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Alternatives to Daylight Saving Time?
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Oct 23, 2008 03:21 PM
from the even-ben-franklin-made-some-whoppers dept.
from the even-ben-franklin-made-some-whoppers dept.
Wellington Grey writes "Daylight saving time almost upon us. The arguments about its possible benefits and drawbacks come up twice every year. Does it save energy or lives? Possibly, but it does definitely cause a great deal of inconvenience. My question is this: what do you think would be the best possible system to replace DST with? What is the best way for humans to deal with the inconsistent amount of light over the year and still foster coordination over disparate time zones?"
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Hardware: Daylight Savings Time Increases Energy Use In Indiana 388 comments
enbody writes "The Freakonomics Blog at NYTimes.com reports on a study of Indiana energy use for daylight savings time showing an increase in energy use of 1%. 'The dataset consists of more than 7 million observations on monthly billing data for the vast majority of households in southern Indiana for three years. Our main finding is that — contrary to the policy's intent — D.S.T. increases residential electricity demand.'" Maybe that's just from millions of coffee makers being pressed into extra duty.
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Move to Arizona (Score:5, Funny)
We don't do DST in John McCain country.*
*Unless you're an Indian, in which case you might.
Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Insightful)
I grew up in AZ - moved to a state that does daylight savings a couple years ago. I hate it. I never felt any lack for not having it or thought, "Gee, I wished we messed with the clocks twice a year."
We should replace it with nothing. Just eliminate it. It would simplify life at no cost.
Parent
Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, once the government has adopted something you can't get rid of it. You can change it for better or worse (usually worse) but it is there for ever.
Parent
Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, once the government has adopted something you can't get rid of it. You can change it for better or worse (usually worse) but it is there for ever.
Like Prohibition?
Parent
Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Funny)
You can change it for better or worse...
Random Daylight Savings Time!
Are you late? Are you early?
You'll never know unless you consult the weekly publication:
"RDST: How Government Controls Daylight, and Why You Must Obey"
Parent
Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, once the government has adopted something you can't get rid of it. You can change it for better or worse (usually worse) but it is there for ever.
In that case, since they keep extending the DST anyway (it's ~7 months now), why not extend it to year round.
Maybe we'll keep Feb 29 on "standard time" because we can't "get rid of it"
Parent
Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>What is the best way for humans to deal with the inconsistent amount of light over the year
The electric lightbulb. Specifically a 5 watt compact fluorescent. It's amazing how I can pretend it's daytime even when it's 4 a.m. in the morning. A marvelous invention, and I no longer care if the sun is up or not, and DST is irrelevant.
Parent
Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Interesting)
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Currently living in Arizona (Score:5, Insightful)
Moved here from Michigan 5 years ago. I don't miss DST at all. I just know that when I wake up at 5am, during the spring/summer, it's nearly broad daylight and in the colder months it's pitch black out. Right now, it's pitch black at 5am, at 5:30, I see some sunlight, by the time I get in my car at 6-615:am, it's daylight.
Right now, I see the idiodicy of DST. You don't actually get more daylight, we just fool you into thinking you do.
Parent
Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Insightful)
A comment indicitive of someone who lives relatively close to the equator. For those of us who see a 6-12 hour difference in the number of daylight hours it can make a real difference.
Parent
Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Funny)
I never felt any lack for not having it or thought, "Gee, I wished we messed with the clocks twice a year."
That's because the one thing you absolutely don't need to conserve in the sun-baked 115 degree desert of southern Arizona is..... daylight.
Parent
Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Interesting)
Just everyone use GMT (UTC) and get used to it. What is the point of timezones anyway? Oh, you like that it's 12 in the middle of the day and in the middle of the night. So what. Get over it. It's going to happen eventually anyway.
Parent
Re:Move to Arizona (Score:5, Interesting)
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May be ... (Score:5, Funny)
Internet Required (Score:5, Interesting)
"9-5" business hours is a convention because there's no easy way to do anything different in a pre-wired world.
Now that we have or are about to have ubiquitous Internet everywhere, companies should publish smbmeta [trellixtech.com] files at domainname.foo/smbmeta.xml with their hours in it, and have every useful directory service (Google Local, Yellowpages.com, that iPhone thing, etc.) understand a linkage between a domain name and store (oh, and the phone thing too, which can usually be used as the 'foreign key'). Good VOIP phones could easily do the same. The cost is practically nil for everybody and we get past the need for conventions.
Of course there are clustering reasons to coordinate business hours on a geographical basis, but individual businesses can make those decisions and either profit or lose business by them.
Re:Internet Required (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm afraid I must disagree. 9-5 business hours are becoming even more important in a connected world because of our desire/need for immediate responses.
Businesses must be open during similar hours so that we may respond to each others requests. For instance, call cenders in India are open and running at night for them in order to service our requests from the states..
I am not interested in dispatching an email and expecting a response. People talk to one another still and always will. 9-5 business hours are here to stay and will only get more important.
Parent
Re:Internet Required (Score:5, Insightful)
The worldwide inter-connectedness of business is a strong argument AGAINST the 9-5 schedule. What good is standardizing on "9-5" when your customer on the west coast and your partners in India, Japan, and England all have their own, different 9-5?
Who the hell even picked 9 and 5, and what makes those particular numbers so special that everyone has to change our entire time system twice a year to make sure those are always work hours?
If every business adopted a very simple "go to work when you have to and leave when you have to" policy, we wouldn't care what the damn clock said, and would need neither time zones nor daylight saving time.
Parent
Re:Internet Required (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they picked 9-5 As Sunrise as 8:00 is the latest time (without DST adjustment) the sun comes up the North Part of the United States. Allowing people of pre-alarm clock days to wake up when the sun rises. Enough time to prepare for work and get there an hour later. As for the 5 it is 8 hours later. Probably 8 hours as it can easily split up your day. 8 hours for sleeping, 8 hours for work, 8 hours of your own time... A healthy balance approach. As Well it can be split into 2 4 hour increments falling in the middle at noon for Lunch, and using the AM/PM to really help divide the day. As well 5:00 is when the sun sets on the shortest days of the year. So in general allowing lighted working conditions during your work day.
Parent
Re:Internet Required (Score:5, Funny)
Heh. I thought cloud computing was a stupid idea when it was still called Web 2.0.
Yes, that is the geek version of "I already listened to $BAND_NAME when they were still underground".
Parent
This is not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The effect it does have is actually increasing energy usage as people crank on the AC when they get home earlier in the daylight of afternoon and it's hotter. And AC is vastly more expensive to operate than a bulb.
Parent
Re:This is not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly this. If it's too dark when you get up or when you want to open your business, don't change the clock, change the time you get up or open your business.
If that's too hard, lets have DST year round. Standard time is only in effect for a couple months anyway. Keeping DST through the winter would keep it light when most people get off work, which is when it actually matters anyway. I know I'd rather get up in the dark, and have an hour of daylight after work to play with, rather than getting up at dawn and wasting that hour getting ready for work.
Parent
Re:This is not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
It was implemented before mankind had the ability to control light.
Be that as it may, I'm one to prefer natural light over artificial light, and it is simply not an option to change my schedule. The way I see it, DST year-round is much better. It really comes down to personal preference, though, which makes it really hard for any democratic-ish countries to change it.
Parent
Get rid of it (Score:5, Insightful)
See subject. Then make everyone talk in UTC. That should do it.
Re:Get rid of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost. Everybody should be using 24 hour time as well. ie, it's now 20:40.
Parent
Forget about it (Score:5, Interesting)
Russia has a dozen time zones and fares just fine - as does China, with only one. This business of claiming that 'light' is a problem needing a solution is the only issue here...
Re:Forget about it (Score:5, Funny)
We should build a shell around the earth covered in solar cells on the outside and florescent bulbs on the inside. This way we could make it the same time for everyone all the time on earth, and we'd all be equal all the time and live in perfect harmony until the dim green flickering light, the neverending ballast hum, and the sweet smell of air-conditioner mold drives us all stark-raving mad.
Parent
DST is ending (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, DST is coming to an end. The summer is when the hours are artificially moved ahead. The winter time is the actual "accurate" earth time.
How about this? (Score:5, Funny)
What is the best way for humans to deal with the inconsistent amount of light over the year and still foster coordination over disparate time zones?
Turn on a lamp.
Not Necessarily (Score:5, Funny)
That depends on the lights. If I stand under my roomful of 1000 watt grow lights that I use to grow my...um tomatoes...that light is actually quite good for you.
Parent
Standard Time is Upon us! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, we are in Daylight Savings Time right now. We are getting ready to go back to Standard Time.
Wrong! (Score:5, Funny)
The issue with DST is not that it's inconvenient, it's that it's insufficiently precise! We should be changing the time every day (at least!) to make sure our time is as accurate as possible to the length of the day. Every day, 12 noon should be when the Sun is directly overhead, no matter where you are.
Sure, this means changing time zones almost continuously while travelling, and at least daily while remaining stationary, but at least we won't have to deal with the confusion that comes from discovering that the Sun is directly overhead at 12:00:34 instead of 12 noon sharp! How can we call ourselves intelligent beings when our time system is so woefully inaccurate most of the time?
So, scrap daylight savings time and replace it with a system of several thousand time zones, each updated daily based on the predicted "high noon" for that particular day at that particular location. If the prediction ends up being off by a few microseconds on a particular day, just change the time to correct it right then and there! Sure, wristwatches will become orders of magnitude more complex, but it's the only way to have a truly sane and accurate system of time measurement. And after all, isn't that what we all really want here?
Yeah! (Score:5, Funny)
That sounds like a great idea. Let's get together and start planning the transition, tomorrow at noon.
Parent
No it isn't (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's my favorite anti-daylight savings time page:
End Day Light Savings Time [standardtime.com]
I don't like Daylight Saving Time, or as I call it "Pretend it's an hour later than it is," and will be glad when the clock in my car doesn't make me do addition to remember what time it is (I refuse to adjust it for this nonsense.) This silly dance we do every year twice.
My alarm clock is a self-adjusting atomic model (not internally of course, it readjusts itself via radio signal from the U.S. Atomic Clock in Colorado).
DTS already replaced... (Score:5, Funny)
what do you think would be the best possible system to replace DTS with?
I think DTS disappeared with the release of SQL Server 2005. I'm pretty sure it's all .NET code now...
Nuke it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Daylight Savings Time has enormous costs and very little value in return.
We should get read of it and say, "Good riddance..."
If there are issues with available daylight in a particular area, then the times of events should be adjusted accordingly. If it is to dark at 7 AM for kids to go out in order to reach school at 8 AM, then push back the start time of school, etc., to 9 AM.
In reality, this is what Daylight Savings Time does, but at much greater cost.
DST (Score:5, Interesting)
Just use Standard Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Daylight Saving Time really only works (if it works at all) for a narrow range of latitudes.
Too far south and the sun sets at the same time all year anyway. Too far north and the sun sets ridiculously late in the summer, and sets very early in the winter. Few of our southern hemisphere friends live far enough south for this to be an issue. Anybody here from Ushuaia?
Even here, in southern Canada (49 degrees north), the sun sets at 1600 in the winter. If we didn't mess with time zones the sun would set at 2000 in the summer, and it isn't really dark until nearly 2200. How much later do you want it to set?
...laura
Sunrise - Sunset Clock (Score:5, Funny)
the original clock was when the sun actually rose and set on the horizon of the earth.
but we wanted to know exactly how far through that period we were.
so when clocks were invented - we very linearly divided the day up into 24 parts,
and then (based on ancient sumerian base 60) -- divided the 24 hours into 60 smaller parts.
we still linearly divide our day (despite the fact that every day changes sunrise / sunset times), and we still use ancient sumerian base 60 in our measurement of time (minutes) today -- omg, its amazing we don't still use Cubits & Fathoms to measure things...!
so, we can carry on with using base 60 for minutes, and medieval linear ideas of time, or we can take advantage of our understandings of science to create something more rational. so here are two proposals to take time measurement out of the medieval dark ages:
1) 0:00 HOURS = SUNRISE. everything has a chip in it nowadays - you can't find a watch that doesn't have a chip in it. and if you have a chip in it -- computation is easy. we no longer have to use the medieval linear way of dividing up the day -- finally, we are able to have clocks that dynamically adjust for sunrise and sunset -- like SOL [apple.com]. the length of a day continually gets longer & shorter -- so should our watches. since all our watches have a chip in them already -- the sunrise/sunset computation should not be an obstacle. we propose the elimination of the terms of 'noon' and 'midnight' -- and always start counting 0:00 hours at sunrise.
2) DECIMAL TIME. we no longer want to use 24 hours (why 24!?!?) and 60 minutes (base 60!!) -- instead, we use decimal time -- 10 hours in a day, 100 minutes per hour. the resulting 'minute' will be 1.44 of our existing old-style minutes.
so there you have it -- no half-way medieval measures -- sunrise = 0:00 hours, there are 10 hours in a day, and 100 minutes in an hour. businesses always start at 2pm (2 hours after sunrise) -- ALWAYS, and people go home when it gets dark ALWAYS -- the business day will grow and shrink with the seasons, and all will be much more sensible, and in acccord with the natural rhythms of nature, while being easier to measure, because its all measured in decimal.
2cents from toronto
j
Re:My proposal (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:My proposal (Score:5, Funny)
Where is the blink tag when you need it?
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Re:My proposal (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:My proposal (Score:5, Funny)
I can't believe you registered a new account just for that comment! :)
Parent
Re:Let's just use Zulu time... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Let's just use Zulu time... (Score:5, Funny)
Did you know that sales of Swatch Internet Time watches doubled between 1998 and 1999?
So they sold eight instead of four?
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Re:Let's just use Zulu time... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Picture this... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Orbital Mirrors (Score:5, Funny)
While, the geek in me is enchanted by the mega-engineering aspect of your solution, the part of me that can't get to sleep with the sun up is trembling in fear that somehow this will actually come to pass.
Actually, there's a very good reason why this hasn't come to pass, and why it never will...
Basically, the amount of micrometeorites and orbital debris in space makes it incredibly likely that a mirror high enough up to provide light at times of day when it's not available, and to stay in orbit, and also large enough to provide a significant amount of light would be smashed before too long...
Of course, the practical aspects of retrieving the broken pieces and repairing or replacing the broken mirror aren't such a major problem: of more concern is the inherent misfortune brought on by the destruction of a mirror. Being a larger mirror means more bad luck, but it's still distributed over the same seven-year cycle... When this kind of massive orbital mirror breaks we'd experience unprecedented levels of chaotic worldwide misfortune - and this misfortune would compound the probability that any replacement mirror would be broken, thus continuing the cycle...
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