
Daylight Saving Time Is Terrible: Here's a Simple Plan to Fix It - chaz
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/daylight-saving-time-is-terrible-heres-a-simple-plan-to-fix-it/281075/
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venomsnake
Am I the only one that likes DST? I think that it has important function of
enabling socializing and nightlife in the northern hemisphere.

I was never bothered by it. The switch requires day or two at most. And
because certain hours are ingrained in the society fabric as late or early it
is just not possible to achieve the same effect with mandating transport and
businesses to shift an hour early/late.

It works a bit like central bank monetary policy - it is easier to
devalue/strengthen the currency than to renegotiate a few billion contracts.

So it is better to shift the time an hour to have a better utilization of the
workday than to have all of the time arrangements changes.

In the summer there is a lot of light that goes underutilized on 9 to 5
workday, but in the winter it is bad for people to start working while dark-
ish outside.

if we want to remove DST we have to get rid of 9 to 5 workday. Good luck with
that.

~~~
oe
Why is it bad to start working while it's dark outside? The problem I have
with DST isn't the summer time, but the "normal time". It just doesn't make
any sense to me that it's light at 7am and dark at 5pm when you're working
from 9 to 5. To enjoy any sunlight during the day you'd have to wake up way
early.

~~~
ollysb
This is it, I want to enjoy the sunlight in my free time, not use it all up
while I'm commuting and working. A couple of hours of sunlight after I finish
working would improve my experience of winter immeasurably.

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kleiba
I am probably part of the minority, but I actually quite like DST: you get to
sit outside longer on warm summer nights, and winter days are balanced too.
Since that is about the only thing where I feel that DST effects me, I'm
really ok with it.

~~~
3pt14159
I'm Canadian and for me DST is pure hell. Imagine not being able to see the
sun either in the morning while you jog before work, or in the evening while
you walk home. That is my December, and that is in Toronto, it is even worse
in Ottawa. I have one Turkish grandparent and the rest north-western european
so it's not even _that_ bad for me compared with say a Jamaican, but combined
with the interruption to my internal clock (which is normally very accurate)
it really pisses me off.

~~~
mjn
December is during the regular, non-DST period, though. DST is March-October.
So if you don't like the time of sunrise/sunset in December, it can't be DST's
fault!

One solution could be to standardize in the other direction: instead of
abolishing DST, go to year-round DST, i.e. year-round offset of ~1hr between
solar time and clock time.

~~~
3pt14159
Ah, you are correct! I keep forgetting that because I think the summer time
standard is way better! Who needs sunrise earlier than 6 am?

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tomflack
> Daylight saving time ends Nov. 3, setting off an annual ritual where
> Americans (who don’t live in Arizona or Hawaii) and residents of 78 other
> countries including Canada (but not Saskatchewan), most of Europe, Australia
> and New Zealand turn their clocks back one hour.

I find it hard to take this solution seriously when they can't even get the
basic facts right. I'm sure this is some kind of argumentative fallicy but
Australia's DST started in October and we put our clocks _forward_ one hour,
because we're in the Southern Hemisphere and heading in to summer. This semi-
makes the article's point about confusion... but really computers have fixed
all that confusion for me anyway.

~~~
apaprocki
Humans program the computers, though, so the computers can't remove the
confusion in places where the human government changes the rules a handful of
days before a transition time. For example, this happens every year in
Morocco. The entire country must update all their computers manually -- I
don't see any way all devices could have correct tzdata in time for the
transitions.

~~~
tomflack
Hah, my first thought is "humans also make the government" and I know which
one I'd optimize first... sorry about the snark though.

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NateDad
This is just the worst of both worlds. Some people are getting up when it's
pitch black out for 3 hours part of the year. Some people are getting home 3
hours after sunset part of the year. Two time zones is not fixing anything,
it's still sucky part of the time and you still have to know what time zone
someone is in to know how to relate to their meeting invitations.

Yes, DST is annoying. But changing to two time zones? How is that better than
4? If you're going to do it, there's really only two ways to do it - either
the way we have it now, where everyone can get up at 7am and have it be
reasonably light out most of the time.... or have one global time and people
might have to get up at 1500, because that's when the sun rises (note that AM
and PM would lose meaning, which is also a good thing).

As a developer who has worked on programs that have to deal with time and
days.... this would be awesome. As a developer that has international meetings
every single workday... this would be awesome. Right now, when we want to move
a meeting, we can't say "we're going to move the meeting to 11am" we say
"we're going to move the meeting 2 hours later".... because the people at the
meeting are in 4 different time zones. It's a pain in the butt.

Note, it's not just about meetings between two time zones, meetings between N
time zones is horrendous with the current system.

Now everyone complains they won't know when shops are open... how do you know
now? The shop could be open from 6am to 3pm (common for downtown Boston
restaraunts that don't do dinner) or 9am to 5pm, or 11am to 10pm (common for
restaraunts that don't do breakfast)... etc etc. So, yes, each place would
need to define their own working hours, and yes, you'd have to look them up.
Big deal. You already do.

~~~
mistercow
>But changing to two time zones? How is that better than 4?

Jet lag for one thing. Flying from LA to NYC currently sets you back three
hours. It will wreck your sleep schedule and leave you tired for three days.
Change to two time zones, and it will set you back one hour instead, which is
essentially the same effect DST has. You might be slightly tired, but you'll
recover within a day.

Another benefit is communication. Communicating with people in different time
zones is a pain, and the more time zones between you, the worse it is. With
only one hour between them, you greatly increase the overlap of when people on
different sides of the country are able to communicate.

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gooderlooking
If you want to propose a solution to the problem, why not have everyone adopt
UTC? Every programmer who has ever dealt with time deltas will give you a big
hug.

~~~
philwelch
That's called optimizing for the 5% use case at the expense of the 95%. I
don't really want to get rid of time zones for the rare instances when I need
to schedule transatlantic meetings at the expense of having no fucking idea
what time shops are supposed to be open or that people are supposed to be at
work without either reconstructing the time zone in my head anyway or keeping
a massive table of local custom by region. If I fly to London and look at my
phone (which compensates for time zones) and it says it's 1300, I figure it
will be similar to 1300 at home in many ways: late but not too late for lunch,
during normal working hours, and most everything is probably open. If I'm used
to 2100 being that time of day, I am going to fly to London and see that it's
1300 and have no fucking idea what that means, except that back home I would
probably be sleeping and thank you very much for that subtle psychological
reinforcement of my jet lag, you've ruined my day just because you're a lazy
programmer who doesn't want to worry about time zone conversions.

~~~
notahacker
If you fly to Madrid and look at your phone you're still going to need that
massive table of local custom by region, or you're going to be utterly baffled
when most shops start closing at 13:30 and then reopen in early evening, and
the restaurants are all closed at 18:00.

There's no shortage of international differences in opening hours, days and
times and time-zones don't really get you very far towards understanding them.

~~~
philwelch
But I would have to know that about Madrid either way. It would at least help
to know when those times are relative to the local day cycle.

Time zones give me a few bits of information and knowing about local customs
gives me the other bits, but the bits that are encoded in the time zone are
bits I can ignore as soon as I change my clock, just as setting your zero
helps you work out a physics problem. Instead you want me to worry about all
the bits all the time. Why, to make it easier for computers? I thought
computers were better than me at handling bits.

------
Wicher
> Frequent travel between the coasts causes jet lag, robbing employees of
> productive work time. With a one-hour time difference, bi-costal travel
> would become almost effortless.

Jet lag is caused by traveling significant distances east or west at angular
speeds moderately close to the earth's angular rotation speed; you'll see the
sun rise or set quite a bit sooner or later than your circadian clock would've
expected.

The unexpectedness of whatever time the wall clock at your new location tells
is only a side-effect. Tinkering with the clock will not make the jet lag go
away.

~~~
Dylan16807
Really? I thought jet lag was based on your sleeping hours, not the sunlight
hours. Does that mean I can get jet lag just by opening or closing a set of
effective bedroom window blinds?

~~~
batbomb
As someone who has worked alternating day/night shifts for several years, I
can anecdotally say that going to Amsterdam a few weeks ago from SF completely
and utterly kicked my ass, and then getting back was worse. Much worse than
alternating day/night shifts in the same week. I was not nearly expecting
anything like that.

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edoloughlin
The article claims to fix DST but only offers a solution for the US. That's
uncharacteristically insular for The Atlantic.

~~~
Timmmmbob
We had a bill to fix the summer time problem in the UK. Actually they weren't
going to eliminate the time change they were just going to move to European
time (GMT+1), but that would have been almost as good.

Unfortunately some stupid Scottish MPs filibustered it (I didn't even know
that was possible here). Now I work in an effectively windowless office and
only see the sun for half an hour each day. :(

~~~
FireBeyond
Yes. We should change summer time because you work in an "effectively
windowless office".

------
jarofgreen
Its not only done for reasons of energy efficiency; I'm sure theres UK
research that says less children die in road accidents as they are going to
school when it's light, not when its dark. About to run out so can't look up
reference now.

Also the author goes on about people commuting or arranging meetings across
time zones and how annoying it is for them. I get that, but I think actually
the vast majority of ppl almost never do that.

~~~
zzleeper
By your argument, DST should be suppressed entirely.

If there are less accidents going to school during the day, then the switch in
March to DST means that in many places people will go to school when it's
still dark, which sucks..

~~~
eddiedunn
In many places, people go to school/work when it's dark regardless of whether
DST is in effect or not.

I would also wager that the risk of being hit by a jetlagged, drowsy driver
offsets any dubious benefit changing the time twice a year might have.

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InTheSwiss
I always enjoyed this video to show how crazy DST is!
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84aWtseb2-4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84aWtseb2-4)

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bradleyland
There is nothing simple about this plan. Here's a simple plan to fix DST: stop
observing it.

Time zones solve a different problem than DST. Abolishing one shouldn't affect
the other.

~~~
robotcookies
Well I agree with you. And I don't get why people want to overcomplicate this
thing. People suggesting fewer time zones or even a single timezone (like UTC)
in response to DST issues are just making it less likely to ever get rid of
DST. When there are too many options, it confuses the issue.

------
srinivasanv
Here's one change which will harm nobody:

Make DST chances apply on the same day everywhere in the world.

This will solve most of the troubles with scheduling international conferences
and international flight schedules. There would be summer schedule and one
winter schedule, and that's it.

First, get what can can be achieved easily. Then push for more radical
changes.

Edit: Also stop the spring clock change from being on Sundays. That's just
dumb.

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Theodores
Due to how the sun revolves around the earth once a day time is very much
about where that unshielded nucular reactor, as pushed by angels, is in the
sky. With time zones we have a huge approximation of where that is, unless you
live in Greenwich then you can be pretty certain that the glowing thing is not
directly above your head at noon. So time zones are a compromise.

Given that everyone has a smartphone these days (well, the people that
matter), why can't we go back to the pre-railways 'sundial time' and have
always accurate, infinitely variable time? For instance, move across the room
and the time will be ever so slightly different?

We could then have UTC more widely recognised and used for international
importanty stuff. Obviously we would also have to get the phrase 'Greenwich
Mean Time' to be used instead of this faceless 'UTC' mnemonic.

With this system there would be a lot more small talk chit chat about time,
you could plausibly arrive a minute or two late and 'not realise the time'.
Time could be vague yet oddly accurate at the same time. It would be a whole
lot of fun.

Moving to this new 'n' zany system of timekeeping could be easy. All the
scientific and computing community are on UTC already so there would be no
change for them. A little deal could be done by the smartphone makers so that
the default time shown was 'sundial time', auto updated by GPS, wifi or other
geolocation. UTC could also be shown side by side, prominently so you could
easily get the time in either system depending on your need. A special app,
not installed by default, could then show retro 'timezone' time after you
clicked through a few dozen menus. Obviously this would be laden with
skuomorphic design but functional if you really wanted this legacy time
system.

~~~
veezus_the_krei
Seriously, the only thing more painful for me this week than reading this
comment, was signing up to reply. Between three and sixteen letters my ass!

> Given that everyone has a smartphone these days (well, the people that
> matter)

Really? The only people that matter are those with cell phones? When I was
growing up, and even last night, I was told by local news to set my clock back
an hour. They've actually been telling me since Friday night, which is great
because I rarely watch the news and don't subscribe to cable.

Yes, I have a cell phone, and yes it's a smartphone of a recent generation,
and no I don't like it that much.

> With this system there would be a lot more small talk chit chat about time,
> you could plausibly arrive a minute or two late and 'not realise the time'.
> Time could be vague yet oddly accurate at the same time. It would be a whole
> lot of fun.

Great! I'll be in Belgium this week. Standup at the normal time?

~~~
Dylan16807
>The only people that matter are those with cell phones?

People in the poorest countries in the world have cell phones... so yes, you
can assume a cell phone.

~~~
veezus_the_krei
Assuming a cell phone and indicating that only people with a cell phone are
important are two different things.

And your cell phone doesn't tell you it changed times, it just changes it for
itself.

~~~
Dylan16807
>Assuming a cell phone and indicating that only people with a cell phone are
important are two different things.

And the original post was the former, so it all works out.

>And your cell phone doesn't tell you it changed times

Is that needed? Well it's easy enough to add that feature.

~~~
veezus_the_krei
I retract my earlier comment about the most painful thing I've read this week.

~~~
Theodores
Well I am glad that I have managed to get someone to sign up and contribute!

I do enjoy writing with my tongue firmly in my cheek when a story is either a
'first world problem' or if it has been discussed to death many times already.
Hopefully I brighten someone's day, even if scores of others mod me down!

Anyway, welcome from lurkerdom to contributordom!

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nness
Australian summers are a great way to experience the advantage of DST (though
obviously only some states choose to do it). Even the early hours of the
morning are bright and warm, and enjoying dinner with the sun setting late
into the evening adds such a lovely ambience. I think, here at least, it does
more good for our culture (tourism and the like), than any other reason.

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astrobe_
I'll never understand DST. Why On Earth change every clock in the country (and
inthe process create bizarre things like missing hours and redundant hours)
twice a year when we could simply change working hours and habits?

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RogerL
Okay, so today the bank opens at 8:30. Tomorrow it opens at 8:31. The day
after that, 8:32. (or whatever, I'm sure my numbers don't match the
progression of day/night cycles exactly).

That's why.

Ya, sure, I'm being silly, you say. But when do we shift, how many different
opening times should shop have, is each place going to do it differently or
will it all be legislated (good luck with that)? It would be a nightmare of
logistics. "The babysitter needs to start leaving at 4 because her evening job
just shifted time, but we aren't shifting for another two weeks, leaving the
baby unattended...."

~~~
astrobe_
DST is already enforced by law, so enforcing a different system shouldn't be
too complicated...

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allstruck
Wouldn't it be easier to change what time you go to work than to change the
clocks?

I for one think the entire world should switch to one time zone...

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dennisgorelik
Switching efforts are painless, so I would ditch DST in a moment.

Timezones, on the other hand, make more sense (it allows all businesses start
at the same nominal time in all time zones).

However for me personally (as owner of a business that runs accross multiple
time zones and as a person living on Internet), the most convenient would be
to give up time zones too and use UTC only.

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drblast
I like the late hours of sun you get with DST, but I don't like switching. I'd
be happy with a permanent change to DST. I don't understand the desire to have
it get dark before 5:00PM in the winter.

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IvyMike
I complained about changing the clocks an hour twice a year.

A friend agreed. But he suggested that it would be less disruptful to the
human circadian rhythm to change the clocks by 10 minutes every month.

I'm pretty sure he was joking...

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jbrooksuk
I just wish it was always light at 6PM when we go home. As soon as we go back
an hour and it's dark at 5PM, it's like no-one can drive anymore.

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restlessmedia
I might have dreamt this but I thought daylight saving in the UK was also a
'safety' aspect for children going to and from school.

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jld
This is interesting though I'd be curious if diverging from solar time would
be as easy as the author claims.

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a3n
Nah. People mostly live offline and have to interact with people in their
community and region.

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mgkimsal
why is it "on" in the summer (for northern hemisphere)? I'd think we'd want to
'save' daylight for the days. There's no need to 'save' it in the summer -
there's already plenty.

