
On its 100th anniversary, the madness of Daylight Saving Time endures - teaman2000
https://theconversation.com/100-years-later-the-madness-of-daylight-saving-time-endures-93048
======
jedberg
So far there are only a few comments here, but I am surprised to see they
actually have differing opinions. I always thought _everyone_ universally
hated DST, _especially_ programmers, but apparently that's not the case at
all.

I personally hate it because I'd rather be on DST year round so I get more sun
in the winter afternoons.

~~~
Lukeas14
The majority of programmers should never be directly coding to account for DST
but instead should be using libraries (JodaTime, moment.js) that abstract
local time differences. There are just too many to keep track of. I'm glad I
don't have to worry about code I wrote 5 years ago handling the end of DST in
Florida.

~~~
jedberg
As an engineer _I_ always use a library, or set up systems on Arizona time so
I don't have to deal with it.

But I often had to work with systems/software made by _other_ people who made
a lot of assumptions about dates.

~~~
styfle
Why Arizona time? Isn’t it easier to use UTC?

~~~
jedberg
I live and work in California, so it's way easier in my head to subtract one
hour during the few winter months we're on standard time, and then not have to
do any math from March to October.

UTC always requires a bunch of mental gymnastics to subtract 7 or 8.

~~~
styfle
It’s possible for Arizona to start using DST in the future. Indiana used to
not observe DST until 10 or 15 years ago.

------
juanmirocks
I'm in central Europe.

I sincerely do not understand the problem people have with changing a single
hour in a single day during a weekend in the year.

~~~
ErnestedCode
Are you talking about people adjusting their clocks and their bodies to
accommodate the change in time? Very few people have a big problem with that.

The problems arise when accommodating the change programmatically in code. How
many times did Apple fuck this up with the first few versions of the iPhone
with alarms not going off at the right time?

2010 [https://www.cultofmac.com/67254/how-to-avoid-the-iphone-
dayl...](https://www.cultofmac.com/67254/how-to-avoid-the-iphone-daylight-
savings-bug/)

2011 [http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/13/iphone-daylight-savings-
time-...](http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/13/iphone-daylight-savings-time-bug-
fall-back-instead-of-spring-forward/)

2012 [http://www.iphonehacks.com/2012/03/iphone-daylight-
savings-t...](http://www.iphonehacks.com/2012/03/iphone-daylight-savings-time-
bug.html)

~~~
juanmirocks
Never had this issue. And again, at least in Central Europe they do the change
from Saturday to Sunday when it’s understood that most people have less
constraints with tight times and alarms.

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ghaff
I’m not sure why we ever moved off year-round DST as we used for a few years
in the US. Yes it makes for dark winter mornings in the North. But, honestly,
there’s not a lot of sunlight to spread around in Boston or Chicago in the
middle of winter anyway.

~~~
blang
I think the common complaint was it was too dark for school aged children
waiting for the bus.

I'm not saying this is a super valid complaint, it's just the common one.

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kichuku
All you people living in the US complaining about DST thinking only you have a
problem with it.

Well, guess what, you wouldn't have imagined a tiny fraction of people on the
other end of the world too have a problem with it.

When DST is in effect, engineers supporting US from India work from 5:30pm to
2:30am. When DST ends in November the guys have to work from 6:30pm to 3:30am.
And this is just for east coast. Granted it is just one hour. But it does make
a lot of difference when the travel back to home takes 1hr and by the time you
are trying to fall asleep, the Sun is shining bright outside the window.

And I have worked in this manner for 5 continuous years in continuous night
shifts until I shifted recently to one of the (very few) companies who have
day shift jobs in my area of specialization and simultaneously not having a
shitty pay. I used to hate going to office between November to March, no
matter how much I did like my job and the technology. And so I used to
treasure those work-from-home days.

Edit: Added formatting, correct error and added some context.

~~~
masonic

      engineers supporting US from 
    

It would be best to re-onshore such roles back to the USA and thereby spare
you such annoyance in the future.

------
gregmac
I was trying to find something to illustrate the practical implications of
this, but couldn't find exactly what I wanted so came up with this:

    
    
                                   Toronto                      San Francisco
                          Sunrise             Sunset     Sunrise              Sunset      
        June 21 (DST)     5:00~5:36 am  9:02~9:38 pm     5:16~5:48 am   8:34~9:06 pm  
        December 21       7:15~7:47 am  4:43~5:16 pm     6:52~7:21 am   4:54~5:23 pm 
        December 21 (DST) 8:15~8:47 am  5:43~6:16 pm     7:52~8:21 am   5:54~6:23 pm 
    

The ranges are for civil twilight [1] which is basically the time it's still
bright enough to see outside.

[1] [https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/civil-
twilight.html](https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/civil-twilight.html)

~~~
ghaff
And the flip side is that, absent DST, sunrise would be at 4am on the summer
solstice in Boston, rather than a marginally more civilized 5am with an extra
hour of sunlight after normal work hours.

------
hudibras
Every six months, the same damn thinkpieces are written.

------
ScipioAfricanus
It's really not something I've ever found myself bothered by. I've only
learned in the past few years that some people actually have a problem with
it, to the point of calling it "madness" apparently.

Really people? This seems to be more a symptom of complainers needing
something to complain about and clickbait machines churning than anything
else.

~~~
skerit
Yes. And people complaining about their kids not being able to adjust to it
(kids grow up, they'll learn to live with it eventually ;))

I really hate when people complain that they get to sleep 1 hour less. The
switch is always during the night of saturday to sunday, who cares?

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joshfraser
We decided the solution to specific problems (like kids waiting for the school
bus in the dark), was to move the goal posts for everyone, instead of having
specific institutions make their own seasonal adjustments to their schedules.

Let's throw the whole system out and start over. 10 hours in a day and 100
minutes in an hour. :)

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mgkimsal
Switch the clocks once, halfway from 11 to 10:30, and be done with it forever.
:/

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WillPostForFood
If you could stack rank the problems of the world, it would become clear that
there shouldn’t be time to write articles complaining about daylight savings
time.

~~~
Karunamon
Given the massively increased percentages of death, injury, lost productivity,
etc that's associated with shifting the clocks around twice a year, I would
say it's a pretty big deal and worth addressing.

~~~
WillPostForFood
a healthy dose of skepticism might be in order if you think there are massive
increases in death. I’ve seen the articles too, but please, throw on a
skeptics hat when you read them. Easy enough to fudge those statistics to say
whatever gets you in print. Think about it reductively next time your boss
calls for an early meeting - is he trying to kill you? Negligent because of
the massive risk of death you now face trying to get to the office an hour
early? It is all a little absurd.

~~~
scrooched_moose
The biggest study I have an issue with is the heart attack one.

If you're to the point that losing an hour of sleep triggers a heart attack,
DST didn't cause your heart attack. Daylight savings time rescheduled it from
Wednesday to Monday.

Edit: I guess that was apparently in the original study, it just doesn't make
it into most pop coverage of it.

"The overall number of heart attacks for the full week after daylight saving
time didn’t change, just the number on that first Monday. The number then
dropped off the other days of the week."

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heart-
daylightsaving/dayl...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heart-
daylightsaving/daylight-saving-time-linked-to-heart-attacks-study-
idUSBREA2S0D420140329)

------
danaliv
Meanwhile the aviation industry said "to hell with it" and doesn't even use
time zones, let alone DST!

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sparrish
DST is so disruptive to my children's life and thus my life. I should move
back to Arizona. Curse you DST!

