
Daylight Saving Time Year-Round, Abolish Standard Time in US - julienchastang
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/03/08/springing-forward-daylight-saving-time-is-obsolete-confusing-unhealthy-critics-say
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hirundo
I live in New Mexico near the Arizona border. We have DST; they don't.
Arizonans tend to be smug about that; New Mexicans don't. The natural
background smugness intensity (smugtensity) between the two states is about
the same. So by gross state smug delta I'd say a single year-round timezone is
popular here.

I just wish for a little more conformity so that I miss fewer November
appointments in Arizona, and to wipe away those smug smiles when I tell them
why. Although it's possible that expression is just due to me being an idiot
who can't tell time.

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ghaff
For those not old enough to remember, the US had year-round DST from
1973-1975. (It was enacted as a limited-time trial measure and it wasn't
renewed when it expired.)

Although I have no real problem with the current system, in my current
situation I'm not very affected by whether there's DST or not, I'd be at least
neutral about a single year-round time so long as it was current DST rather
than standard time.

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beatgammit
Why does it matter which way it goes? It's just a number on a clock, the
important thing is that having that change twice a year is silly and annoying.

Personally, I would prefer that we switch to UTC time, which would make it
simpler for scheduling meetings.

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twiceaday
Your comment seems confused. The reference frame for counting time of day is
arbitrary but the schedules of all businesses are fixed relative to this
arbitrary reference frame as far as DST is concerned. So DST effectively
shifts the hours of all businesses. Put another way, if you fix the
operational hours, you are delaying sunrises and sunsets relative to business
hours. Do you want more light before work or after work? That is the year-
round DST question. It's not arbitrary. I want more light after work, all the
time. I don't care about mornings. I have very little time to do things in the
morning before work.

Suggesting UTC here doesn't make much sense. The time difference is so great
that businesses would need to update to new UTC hours. But what hours exactly?
More specifically, what hours relative to the position of the sun in the sky?
That's the same question as this year-round DST vs non-DST question. A UTC
switch doesn't address the topic.

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yborg
Wouldn't declaring DST year-round just redefine "Standard Time"?

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dfranke
As one of the people who would be getting phone calls about all the software
that breaks when EST gets redefined to be four hours behind UTC rather than
five, I'd really not want to go to there. Either of "EDT is now year-round" or
"The east coast of the US is now on AST" would lead to a lot fewer problems,
as changes of that nature have to be dealt with pretty regularly.

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ratsmack
Why not just leave the time alone altogether. If companies want to start work
earlier, let them change their schedule at their own discretion.

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harshreality
That's exactly what these proposals would do. No more twice-yearly time
changes; if anyone wants to adjust schedules twice a year, based on daylight,
they can adjust their operating hours.

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xellisx
I think we need more times zones in the US, which dont change, but the max
difference would be -30/+30 minutes from sundial time.

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sys_64738
I'd like to see the east coast move to Atlantic Standard Time permanently.

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ghaff
In the unlikely event some states shifted from Eastern to Atlantic, it would
likely be just MA, NH, VT, ME, and maybe RI. New York would be unlikely to
shift and if it were just most of New England, being in a different timezone
from NYC would probably be a showstopper.

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ryandvm
They can't even get rid of the fucking penny and I'm supposed to believe the
federal government has the wherewithal to do something as sensible as abolish
DST?

