 8:43 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I hate the time changing, it is disorienting and upsetting for no good reason. Just pick one way and leave it that way. It is not a beloved cultural icon, but a pain in the ass. WWII ended a long, long time ago.
posted by mermayd at 8:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by mermayd at 8:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Jesus. So much grar over a one hour move.
Don't fuck with my sleep. Period. I guarantee that I'm not the only one for whom it's a big deal. It's not as if the US isn't already sleep-all-the-fucked-over enough already without adding wholly arbitrary and anachronistic mandatory time changes twice a year to the mix.
posted by blucevalo at 8:48 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Don't fuck with my sleep. Period. I guarantee that I'm not the only one for whom it's a big deal. It's not as if the US isn't already sleep-all-the-fucked-over enough already without adding wholly arbitrary and anachronistic mandatory time changes twice a year to the mix.
posted by blucevalo at 8:48 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Metafilter: "This thing sucks: here's a simple plan to fix it"
posted by OHenryPacey at 8:48 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by OHenryPacey at 8:48 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
I don't care what happens in the mornings, they're all painful until 11 or so anyway, lighting them up doesn't make a difference to me. Midnight vibes at 4pm = brutal. I'll sign whatever petition = more evening light for EST people, where is that.
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:50 AM on November 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:50 AM on November 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
Metafilter: "This thing sucks: here's a simple plan to fix it"
Actually, quite the opposite.
The Atlantic/TNR/Vox/Upshot/Medium etc. etc.: "This thing sucks: here's a simple plan to fix it"
Metafilter: "Let's argue and bicker about the so-called simple plan until the cows come home"
posted by blucevalo at 8:52 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Actually, quite the opposite.
The Atlantic/TNR/Vox/Upshot/Medium etc. etc.: "This thing sucks: here's a simple plan to fix it"
Metafilter: "Let's argue and bicker about the so-called simple plan until the cows come home"
posted by blucevalo at 8:52 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
The only reason we have our personal time synchronised with others is to synchronise our affairs, and what works locally isn't what works nationally or internationally. Yet we all live locally. It was fine, pre-railway, for the UK to have an absolute mess of time zones so a town fifty miles to the west of you could easily have a ten minute difference when it thought midday was (actually, when midday actually was).
The railways couldn't work like that. If a train left London and got to Reading an hour later, then the timetable really had to have an hour between those two events. So, the UK got a single time zone (fortuitously, at roughly the same time as the telegraph evolved to provide an infrastructure to support unified time).
This works until you start to deal with people in real time who are a long way away, too far for there to be any semblance of coincidental middays with the sun being overhead. Hence big stripes of timezones around the globe. By itself, this is painful (anyone who's worked on a project which needs people in SF, Sydney and London to talk regularly will know that pain) and when you get daylight saving shifts it's chaos. Ask a pilot.
The military, being a pragmatic yet wide-ranging bunch and also fond of knowing exactly when they're due to bomb the bastards, have adopted GMT/UTC as a single worldwide time zone; they call it Z or Zulu. The BBC World Service, also being pragmatic and wide-ranging, and also fond of knowne exactly when they're going to speak peace unto nations, do the same. If you're in either organisation, then you know your local time zone and do your life stuff around it, bit you also know, when you're talking to others, to use Z. You have to know how your local time zone relates to Z, but that's all, even if you fly half way around the world.
So we have the technology now to go back to the idea of local time zones, as local as you like, and you can shift them around (or not) to suit your local conditions and the general happiness of all you come into contact with physically in normal daily life. For everything else, there's Zulu. It doesn't solve the issue of seasonal variations in available daylight, but you can synchronise your midday to the middle of the day throughout the year without any step changes. Sleep patterns and habits can synch to that fairly easily, even if you're a baby.
posted by Devonian at 8:59 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
The railways couldn't work like that. If a train left London and got to Reading an hour later, then the timetable really had to have an hour between those two events. So, the UK got a single time zone (fortuitously, at roughly the same time as the telegraph evolved to provide an infrastructure to support unified time).
This works until you start to deal with people in real time who are a long way away, too far for there to be any semblance of coincidental middays with the sun being overhead. Hence big stripes of timezones around the globe. By itself, this is painful (anyone who's worked on a project which needs people in SF, Sydney and London to talk regularly will know that pain) and when you get daylight saving shifts it's chaos. Ask a pilot.
The military, being a pragmatic yet wide-ranging bunch and also fond of knowing exactly when they're due to bomb the bastards, have adopted GMT/UTC as a single worldwide time zone; they call it Z or Zulu. The BBC World Service, also being pragmatic and wide-ranging, and also fond of knowne exactly when they're going to speak peace unto nations, do the same. If you're in either organisation, then you know your local time zone and do your life stuff around it, bit you also know, when you're talking to others, to use Z. You have to know how your local time zone relates to Z, but that's all, even if you fly half way around the world.
So we have the technology now to go back to the idea of local time zones, as local as you like, and you can shift them around (or not) to suit your local conditions and the general happiness of all you come into contact with physically in normal daily life. For everything else, there's Zulu. It doesn't solve the issue of seasonal variations in available daylight, but you can synchronise your midday to the middle of the day throughout the year without any step changes. Sleep patterns and habits can synch to that fairly easily, even if you're a baby.
posted by Devonian at 8:59 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
I used to feel DST was foolishness, but now, I love it. The entire world arranges for everything to happen later in the day, seemingly just for my benefit. No more 9 am appointments, and restaurants are almost empty at noon, and I'm statistically less likely to have a heart attack than others in my cohort. All because I stay in DST year round.
posted by joeyh at 9:04 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by joeyh at 9:04 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Really though I seem to cope better with life in general when I am closer to the equator and have more or less equal amounts of night and day. The speed of sunrise and sunset down there takes a lot of getting used to.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:06 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by poffin boffin at 9:06 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I like the extra hour of sleep once a year, and I really like the week of early rising that makes me feel ambitious and energetic and about to accomplish something (but only actually reading Metafilter an hour earlier than usual).
Good news: nobody stops you from doing this on your own! Please don't drag the rest of us for the ride.
posted by pwnguin at 9:07 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Good news: nobody stops you from doing this on your own! Please don't drag the rest of us for the ride.
posted by pwnguin at 9:07 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
You all realize that the days get longer and shorter all on their own without moving the clocks around, right?
Of course, but my point is, we don't live the same way all the year around. We live differently. We adjust our habits seasonally - and that has long been the case, and would be the case without moving the clock, but moving the clock helps us adapt to it with greater convenience. Trying to shift the clock so we can get more of our out-and-about-stuff done during daylight hours does make sense, and if you can have a dark morning or a dark evening, a dark evening is generally preferable as far as people rushing around to work and school go, and it's consonant with cultural habits of slowing down and turning a bit more inward in wintertime.
nobody stops you from doing this on your own!
I find that my workplace generally does not take kindly to my feeling that an appropriate start to the workday is 10 AM.
posted by Miko at 9:07 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Of course, but my point is, we don't live the same way all the year around. We live differently. We adjust our habits seasonally - and that has long been the case, and would be the case without moving the clock, but moving the clock helps us adapt to it with greater convenience. Trying to shift the clock so we can get more of our out-and-about-stuff done during daylight hours does make sense, and if you can have a dark morning or a dark evening, a dark evening is generally preferable as far as people rushing around to work and school go, and it's consonant with cultural habits of slowing down and turning a bit more inward in wintertime.
nobody stops you from doing this on your own!
I find that my workplace generally does not take kindly to my feeling that an appropriate start to the workday is 10 AM.
posted by Miko at 9:07 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Metafilter: "Let's argue and bicker about the so-called simple plan until the cows come home"
and there's the rub. The f***ing cows are suddenly coming home an hour earlier than they were last week and everyone's confused. Except it's all arbitrary anyway. Time. It seems to be determined by the sun and our planet's annual revolution around it, and of course our own rotating in relation to it. Which begs my real question. What time is it on the sun?
Also gravity. Which tends to get me down when I'm weary, particularly this time of year with the days (here in the so-called Northern Hemisphere anyway) getting shorter and shorter, but there's still the same amount of stuff to do. My biological inclination is toward wanting, nay NEEDING, more sleep than "normal". And then here comes the return to "regular" time to give us an extra hour.
And so in conclusion, in a democracy, I'd vote for it. Keeping things as they are. Because I really do appreciate that extra hour of sleep this time of year. And the reminder that we are all spinning around in space at an insane rate of naughts even as we revolve around a 93 million mile distant star which is itself spiraling at an explosive velocity in who knows what direction.
posted by philip-random at 9:11 AM on November 2, 2015
and there's the rub. The f***ing cows are suddenly coming home an hour earlier than they were last week and everyone's confused. Except it's all arbitrary anyway. Time. It seems to be determined by the sun and our planet's annual revolution around it, and of course our own rotating in relation to it. Which begs my real question. What time is it on the sun?
Also gravity. Which tends to get me down when I'm weary, particularly this time of year with the days (here in the so-called Northern Hemisphere anyway) getting shorter and shorter, but there's still the same amount of stuff to do. My biological inclination is toward wanting, nay NEEDING, more sleep than "normal". And then here comes the return to "regular" time to give us an extra hour.
And so in conclusion, in a democracy, I'd vote for it. Keeping things as they are. Because I really do appreciate that extra hour of sleep this time of year. And the reminder that we are all spinning around in space at an insane rate of naughts even as we revolve around a 93 million mile distant star which is itself spiraling at an explosive velocity in who knows what direction.
posted by philip-random at 9:11 AM on November 2, 2015
Ah fuckingshitpiss. The goddam time never changes. It's the same goddam time all the time everywhere. Only the clocks change. It was a joke, a goddam joke. DST is a fucking Kickme sign. Future archeologists will look at DST and wonder what kind of morons would do such a thing. Jesus Harold Christ on a fucking crutch, when are we going to quit doing shit like this?
Okay, the clocks change when you go really really fast, but we haven't got there yet, even with the new Porche SUVs, and anyhow you don't have to mess with changing the time. Relativity will take care of the goddam clock for you.
posted by mule98J at 9:13 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Okay, the clocks change when you go really really fast, but we haven't got there yet, even with the new Porche SUVs, and anyhow you don't have to mess with changing the time. Relativity will take care of the goddam clock for you.
posted by mule98J at 9:13 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I find that my workplace generally does not take kindly to my feeling that an appropriate start to the workday is 10 AM.
While my solution, traveling west every few years, ran out of steam now that I live on the West Coast, joeyh's solution seems workable. I have a coworker who's was running that schedule before DST ended, due in part to an infant in the home.
posted by pwnguin at 9:14 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
While my solution, traveling west every few years, ran out of steam now that I live on the West Coast, joeyh's solution seems workable. I have a coworker who's was running that schedule before DST ended, due in part to an infant in the home.
posted by pwnguin at 9:14 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I like how almost every comment in this thread is about DST when the main thrust of the article is that there's should only be two time zones in the US because it's more efficient for business. Also the author thinks that Austin's schedule is synchronized with New York's and everyone eats in Austin at 6PM and at 7PM in NYT. You can debate the merits of DST all you want, but you're ignoring that this is an absurd article written by a crazy person who not only might not actually have ever lived in either New York or Austin, but might not even be human.
"If you're in either organisation, then you know your local time zone and do your life stuff around it, bit you also know, when you're talking to others, to use Z. You have to know how your local time zone relates to Z, but that's all, even if you fly half way around the world."
Yes, but the very important point here is that the author isn't advocating a single official time with local variation in scheduling, but that everyone keep the same business hours, etc. according to that official time. In her case, she's limiting the change to two time zones (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) but I am unconvinced that the way she so blithely disregards shifting part of the interior of the country to more extreme sunrise/sunset for the sake of the glorious cause of rational commerce isn't just as applicable to setting a single US universal time according to the mean solar time to the center of the interior and accepting an offset of sunrise/sunset in the east and west coasts. After all, what's important here is that we're on the same schedule, not so much what time you work and sleep relative to the sun. Right?
No. No, that's not right.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:15 AM on November 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
"If you're in either organisation, then you know your local time zone and do your life stuff around it, bit you also know, when you're talking to others, to use Z. You have to know how your local time zone relates to Z, but that's all, even if you fly half way around the world."
Yes, but the very important point here is that the author isn't advocating a single official time with local variation in scheduling, but that everyone keep the same business hours, etc. according to that official time. In her case, she's limiting the change to two time zones (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) but I am unconvinced that the way she so blithely disregards shifting part of the interior of the country to more extreme sunrise/sunset for the sake of the glorious cause of rational commerce isn't just as applicable to setting a single US universal time according to the mean solar time to the center of the interior and accepting an offset of sunrise/sunset in the east and west coasts. After all, what's important here is that we're on the same schedule, not so much what time you work and sleep relative to the sun. Right?
No. No, that's not right.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:15 AM on November 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
A single stupid article from 2013=just an excuse for Mefites to have their annual discussion about how much they love/hate DST.
posted by Melismata at 9:17 AM on November 2, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 9:17 AM on November 2, 2015 [11 favorites]
As long as the cows can come home while it is still light. The dairy people knew what they were getting into. Plainly the golf lobby runs Arizona.
posted by Oyéah at 9:23 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 9:23 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
DST was invented so that humans would be awake for more daylight — because daylight that happens before you've woken up is far less valuable than daylight in the evening before you go to sleep. That's simple enough to understand.
We could do the exact same thing without actually changing the clocks, but amusingly that'd be far less workable: we'd have to tell everyone to shift their routines earlier one hour in the spring and later one hour in the fall. After a magical date, TV schedules would shift one hour forward or backward, as would store hours, school hours, times of recurring work meetings, and so on. Somehow it's far simpler just to steal an hour from March and move it to November.
I suppose at this point I'm convinced that DST has no economic benefit, or at least not enough of one to be worth the fuss. (Certainly the expansion of DST in the 00s didn't save energy as legislators promised it would.) But I do think DST would still pass in a plebiscite just because people don't like leaving work when it's dark. If people want to schedule that vote, that's cool, and I'll respect the outcome.
posted by savetheclocktower at 9:25 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
We could do the exact same thing without actually changing the clocks, but amusingly that'd be far less workable: we'd have to tell everyone to shift their routines earlier one hour in the spring and later one hour in the fall. After a magical date, TV schedules would shift one hour forward or backward, as would store hours, school hours, times of recurring work meetings, and so on. Somehow it's far simpler just to steal an hour from March and move it to November.
I suppose at this point I'm convinced that DST has no economic benefit, or at least not enough of one to be worth the fuss. (Certainly the expansion of DST in the 00s didn't save energy as legislators promised it would.) But I do think DST would still pass in a plebiscite just because people don't like leaving work when it's dark. If people want to schedule that vote, that's cool, and I'll respect the outcome.
posted by savetheclocktower at 9:25 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
*waves from that state out in the Pacific* It's not just Arizona and Indiana...we don't observe Daylight Saving either. Which means my workday (which is tied to the time in California) starts and ends an hour later for the next 4 months.
posted by namewithoutwords at 9:27 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by namewithoutwords at 9:27 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
It’s true that larger time zones would seem to cheat many people out of daylight by removing them further from their true solar time. But the demands of global commerce already do that.
Yeah, get over the illusion that your life has importance. All workplaces and homes should be windowless Brutalist cubes with wall-sized monitors that show pictures of puppies and exhortations to work harder and enjoy the soothing non-solar ambience. For great commerce.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:28 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Yeah, get over the illusion that your life has importance. All workplaces and homes should be windowless Brutalist cubes with wall-sized monitors that show pictures of puppies and exhortations to work harder and enjoy the soothing non-solar ambience. For great commerce.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:28 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Yeah, get over the illusion that your life has importance. All workplaces and homes should be windowless Brutalist cubes with wall-sized monitors that show pictures of puppies and exhortations to work harder and enjoy the soothing non-solar ambience. For great commerc
I find that I work better in a darker room. I need to shut out the sun.
posted by Nevin at 9:42 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I find that I work better in a darker room. I need to shut out the sun.
posted by Nevin at 9:42 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
We could do the exact same thing without actually changing the clocks, but amusingly that'd be far less workable: we'd have to tell everyone to shift their routines earlier one hour in the spring and later one hour in the fall.
Because that would be crazy! If you told everyone, starting tomorrow, come to your job at 10 AM, not 9 AM, oh and now you need to stay until 7 PM not 6 PM, what kind of adoption rate would you get? People would tell you to go to hell. But tell us to set our clocks back an hour and we aquiesce.
posted by thelonius at 9:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Because that would be crazy! If you told everyone, starting tomorrow, come to your job at 10 AM, not 9 AM, oh and now you need to stay until 7 PM not 6 PM, what kind of adoption rate would you get? People would tell you to go to hell. But tell us to set our clocks back an hour and we aquiesce.
posted by thelonius at 9:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
> I find that my workplace generally does not take kindly to my feeling that an appropriate start to the workday is 10 AM.
Here's the real solution. Let's stop shifting our clocks around to appease our masters' desires for consistent numbers, riot for flexitime!
Realistically though, while I hate the concept of DST, until we're all just performing to the beck and call of ai assistants it does seem like the most realistic way of keeping everyone on track with an attempt to react naturally to changing daylight.
posted by lucidium at 9:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Here's the real solution. Let's stop shifting our clocks around to appease our masters' desires for consistent numbers, riot for flexitime!
Realistically though, while I hate the concept of DST, until we're all just performing to the beck and call of ai assistants it does seem like the most realistic way of keeping everyone on track with an attempt to react naturally to changing daylight.
posted by lucidium at 9:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
If there's a a real need to "fix" this, the whole world should move to GMT and we can adjust our work schedules appropriately.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:45 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Navelgazer at 9:45 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
If there's a a real need to "fix" this, the whole world should move to GMT and we can adjust our work schedules appropriately.
Indeed, and as most television is available digitally these days, simply have standard staggered "initial release times" for download/stream and let people watch when they would like...
posted by Karmakaze at 9:53 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Indeed, and as most television is available digitally these days, simply have standard staggered "initial release times" for download/stream and let people watch when they would like...
posted by Karmakaze at 9:53 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
If there's a a real need to "fix" this, the whole world should move to GMT and we can adjust our work schedules appropriately.
What we need to do is move to a time standard that compensates for relativistic travel of information, including gravitational effects on local times, so that the slow-money banks of the future will be able to properly issue fast-money (and ultra-fast money, and so down the subjective time chain). To do otherwise risks the potential for stability of future pan-galactic trade.
posted by bonehead at 10:01 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
What we need to do is move to a time standard that compensates for relativistic travel of information, including gravitational effects on local times, so that the slow-money banks of the future will be able to properly issue fast-money (and ultra-fast money, and so down the subjective time chain). To do otherwise risks the potential for stability of future pan-galactic trade.
posted by bonehead at 10:01 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
+1 for the local time/GMT suggestion. I'm still groggy and disoriented from the time change two days ago, and keep finding clocks in my house that my roommates have forgotten to change. Two times zones sounds like a needless complication when most of us are carrying around a device that could sync up to local time seamlessly.
posted by thebotanyofsouls at 10:10 AM on November 2, 2015
posted by thebotanyofsouls at 10:10 AM on November 2, 2015
I rejoiced when I set my clock back yesterday because I love waking up in daylight (between 6:30 and 7 most mornings). But this changes on Nov 30 when the sunrise is just after 7. So I propose progressively shortening the workday during the winter. Get up with the sun and add an hour for getting ready + commute. Leave work one hour before sunset. My shortest workday would thus be 8:20 am - 3:20 pm (Dec 21st, obvs). I would be happy to make up that additional hour on June 21st, when the sun rises at 5:13 am and sets at 8:35 pm.
posted by desjardins at 10:12 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by desjardins at 10:12 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
My biggest peeve with Daylight Saving Time is presumably literate people referring to it as Daylight Savings Time.
posted by mistersquid at 10:18 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by mistersquid at 10:18 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Every single time-keeping device in my house updated itself. Which was its own brand of confusing, when you're used to manually falling back.
I tend to wake up erratically through out the night and check my tablet to see if it's worth trying to go back to sleep. So I spent some time Sunday being (a) uncertain as to the time and (b) grateful my microwave and oven are so old that they do not reset, thus allowing me to be certain my other devises had reset. But, sadly, I had to get out bed first....
re DST itself, I prefer as much sun as possible and solved that problem by moving to a sunny site-not all have that option, I realize. And length/number of sunny days is actually confounding where I want to move to next. Hadn't yet accounted for the DST effect on this...
posted by beaning at 10:20 AM on November 2, 2015
I tend to wake up erratically through out the night and check my tablet to see if it's worth trying to go back to sleep. So I spent some time Sunday being (a) uncertain as to the time and (b) grateful my microwave and oven are so old that they do not reset, thus allowing me to be certain my other devises had reset. But, sadly, I had to get out bed first....
re DST itself, I prefer as much sun as possible and solved that problem by moving to a sunny site-not all have that option, I realize. And length/number of sunny days is actually confounding where I want to move to next. Hadn't yet accounted for the DST effect on this...
posted by beaning at 10:20 AM on November 2, 2015
I LOVE having the apparent extra hour that "fall back" brings. It's the spring forward that kills me. Why can't we just fall back every three months, if we're going to mess with people's schedules? Would give the night owls equal time being at their best.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 10:30 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Sheydem-tants at 10:30 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Dr Dracator: "In an age when 90% of people carry around a device that can automatically update and adjust for world time zones and daylight savings anomalies its hard to take this article seriously.
It's not really automatic - some programmer somewhere sacrificed their sanity and immortal soul to make this happen."
Not so much. We used to cringe twice a year when I used to work at a call center in resource planning. We knew everything was going to go to shit for the day, despite the eternal reassurances of IT.
posted by Samizdata at 10:30 AM on November 2, 2015
It's not really automatic - some programmer somewhere sacrificed their sanity and immortal soul to make this happen."
Not so much. We used to cringe twice a year when I used to work at a call center in resource planning. We knew everything was going to go to shit for the day, despite the eternal reassurances of IT.
posted by Samizdata at 10:30 AM on November 2, 2015
> Because that would be crazy! If you told everyone, starting tomorrow, come to your job at 10 AM, not 9 AM, oh and now you need to stay until 7 PM not 6 PM, what kind of adoption rate would you get? People would tell you to go to hell. But tell us to set our clocks back an hour and we aquiesce.
We acquiesce because setting our clocks back an hour removes nearly all of the hassle of changing one's daily routine. That's like saying "we rightly think it's crazy when the government demands we educate our kids, but when they offer to do it themselves and pay for it suddenly we acquiesce!"
posted by savetheclocktower at 10:38 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
We acquiesce because setting our clocks back an hour removes nearly all of the hassle of changing one's daily routine. That's like saying "we rightly think it's crazy when the government demands we educate our kids, but when they offer to do it themselves and pay for it suddenly we acquiesce!"
posted by savetheclocktower at 10:38 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Hmm.
Given: The abrupt shift of an entire hour is discombobulating and stressful.
Given: We would still like to shift our schedules to have more daylight in certain parts of the workday.
Given: An increasing percentage of our timekeeping devices have enough smarts to keep track of the time of year, and apply daylight savings without human intervention.
Thus, a modest proposal:
Why don't we spread that hour-long shift out over a month or two? Every day in September and October, we lose a minute - the clocks leap directly from 12:59 to 1:01. Every day in February and March we gain a minute, with the clocks going from 12:59 to 12:60 to 1:00. Maybe we could even add in a little more now and then to get rid of leap years. Or at least leap seconds.
Shifting every day like this would be incredibly onerous in the era of mechanical timekeeping devices you can only change in one direction. But this is the digital age. Mechanical clocks and watches are increasingly becoming an expensive bauble that denotes prestige. Hordes of people don't even wear a watch, preferring instead to rely on their smartphone to tell them what time it is.
The obvious problems: luddites who still vastly prefer mechanical clocks, and the need for a Y2K-sized effort to change all timekeeping software.
I am not sure if I am joking, or if I am entirely serious here. I know I'm not stoned yet this morning.
posted by egypturnash at 10:39 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Given: The abrupt shift of an entire hour is discombobulating and stressful.
Given: We would still like to shift our schedules to have more daylight in certain parts of the workday.
Given: An increasing percentage of our timekeeping devices have enough smarts to keep track of the time of year, and apply daylight savings without human intervention.
Thus, a modest proposal:
Why don't we spread that hour-long shift out over a month or two? Every day in September and October, we lose a minute - the clocks leap directly from 12:59 to 1:01. Every day in February and March we gain a minute, with the clocks going from 12:59 to 12:60 to 1:00. Maybe we could even add in a little more now and then to get rid of leap years. Or at least leap seconds.
Shifting every day like this would be incredibly onerous in the era of mechanical timekeeping devices you can only change in one direction. But this is the digital age. Mechanical clocks and watches are increasingly becoming an expensive bauble that denotes prestige. Hordes of people don't even wear a watch, preferring instead to rely on their smartphone to tell them what time it is.
The obvious problems: luddites who still vastly prefer mechanical clocks, and the need for a Y2K-sized effort to change all timekeeping software.
I am not sure if I am joking, or if I am entirely serious here. I know I'm not stoned yet this morning.
posted by egypturnash at 10:39 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
It is currently a bit after 1446489577.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 10:40 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 10:40 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
If you told everyone, starting tomorrow, come to your job at 10 AM, not 9 AM, oh and now you need to stay until 7 PM not 6 PM, what kind of adoption rate would you get?
Very close to 100%. People who have jobs (usually) prefer to keep them.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:40 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Very close to 100%. People who have jobs (usually) prefer to keep them.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:40 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
The further north you live, the more you love DST. I'm in Maine, which I really love, except that I am on the eastern edge of my time zone. In summer, it gets light absurdly early. In winter, even after the time change, it gets dark so early, and the weather is usually so gray. Please don't take away my DST.
posted by theora55 at 10:41 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 10:41 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Kitteh: "Also, Saskatchewan is not a state."
FIFTY-FOUR FORTY OR FIGHT!
triggerfinger: "either doesn't change their clocks or has a city where one half is in one time zone and one is in the other?"
South Bend, Indiana, used to not change time, and I loooooooved it when I was in college there. I even loved that half of the year, you had half an hour of local news and then prime time TV, and the other half, you had an HOUR AND A HALF of local news and then prime time. South Bend is like 5 miles from the Michigan border, and there are little bitty residential suburbs that straddle the border. Like the college I went to, we had some professors who lived on the Michigan side and worked on the Indiana side, so THEIR time didn't change but suddenly their kids' bus came an hour later and their dry cleaner didn't open until after they were at work, etc. There are also a couple of farm-ish/McMansionish neighborhoods that straddle the border and kids down the block from each other who'd been friends since birth every fall were suddenly not just in different school districts but different time zones, living all of three houses apart.
Or maybe it was the other way around, I am balls at time change and time zone math.
But you have not experienced time change hell until you've gone through it with small children, as NOBODY INFORMED THEM and they can't read a fucking clock and they're like "Four a.m.? What a great time to be awake and alive!" and then they're like "it's 10 a.m. and I'm going to starve to death" or whatever.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:46 AM on November 2, 2015
FIFTY-FOUR FORTY OR FIGHT!
triggerfinger: "either doesn't change their clocks or has a city where one half is in one time zone and one is in the other?"
South Bend, Indiana, used to not change time, and I loooooooved it when I was in college there. I even loved that half of the year, you had half an hour of local news and then prime time TV, and the other half, you had an HOUR AND A HALF of local news and then prime time. South Bend is like 5 miles from the Michigan border, and there are little bitty residential suburbs that straddle the border. Like the college I went to, we had some professors who lived on the Michigan side and worked on the Indiana side, so THEIR time didn't change but suddenly their kids' bus came an hour later and their dry cleaner didn't open until after they were at work, etc. There are also a couple of farm-ish/McMansionish neighborhoods that straddle the border and kids down the block from each other who'd been friends since birth every fall were suddenly not just in different school districts but different time zones, living all of three houses apart.
Or maybe it was the other way around, I am balls at time change and time zone math.
But you have not experienced time change hell until you've gone through it with small children, as NOBODY INFORMED THEM and they can't read a fucking clock and they're like "Four a.m.? What a great time to be awake and alive!" and then they're like "it's 10 a.m. and I'm going to starve to death" or whatever.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:46 AM on November 2, 2015
Devonian: So we have the technology now to go back to the idea of local time zones, as local as you like, and you can shift them around (or not) to suit your local conditions and the general happiness of all you come into contact with physically in normal daily life.
VO: There are some things standard time can't solve . . .
Devonian: For everything else, there's Zulu. sm
VO: Don't leave [your] home[town] without it sm.
posted by Herodios at 10:50 AM on November 2, 2015
VO: There are some things standard time can't solve . . .
Devonian: For everything else, there's Zulu. sm
VO: Don't leave [your] home[town] without it sm.
posted by Herodios at 10:50 AM on November 2, 2015
I like the change in time and daylight for myself, other than the annoyance of getting the cats to adjust to their new feeding time. But I live with someone who has a medical condition for whom consistent schedules and good sleep hygiene are an essential part of self-care, and it sucks to have all his careful routine totally disrupted twice a year. I'd give back my bright morning for the calm of not having to worry about whether he's going to have a medical issue precipitated by an abrupt change in the sleep routine. Ugh.
posted by Stacey at 10:56 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Stacey at 10:56 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
what's important here is that we're on the same schedule, not so much what time you work and sleep relative to the sun. Right?
Yesssss. We must live to serve our masters.
posted by Miko at 11:01 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yesssss. We must live to serve our masters.
posted by Miko at 11:01 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
You can debate the merits of DST all you want, but you're ignoring that this is an absurd article written by a crazy person who not only might not actually have ever lived in either New York or Austin, but might not even be human.
I had been thinking the author was perhaps a grade-a moron for the reasons you outline, but hadn't considered the possibility that he or she might actually be a genius hamster or perhaps capybara. Thank you.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:11 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
I had been thinking the author was perhaps a grade-a moron for the reasons you outline, but hadn't considered the possibility that he or she might actually be a genius hamster or perhaps capybara. Thank you.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:11 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Timepieces. Another method of the wealthy in controlling the poor.
posted by notreally at 11:24 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by notreally at 11:24 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I have always thought DST should be the norm, and then during the summer we have SUPER DST, where the clocks get set forward ANOTHER hour.
Sure, it'll be dark at 9am, but who cares?!?!?! IT'LL BE LIGHT AT 11PM!!!!*
I may be exaggerating for effect here
posted by Lucinda at 11:28 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Sure, it'll be dark at 9am, but who cares?!?!?! IT'LL BE LIGHT AT 11PM!!!!*
I may be exaggerating for effect here
posted by Lucinda at 11:28 AM on November 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
>SuperDST
This happened in Britain during the second world war, where we abandoned UK time and moved to continental European time for the duration.
Also from that article - "In September 1999, three Arab Israeli terrorists were blown up by their own bomb after misunderstanding the timers set by West Bank Palestinians. The West Bank was on daylight saving time; Israel wasn't.".
And I've linked to this video before, but it is very entertaining - Tom Scott on the extreme mindfuckery of having to program computers to deal with timezones.
posted by Devonian at 11:36 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
This happened in Britain during the second world war, where we abandoned UK time and moved to continental European time for the duration.
Also from that article - "In September 1999, three Arab Israeli terrorists were blown up by their own bomb after misunderstanding the timers set by West Bank Palestinians. The West Bank was on daylight saving time; Israel wasn't.".
And I've linked to this video before, but it is very entertaining - Tom Scott on the extreme mindfuckery of having to program computers to deal with timezones.
posted by Devonian at 11:36 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
See, I actually appreciated the extra hour this morning. I've been getting more sluggish in the morning lately; my circadian rhythm is pretty tied into the light level in the morning, and it's been getting harder and harder to really wake up on time for the past few weeks; usually the alarm goes off and I end up lying in bed for nearly 45 minutes because it's still dark and I'm groggy. But this morning, I woke up about 40 minutes before the alarm, and I used the extra time to write, like I want to.
Get one of those alarm clocks that slowly lights up the room.
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:53 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Get one of those alarm clocks that slowly lights up the room.
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:53 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
We don't do that shit in AZ.
But we do have to remember to switch back and forth with the annoying math . . .
I have a new alarm clock that's programmed to automatically change the time based on the time zone, and it doesn't allow me to opt out of the change. So before going to sleep on Saturday, I had to calculate: if I'm going to bed at 11pm and want to get 8 hours of sleep, but the clock is going to lose an hour overnight, do I set my alarm for 7 or 8? In the process of setting my alarm, I must have also changed my time zone to Pacific. When my alarm sounded, the clock read 7am - but when I checked it against my phone - it was actually 9am! Grrrrr!
posted by kbar1 at 12:09 PM on November 2, 2015
But we do have to remember to switch back and forth with the annoying math . . .
I have a new alarm clock that's programmed to automatically change the time based on the time zone, and it doesn't allow me to opt out of the change. So before going to sleep on Saturday, I had to calculate: if I'm going to bed at 11pm and want to get 8 hours of sleep, but the clock is going to lose an hour overnight, do I set my alarm for 7 or 8? In the process of setting my alarm, I must have also changed my time zone to Pacific. When my alarm sounded, the clock read 7am - but when I checked it against my phone - it was actually 9am! Grrrrr!
posted by kbar1 at 12:09 PM on November 2, 2015
Ugh. This crap, again, every 6 months.
Yea, I get that some people like light in the morning and some like it in the afternoon. The problem is our time zones are just too goddamn wide.
The sensible solution is to end this nonsense and adopt fixed 30 minute utc offset time zones; effectively splitting the difference and making everyone equally unhappy year-round.
US/Eastern = UTC-0430, US/Pacific = UTC-0730, and so on.
And then maybe I'd get more than 4 minutes before sunset to exercise outside after work in the winter. Grar!
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 12:30 PM on November 2, 2015
Yea, I get that some people like light in the morning and some like it in the afternoon. The problem is our time zones are just too goddamn wide.
The sensible solution is to end this nonsense and adopt fixed 30 minute utc offset time zones; effectively splitting the difference and making everyone equally unhappy year-round.
US/Eastern = UTC-0430, US/Pacific = UTC-0730, and so on.
And then maybe I'd get more than 4 minutes before sunset to exercise outside after work in the winter. Grar!
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 12:30 PM on November 2, 2015
I thought I might join the anti-DST crowd once I had a toddler but nope, still fine with it.
It's not really automatic - some programmer somewhere sacrificed their sanity and immortal soul to make this happen.
Don't be silly, we all trade in our souls for our first text editor. We are all just empty husks now.
posted by phearlez at 12:35 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's not really automatic - some programmer somewhere sacrificed their sanity and immortal soul to make this happen.
Don't be silly, we all trade in our souls for our first text editor. We are all just empty husks now.
posted by phearlez at 12:35 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
What time is it on the sun?
it's BBQ time!
posted by pyramid termite at 12:45 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
it's BBQ time!
posted by pyramid termite at 12:45 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
It started getting darker in my office before 3:30. That shit ain't right.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:01 PM on November 2, 2015
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:01 PM on November 2, 2015
I am jealous of you people who get real daylight outside work hours in the winter, no matter how short. By mid-December where I live, sunrise is 8.45 and sunset is at 3.45. The sun is just a strange thing we sometimes glimpse sadly through office windows.
posted by Catseye at 1:28 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Catseye at 1:28 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
This article reminds me of a maxim someone recently related regarding playtest feedback in game design:
"When someone tells you something is wrong, they are almost always right. When they tell you how to fix it, they are almost always wrong."
I'd be quite happy to remain on DST all year... or would you rather hear about my very feasible plan to reset all clocks to noon at local solar noon every day?
posted by Appropriate Username at 1:28 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
"When someone tells you something is wrong, they are almost always right. When they tell you how to fix it, they are almost always wrong."
I'd be quite happy to remain on DST all year... or would you rather hear about my very feasible plan to reset all clocks to noon at local solar noon every day?
posted by Appropriate Username at 1:28 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Lucinda, please run for Supreme ruler, on the SuperDST platform.
posted by theora55 at 1:47 PM on November 2, 2015
posted by theora55 at 1:47 PM on November 2, 2015
So a few years back, the Chilean government decided to switch the dates when we change into and out of DST. Then, they decided to do away with DST altogether.
For some reason, this completely blew google and apple's minds.
They just can't figure it out. Every year, twice a year, for the last 6 years or so, for a few months each time, any google or apple device / service completely loses it's shit regarding times, and randomly changes your schedule, shows different times on two devices using the same account, etc.
It would be hilarious if it wasn't such a pain in the ass.
The only thing worse than the actual fuck-up is their official explanations, basically saying it's not their fault (even though this has been going on for years, you'd think they'd have figured it out), it's actually useful, because something about setting meetings in different time zones, which is a crock of shit as 99% of Chile uses a single time zone, and the other one is Easter Island and who sets a meeting in Easter Island?
It remains a mystery why 2 of the greatest tech companies of the age, who are making freaking self-driving cars and voice activated soft-AI interfaces, for fucks sake, are unable to figure out timezones.
posted by signal at 1:55 PM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
For some reason, this completely blew google and apple's minds.
They just can't figure it out. Every year, twice a year, for the last 6 years or so, for a few months each time, any google or apple device / service completely loses it's shit regarding times, and randomly changes your schedule, shows different times on two devices using the same account, etc.
It would be hilarious if it wasn't such a pain in the ass.
The only thing worse than the actual fuck-up is their official explanations, basically saying it's not their fault (even though this has been going on for years, you'd think they'd have figured it out), it's actually useful, because something about setting meetings in different time zones, which is a crock of shit as 99% of Chile uses a single time zone, and the other one is Easter Island and who sets a meeting in Easter Island?
It remains a mystery why 2 of the greatest tech companies of the age, who are making freaking self-driving cars and voice activated soft-AI interfaces, for fucks sake, are unable to figure out timezones.
posted by signal at 1:55 PM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Get one of those alarm clocks that slowly lights up the room.
Give me the $150 to do so and maybe I will.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:01 PM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Give me the $150 to do so and maybe I will.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:01 PM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yes, but the very important point here is that the author isn't advocating a single official time with local variation in scheduling, but that everyone keep the same business hours, etc. according to that official time.
Basically, she is arguing that everyone in California should get up in the middle of the night and go to bed in the afternoon to make things more convenient for stock traders on the West coast. Forget the lovely evenings and sunsets in California, we must become more efficient.
The heck with that stuff.
posted by JackFlash at 2:30 PM on November 2, 2015
Basically, she is arguing that everyone in California should get up in the middle of the night and go to bed in the afternoon to make things more convenient for stock traders on the West coast. Forget the lovely evenings and sunsets in California, we must become more efficient.
The heck with that stuff.
posted by JackFlash at 2:30 PM on November 2, 2015
LUCINDA '16 AND FOREVERMORE
posted by Navelgazer at 2:50 PM on November 2, 2015
posted by Navelgazer at 2:50 PM on November 2, 2015
Let's just compensate for the days getting shorter by making the workday shorter. Get to work @ 10, leave by 4. Capitalism will never permit that, so: Also, abolish capitalism.
posted by Eideteker at 2:55 PM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Eideteker at 2:55 PM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
I wonder what the correlation is between disdain for DST and latitude. It seems a lot of the haters are pretty far south.
The further one is from the equator the more drastic the shifts between summer and winter sunrises and sunsets. Nobody needs full sun at 4am, and most people appreciate the later summer evenings. DST just makes sense, and the downside is relatively trivial. Keep it.
posted by rocket88 at 3:06 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
The further one is from the equator the more drastic the shifts between summer and winter sunrises and sunsets. Nobody needs full sun at 4am, and most people appreciate the later summer evenings. DST just makes sense, and the downside is relatively trivial. Keep it.
posted by rocket88 at 3:06 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
The problem isn't Daylight Savings time, the problem is TIME. It's a great tool, for an illusionist, but it's a total fabrication. There's no reality to it, and there's no traveling it. Watches were great for keeping track of longitude, and for keeping you from working so long you qualified for over time pay ... but they're simply another chain to wear.
Get rid of it, and you've got eternity in your hands.
I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet... But your kids are gonna love it.
posted by Twang at 3:24 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Get rid of it, and you've got eternity in your hands.
I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet... But your kids are gonna love it.
posted by Twang at 3:24 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
It remains a mystery why 2 of the greatest tech companies of the age, who are making freaking self-driving cars and voice activated soft-AI interfaces, for fucks sake, are unable to figure out timezones.
Oh man, there's nearly 30 years of Internet discussion about timezones, because while on a broad level, sure, it seems easy enough, when you get into the weeds it's actually pretty complicated. In a shorter form that's not just an archive of a listserv, here's some guy talking about specific interesting bits of the database that tracks all of the time zones.
That said, I just upgraded to Windows 10, and I had the damndest time figuring out how to get it to update the time properly for the end of Daylight Savings for whatever reason, and that's entirely on the software.
posted by Copronymus at 3:29 PM on November 2, 2015
Oh man, there's nearly 30 years of Internet discussion about timezones, because while on a broad level, sure, it seems easy enough, when you get into the weeds it's actually pretty complicated. In a shorter form that's not just an archive of a listserv, here's some guy talking about specific interesting bits of the database that tracks all of the time zones.
That said, I just upgraded to Windows 10, and I had the damndest time figuring out how to get it to update the time properly for the end of Daylight Savings for whatever reason, and that's entirely on the software.
posted by Copronymus at 3:29 PM on November 2, 2015
here's some guy talking about specific interesting bits of the database that tracks all of the time zones.
Could you imagine trying to standardize time zones today?
Fox News: "Central Time Zone - Government stealing 28 minutes of your day or a commie plot?"
posted by Talez at 3:46 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Could you imagine trying to standardize time zones today?
Fox News: "Central Time Zone - Government stealing 28 minutes of your day or a commie plot?"
posted by Talez at 3:46 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Nevin: "I remember flying into Prince George once in June (PG is about the same latitude as Edmonton) and it was still faintly light out at 11pm. Amazing!"
That far north it never really gets dark at night; you get 90% of the way there and then things start brightening up again.
rocket88: "I wonder what the correlation is between disdain for DST and latitude. It seems a lot of the haters are pretty far south.
The further one is from the equator the more drastic the shifts between summer and winter sunrises and sunsets. Nobody needs full sun at 4am, and most people appreciate the later summer evenings. DST just makes sense, and the downside is relatively trivial. Keep it."
There is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle. The farther north you get the shorter the winter days get (and longer the summer days) so that messing with the noon point still means dark commutes in the winter and what seems like endless days in the summer. Night is less than 6 hours long in the summer. DST has barely any effect.
posted by Mitheral at 3:51 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
That far north it never really gets dark at night; you get 90% of the way there and then things start brightening up again.
rocket88: "I wonder what the correlation is between disdain for DST and latitude. It seems a lot of the haters are pretty far south.
The further one is from the equator the more drastic the shifts between summer and winter sunrises and sunsets. Nobody needs full sun at 4am, and most people appreciate the later summer evenings. DST just makes sense, and the downside is relatively trivial. Keep it."
There is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle. The farther north you get the shorter the winter days get (and longer the summer days) so that messing with the noon point still means dark commutes in the winter and what seems like endless days in the summer. Night is less than 6 hours long in the summer. DST has barely any effect.
posted by Mitheral at 3:51 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I love this time of year, and I love the hour change in the clocks for a few reasons:
1. An hour extra sleep when I wasn't expecting it. After the house quiets down, it's awesome to realize that you can spend a little extra time chilling without sacrificing sleep.
2. When you get the one above, it comes with the extra "light when you get up" cherry on top.
Few people don't like these. But also,
3. I like coming out of work at night and it's getting darker sooner. For me, it's kind of like mood lighting for a special event, or at least dimming the lights. It signals to me that familiar evening activities are coming up around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, and that some of it includes outside evening activities that require pretty lights and at least a cool breeze to appreciate fully.
Sometimes seemingly arbitrary patterns of life can be psychologically comforting. I'd be sad if we got rid of it.
posted by SpacemanStix at 4:07 PM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
1. An hour extra sleep when I wasn't expecting it. After the house quiets down, it's awesome to realize that you can spend a little extra time chilling without sacrificing sleep.
2. When you get the one above, it comes with the extra "light when you get up" cherry on top.
Few people don't like these. But also,
3. I like coming out of work at night and it's getting darker sooner. For me, it's kind of like mood lighting for a special event, or at least dimming the lights. It signals to me that familiar evening activities are coming up around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, and that some of it includes outside evening activities that require pretty lights and at least a cool breeze to appreciate fully.
Sometimes seemingly arbitrary patterns of life can be psychologically comforting. I'd be sad if we got rid of it.
posted by SpacemanStix at 4:07 PM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Is this where we complain about DST and how stupid and arbitrary it can be? Good, I have some venting to do.
So I work at a television station. We use a GPS clock to provide time sync for all of our video devices (which, more and more, are basically just really dumbed down computers running proprietary OS) and computers and servers. It connects to my network and provides internal NTP (Network Time Protocol) as well as a bunch of legacy stuff for high-end (i.e. "professional") video systems. So anyway, this GPS clock is a high-end (again, i.e. "professional") device that costs a lot of money. It is designed to be used anywhere in the world. This means that you can turn "off" the DST feature if you are using it in a place that does not have DST. But it also means that because DST programming is really hard (thank, Devonian, was looking for that today), instead of being able to just set your DST settings from, say, a central server or service, you have to MANUALLY program how DST will function. You would think, oh, well, that should be easy, you know, just select the day and be done with it. Oh no, you have to figure out the following and enter each thing: a) hour of the day it occurs, b) day of the week, c) week of the month. For whatever reason (I'm guessing because it was programmed for the last Sunday of October, instead of the first Sunday of November), the clocks that rely on this thing all went screwy. Thankfully, the NTP signal it puts out just pushes GMT, and the computers and servers each handle how to do DST based on their particular OS's implementation of calculating and displaying DST. But STILL.
Oh, and some of these "professional" devices, while they do recognize DST, actually require you to MANUALLY turn is on and off, even though they are full computing devices (of course, running a proprietary OS. Which is probably why they don't do it the way other systems do, since paying a programmer to lose their sanity is not a smart business decision).
/end rant.
posted by daq at 4:22 PM on November 2, 2015
So I work at a television station. We use a GPS clock to provide time sync for all of our video devices (which, more and more, are basically just really dumbed down computers running proprietary OS) and computers and servers. It connects to my network and provides internal NTP (Network Time Protocol) as well as a bunch of legacy stuff for high-end (i.e. "professional") video systems. So anyway, this GPS clock is a high-end (again, i.e. "professional") device that costs a lot of money. It is designed to be used anywhere in the world. This means that you can turn "off" the DST feature if you are using it in a place that does not have DST. But it also means that because DST programming is really hard (thank, Devonian, was looking for that today), instead of being able to just set your DST settings from, say, a central server or service, you have to MANUALLY program how DST will function. You would think, oh, well, that should be easy, you know, just select the day and be done with it. Oh no, you have to figure out the following and enter each thing: a) hour of the day it occurs, b) day of the week, c) week of the month. For whatever reason (I'm guessing because it was programmed for the last Sunday of October, instead of the first Sunday of November), the clocks that rely on this thing all went screwy. Thankfully, the NTP signal it puts out just pushes GMT, and the computers and servers each handle how to do DST based on their particular OS's implementation of calculating and displaying DST. But STILL.
Oh, and some of these "professional" devices, while they do recognize DST, actually require you to MANUALLY turn is on and off, even though they are full computing devices (of course, running a proprietary OS. Which is probably why they don't do it the way other systems do, since paying a programmer to lose their sanity is not a smart business decision).
/end rant.
posted by daq at 4:22 PM on November 2, 2015
EST Americans, there's this MoveOn thing. If you do it, eastish Canadians will probably just fall in line. BCers over here. Petitions for everyone! Or really just ones for people from the two places that I found in a ten-second Google.
posted by cotton dress sock at 4:47 PM on November 2, 2015
posted by cotton dress sock at 4:47 PM on November 2, 2015
I mean, I hear you East Coasters, but I will say that for the first time in my life, I am fucking THRILLED about the time change. Being on the western-most edge of the Eastern Time zone, it was straight up dark until 8:30 am on Saturday. i.e. the sun rose during the morning commute.
But, then again, moving Louisville into the eastern timezone is probably the best thing that GE has ever done.
posted by likeatoaster at 5:18 PM on November 2, 2015
But, then again, moving Louisville into the eastern timezone is probably the best thing that GE has ever done.
posted by likeatoaster at 5:18 PM on November 2, 2015
I realized today I have to run my ancient car clock through the entire timeverse, and if I am not careful, I'll have to do it twice. Busting out my trusty, bent paperclip and poking it in the little time hole just right, damn, well one more time. I actually wake up when both cats walk on me, demanding breakfast, not just one cat, that is just the warning alarm. Circuscadian rhythms run my life.
posted by Oyéah at 5:19 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 5:19 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have two ancient cars, both with equally ancient aftermarket radios, and I'm just happy if the minutes are right.
What time is it? 24.
posted by box at 5:24 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
What time is it? 24.
posted by box at 5:24 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Uh, the Nazis invented Daylight Savings Time in anticipation of a "world order"....It just didn't become "popular" in the '70s, as the article asserts... Have a look at a Mercedes logo, Hitler's favored parade vehicle.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 6:15 PM on November 2, 2015
posted by lazycomputerkids at 6:15 PM on November 2, 2015
Can I just get it off my chest that understanding anything about time beyond "go west, time is earlier! go east, time is later!" completely breaks my brain and makes about as much sense to me as quantum physics? Literally the very furthest extent of my understanding about Daylight Saving is something something spring forward.
posted by threeants at 6:17 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by threeants at 6:17 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's not for lack of trying. Every time someone has ever tried to describe it to me my brain shrivels up in alarm! It just amazes me that something so thoroughly abstract and inscrutable is a Regular Ole Topic that pretty much everyone in the general public can talk about as knowledgeably as they can breakfast items or sports teams.
posted by threeants at 6:22 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by threeants at 6:22 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I never know what kind of "forward" we're talking about in the spring. Because I know I have to get up earlier at some point. Getting up earlier in the day is going backwards. (If we didn't just "fall back" I'd have to take your word that it happens in spring, I can never remember which happens when. Because of this exact confusion.) Just having fallen "back", I know I now get to rise later. Which is going forward, according to me.
I doubt my understanding would improve even if I caught up on sleep debt.
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:55 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I doubt my understanding would improve even if I caught up on sleep debt.
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:55 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
This interactive daylight saving time daylight estimator is kind of cool.
posted by sneebler at 6:58 PM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by sneebler at 6:58 PM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
spring (clock hands) ahead, fall (clock hands) back.
posted by Nevin at 7:11 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Nevin at 7:11 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
That far north it never really gets dark at night; you get 90% of the way there and then things start brightening up again.
Yeah, PG is barely north. It's just the middle of the province. When I traveled to Terrace on work trips I thought I was way out there, but it's just at the very bottom of the panhandle. And most of central Europe and Scandanavia is further north than PG... Even Glasgow is further north, I think...
posted by Nevin at 7:13 PM on November 2, 2015
Yeah, PG is barely north. It's just the middle of the province. When I traveled to Terrace on work trips I thought I was way out there, but it's just at the very bottom of the panhandle. And most of central Europe and Scandanavia is further north than PG... Even Glasgow is further north, I think...
posted by Nevin at 7:13 PM on November 2, 2015
One really beneficial thing about Saskatchewan is not having to change my clocks.
I'd be smug, but the -40 winters really suck the smug right out of you.
posted by jrochest at 7:17 PM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'd be smug, but the -40 winters really suck the smug right out of you.
posted by jrochest at 7:17 PM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
spring (clock hands) ahead, fall (clock hands) back.
Thanks, Nevin. I hear that and I know it's supposed to make sense, and it does when I'm actually looking at a clock, otherwise it's still a big ⁉️!. (That's far from my only time-related confusion, though. Thanks for trying!)
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:19 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Thanks, Nevin. I hear that and I know it's supposed to make sense, and it does when I'm actually looking at a clock, otherwise it's still a big ⁉️!. (That's far from my only time-related confusion, though. Thanks for trying!)
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:19 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
so like...the springing forward means the time is later? but the before or after time? seriously I am too dumb for this
posted by threeants at 8:11 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by threeants at 8:11 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think it's the opposite of what feels right :/
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:17 PM on November 2, 2015
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:17 PM on November 2, 2015
At the position the sun is at 5pm now, last week it would have been 6pm.
So before it was dark at 7am, and now it's light at 7am. I think.
The time confusion I have is, if I'm on a flight that I experience as 7 hours, but I'm flying 5 time zones east, what time is it? I feel like relativity something something.
posted by Night_owl at 8:23 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
So before it was dark at 7am, and now it's light at 7am. I think.
The time confusion I have is, if I'm on a flight that I experience as 7 hours, but I'm flying 5 time zones east, what time is it? I feel like relativity something something.
posted by Night_owl at 8:23 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
According to sneebler's link, I get 240 more hours of daylight because of DST. I'm sold.
posted by desjardins at 8:29 PM on November 2, 2015
posted by desjardins at 8:29 PM on November 2, 2015
Spring higher and fall lower.
That's a better mnemonic because it removes the ambiguity about whether it's talking about time in general (where "higher" and "lower" don't make sense) and the numbers of the clock (where it does) and, more importantly for me, it avoids the ambiguity about remembering the mnemonic in the first place, as "spring forward" never helped me much because people "spring back" and "fall forward" are just as possible. But you can't "spring lower" or "fall higher".
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:50 PM on November 2, 2015
That's a better mnemonic because it removes the ambiguity about whether it's talking about time in general (where "higher" and "lower" don't make sense) and the numbers of the clock (where it does) and, more importantly for me, it avoids the ambiguity about remembering the mnemonic in the first place, as "spring forward" never helped me much because people "spring back" and "fall forward" are just as possible. But you can't "spring lower" or "fall higher".
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:50 PM on November 2, 2015
Sorry. It does make sense now, Nevin. Thank you! Embarrassed that at my age, I need to be reminded that I'm not at the actual centre of the universe. On preview, Ivan Fyodorovich, I am not sure I'm keen on loosening my feeble grip on what I just understood to accept this new spatio-temporal orientation. Or it may be another case of delayed understanding. Thanks to you too, though, will see how it works!
Why can we not just stick to brass tacks and go "In November, you [cotton dress sock] can wake up later"
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:56 PM on November 2, 2015
Why can we not just stick to brass tacks and go "In November, you [cotton dress sock] can wake up later"
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:56 PM on November 2, 2015
Why can we not just stick to brass tacks and go "In November, you [cotton dress sock] can wake up later"
I think if you fall back on this understanding, right back into bed to get more sleep, you can't go wrong!
What always confuses me is what "getting more sleep" or "getting more sunlight" means in relation to the clock. For some reason, those pieces don't go together very well in my head, and starting with a metric for understanding what I do to the clock in the evening before I go to bed makes it clear to me right away. If I "fall back" the clock, I can immediately tell that I'm gaining an hour that I can use for more sleep, whatever. If I "spring ahead" one hour in the spring, it's an immediate acknowledgement of suffering through on one less hour of sleep, as morning will now come more quickly. Still, though, I have to do some calculus in my head to tell what that means in relation to actual daylight. I think I only get it right by being alive a number of years and remembering that fall brings earlier darkness with it, and more daylight in the morning, in some sort of an inverse relationship I can't immediately grok from the clock adjustment.
I can only get a handle on this stuff conceptually by playing some sort of mind game, and some seem to work better than others. I wonder if it's because we are trying to balance withdrawals and deposits at the same time (so to speak). We are trying to figure out what we get or lose for daylight/sleep/whatever based on the generally opposite application to the time (e.g., I take away time to gain daylight? What?). Figuring out timezone changes in general usually requires some other sort of mind trick, too. I can't usually remember off hand if my family in the midwest goes to bed earlier or later than I do.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:28 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think if you fall back on this understanding, right back into bed to get more sleep, you can't go wrong!
What always confuses me is what "getting more sleep" or "getting more sunlight" means in relation to the clock. For some reason, those pieces don't go together very well in my head, and starting with a metric for understanding what I do to the clock in the evening before I go to bed makes it clear to me right away. If I "fall back" the clock, I can immediately tell that I'm gaining an hour that I can use for more sleep, whatever. If I "spring ahead" one hour in the spring, it's an immediate acknowledgement of suffering through on one less hour of sleep, as morning will now come more quickly. Still, though, I have to do some calculus in my head to tell what that means in relation to actual daylight. I think I only get it right by being alive a number of years and remembering that fall brings earlier darkness with it, and more daylight in the morning, in some sort of an inverse relationship I can't immediately grok from the clock adjustment.
I can only get a handle on this stuff conceptually by playing some sort of mind game, and some seem to work better than others. I wonder if it's because we are trying to balance withdrawals and deposits at the same time (so to speak). We are trying to figure out what we get or lose for daylight/sleep/whatever based on the generally opposite application to the time (e.g., I take away time to gain daylight? What?). Figuring out timezone changes in general usually requires some other sort of mind trick, too. I can't usually remember off hand if my family in the midwest goes to bed earlier or later than I do.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:28 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
By mid-December where I live, sunrise is 8.45 and sunset is at 3.45.
This was my least favorite part of living in England. My most favorite part was traveling to Scotland in June and checking into a B&B around 10PM. There was a skylight over my bed and the sky was a soft gray twilight - enough light to see everything in the room. Around 3AM when I woke up, it was the same twilight and very comforting, like a nightlight.
posted by bendy at 9:34 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
This was my least favorite part of living in England. My most favorite part was traveling to Scotland in June and checking into a B&B around 10PM. There was a skylight over my bed and the sky was a soft gray twilight - enough light to see everything in the room. Around 3AM when I woke up, it was the same twilight and very comforting, like a nightlight.
posted by bendy at 9:34 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
The very best thing about DST is that it gives you so much extra time in bed. In autumn, it's just there. In spring, when the clocks change, you take an extra hour sack time, get into work two hours late, and say "Oh, sorry, I got the clock change wrong.".
Win, and also - win.
posted by Devonian at 1:18 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Win, and also - win.
posted by Devonian at 1:18 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
You all realize that the days get longer and shorter all on their own without moving the clocks around, right? Keeping DST isn't going to make it stay light out at 9:00 p.m. in the middle of winter no matter how much you want it.
Unless we change to a new flexible system of time where sunset comes at 9:00 p.m. and sunrise comes at 6:00 a.m. every day all year round. (Mind you, there may be some minor practical issues that need to be worked out with this system.)
posted by fairmettle at 2:35 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
Unless we change to a new flexible system of time where sunset comes at 9:00 p.m. and sunrise comes at 6:00 a.m. every day all year round. (Mind you, there may be some minor practical issues that need to be worked out with this system.)
posted by fairmettle at 2:35 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
there may be some minor practical issues that need to be worked out with this system
But I assure you, it's totally feasible!
posted by Miko at 5:35 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
But I assure you, it's totally feasible!
posted by Miko at 5:35 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've occasionally run into talk about this in science fiction, where you have planets with a totally non 24-hour cycle complaining about having to decide whether to make up local solar rotation time with time zones, pick an Earth time zone and just stick with it, or whatever.
posted by Karmakaze at 5:58 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Karmakaze at 5:58 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Clearly what we need is Metric Time. Long live the hundred hour day!
posted by notyou at 6:30 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by notyou at 6:30 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
The very best thing about DST is that it gives you so much extra time in bed.
We allowed Fleebnork Jr. (4) to stay up until he fell asleep on the couch, exhausted from Halloween.
He rewarded us by rising at 4:45am.
posted by Fleebnork at 7:11 AM on November 3, 2015
We allowed Fleebnork Jr. (4) to stay up until he fell asleep on the couch, exhausted from Halloween.
He rewarded us by rising at 4:45am.
posted by Fleebnork at 7:11 AM on November 3, 2015
Clearly what we need is Metric Time. Long live the hundred hour day!
Maybe I'm finally starting to lose it, but this actually sounds like a pretty good idea. One hundredth of a day is 14.4 minutes, which works out pretty handily as a quantum for scheduling human-scale activities. The next increment down would be 1.44 minutes - you could call those "minutes" and language like "a couple of minutes" still makes sense. Maybe 10 decimal hours in a day would work better. Having just ten 144 min hours in a day feels a little odd at first, but would be pretty convenient for a lot of things - e.g. most movies would fit well in one 144 min block, with extra time for an intermission/ commercials.
posted by Dr Dracator at 7:30 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Maybe I'm finally starting to lose it, but this actually sounds like a pretty good idea. One hundredth of a day is 14.4 minutes, which works out pretty handily as a quantum for scheduling human-scale activities. The next increment down would be 1.44 minutes - you could call those "minutes" and language like "a couple of minutes" still makes sense. Maybe 10 decimal hours in a day would work better. Having just ten 144 min hours in a day feels a little odd at first, but would be pretty convenient for a lot of things - e.g. most movies would fit well in one 144 min block, with extra time for an intermission/ commercials.
posted by Dr Dracator at 7:30 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Going to change the length of a second? If it doesn't change you have some weird ass number of seconds per new minute. If it does change you have to change half the constants in science and engineering. Mannie contemplated the last:
posted by Mitheral at 8:38 AM on November 3, 2015
What was urged was to make a lunar exactly equal to twenty-eight days (instead of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.78 seconds) and do this by making days longer—and hours, minutes, and seconds, thus making each semi-lunar exactly two weeks.
Sure, lunar is necessary for many purposes. Controls when we go up on surface, why we go, and how long we stay. But, aside from throwing us out of gear with our only neighbor, had that wordy vacuum skull thought what this would do to every critical figure in science and engineering? As an electronics man I shuddered. Throw away every book, table, instrument, and start over? I know that some of my ancestors did that in switching from old English units to MKS—but they did it to make things easier. Fourteen inches to a foot and some odd number of feet to a mile. Ounces and pounds. Oh, Bog!
Made sense to change that—but why go out of your way to create confusion?
posted by Mitheral at 8:38 AM on November 3, 2015
To all the muppets who want DST because it stays light for longer in the summer evenings
You are WRONG! or at least SEVERELY MISTAKEN
DST means that the clocks shift one hour between November to March.
It does not affect your summers at all! That's "normal" time zone stuff.
There, I said it. (while grinding her teeth)
posted by moiraine at 8:41 AM on November 3, 2015
You are WRONG! or at least SEVERELY MISTAKEN
DST means that the clocks shift one hour between November to March.
It does not affect your summers at all! That's "normal" time zone stuff.
There, I said it. (while grinding her teeth)
posted by moiraine at 8:41 AM on November 3, 2015
Isn't it the opposite? The time that we're on in summer is Daylight Saving. The time in winter is Standard Time.
posted by jaguar at 8:44 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by jaguar at 8:44 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
jaguar's got it right. Standard time (though that sobriquet is debatable since we're on standard time for less than half the year) is November through March in the US/Canada. DST starts in March and runs through the summer, so it's time in the summer that is nominally adjusted.
posted by andrewesque at 8:47 AM on November 3, 2015
posted by andrewesque at 8:47 AM on November 3, 2015
You all realize that the days get longer and shorter all on their own without moving the clocks around, right?
I get annoyed when people trot this line of argument out. Look, I'm not an idiot and I know that days are shorter in the winter and longer in the summer. But the point is, we don't live our lives according to the sun in an industrialized society, we live our lives according to the clock. Thus there's an actual difference if the sun sets at 8 PM or 9 PM: the first means 2 hours that I can go running in the park after work, the second means 3 (to take a personal and admittedly relatively trivial example).
Those of us who support DST (and I count myself among them, though I understand the arguments among them) are not stupid.
posted by andrewesque at 8:51 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
I get annoyed when people trot this line of argument out. Look, I'm not an idiot and I know that days are shorter in the winter and longer in the summer. But the point is, we don't live our lives according to the sun in an industrialized society, we live our lives according to the clock. Thus there's an actual difference if the sun sets at 8 PM or 9 PM: the first means 2 hours that I can go running in the park after work, the second means 3 (to take a personal and admittedly relatively trivial example).
Those of us who support DST (and I count myself among them, though I understand the arguments among them) are not stupid.
posted by andrewesque at 8:51 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
I understand the arguments against DST*, I meant to say
posted by andrewesque at 9:09 AM on November 3, 2015
posted by andrewesque at 9:09 AM on November 3, 2015
Going to change the length of a second? If it doesn't change you have some weird ass number of seconds per new minute. If it does change you have to change half the constants in science and engineering.
not to mention, actually important stuff
posted by philip-random at 9:24 AM on November 3, 2015
not to mention, actually important stuff
posted by philip-random at 9:24 AM on November 3, 2015
But the point is, we don't live our lives according to the sun in an industrialized society, we live our lives according to the clock.
and more specifically, we live it according to societal general behavior (store opens at 10a, closes at 5p or 9p) that is implemented by people who aren't going to change it with the season. They are going. to close. at 9p. Period.
Shifting where in the sun's path 9p occurs is the only way to adapt this.
Now, whether this is a valid thing for society to address you can feel free to argue. I'm not going to die on any hills for this. But clearly businesses aren't going to adapt their operating hours absent it happening in one fell swoop so saying individuals without notable personal liberty can just implement their own changes is silly.
posted by phearlez at 9:44 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
and more specifically, we live it according to societal general behavior (store opens at 10a, closes at 5p or 9p) that is implemented by people who aren't going to change it with the season. They are going. to close. at 9p. Period.
Shifting where in the sun's path 9p occurs is the only way to adapt this.
Now, whether this is a valid thing for society to address you can feel free to argue. I'm not going to die on any hills for this. But clearly businesses aren't going to adapt their operating hours absent it happening in one fell swoop so saying individuals without notable personal liberty can just implement their own changes is silly.
posted by phearlez at 9:44 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Let's just compensate for the days getting shorter by making the workday shorter.
I was in favor of this idea until I figured out the summer part of that argument.
posted by MtDewd at 5:31 PM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
I was in favor of this idea until I figured out the summer part of that argument.
posted by MtDewd at 5:31 PM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Clearly, the best solution is for everyone to live in the Northern Hemisphere from (approximately) April to September, and in the Southern Hemisphere from October to March.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:08 PM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:08 PM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Because for many people, that will only work if schools, daycares, and many other places also all change their work/open hours, at which point it becomes easier if it's a standardized thing.
posted by jaguar at 9:23 PM on November 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by jaguar at 9:23 PM on November 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
that will only work if schools, daycares, and many other places also all change their work/open hours
So true; also, mass transit schedules that offer more frequent service during high-traffic hours, grocery stores, delivery services, medical facilities, professional sports schedules, etc. That would not only demand planning, management and execution, but also updates to all printed/circulated/online notices of hours and schedules. The increased labor involved would be immense. In the end, changing the time in a universal, single, overnight gesture that is mostly automated these days turns out to be truly the simplest way to accomplish the same thing.
posted by Miko at 5:36 AM on November 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
So true; also, mass transit schedules that offer more frequent service during high-traffic hours, grocery stores, delivery services, medical facilities, professional sports schedules, etc. That would not only demand planning, management and execution, but also updates to all printed/circulated/online notices of hours and schedules. The increased labor involved would be immense. In the end, changing the time in a universal, single, overnight gesture that is mostly automated these days turns out to be truly the simplest way to accomplish the same thing.
posted by Miko at 5:36 AM on November 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
But clearly businesses aren't going to adapt their operating hours absent it happening in one fell swoop so saying individuals without notable personal liberty can just implement their own changes is silly.
When you say "businesses" are you referring to those old-timey real world bricks and mortars businesses? My grandpappy told me about those, and from what he said they must've really been something to see!
posted by fairmettle at 6:15 AM on November 4, 2015
When you say "businesses" are you referring to those old-timey real world bricks and mortars businesses? My grandpappy told me about those, and from what he said they must've really been something to see!
posted by fairmettle at 6:15 AM on November 4, 2015
Yes, they went away when we started putting our children in virtual daycares and teleporting to conferences with robot-operated teleportation machines!
posted by jaguar at 7:00 AM on November 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by jaguar at 7:00 AM on November 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
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Also, Saskatchewan is not a state.
posted by Kitteh at 6:57 AM on November 2, 2015 [14 favorites]