
Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple - hvo
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/us/daylight-saving-time-florida.html
======
bhauer
Yes! Bravo to Florida.

I don't care what timezone California wants to be in—PST or MST—as long as we
stop the nonsense of changing between two timezones every year. This coming
Sunday is another DST change, and with it will come countless small nuisances,
immeasurable drowsiness and lost productivity, and a non-trivial number of
injuries or worse.

Just pick a timezone and stick with it!

~~~
FreeFull
DST can make sense if you're sufficiently far north/south, but definitely
doesn't if you're closer to the equator. And for Florida DST probably never
made sense.

~~~
bunderbunder
Even way up north, I'd rather have summer time all year. Having it get dark
around 3:30 in the afternoon in the middle of winter is a _drag_.

That said, I've found there's a lot of resistance to the idea among parents.
On standard time, it's light out when kids are on their way to school. On
daylight time, it would be dark then.

~~~
saalweachter
If you're at a latitude that only gets 8-9 hours of daylight in the winter,
there just isn't much daylight to go around. If you're adding it to the
evening, you're taking it from the morning.

While I agree that the sun setting at 3:30 is a drag, I'm not sure pushing
that to 4:30 really helps much.

During the summer, when you push sunset from 8pm to 9pm, that's at least an
hour most people get to use (they are still awake and not working), and you're
taking away an hour from 4am to 5am which most people don't (almost everyone
is asleep).

During the winter, you're taking away an hour of daylight from, say, 7-8am,
which most people can use (it will either be during their commute or before
their commute, which they can enjoy themselves) to add an hour from, say,
3:30-4:30, which for many people is still going to be in the middle of their
workdays.

Florida's case isn't _quite_ so bad as that. In Tampa, FL, they are in fact
taking away people's 7-8am sunshine in the winter, but they're at least adding
sunshine from 6-7pm which will be fairly useful sunlight.

I'm just not sure it's useful for anyone much north of Florida to follow suit
- you're trading valuable pre-work daylight for during-work daylight.

~~~
slowmovintarget
For the New England states, they're far enough East that it makes sense for
them to join the AST time-zone and do away with DST.

Birds start chirping here at 3:30am... that ain't right.

~~~
saalweachter
They're not just East, they're _North_. If you throw Burlington, VT into the
AST, you've then got 8:30 sunrises in the winter.

I think you could make an argument for "double daylight savings time", so that
you're 3 months of UTC-5 in the winter and 3 months of UTC-3 in the summer,
with UTC-4 in between (which I guess would be AST with "daylight savings time"
in the summer and "daylight payback time" in the winter), but when you've got
16 hours of daylight in the summer you've got to put them _somewhere_. Do you
really want to have the sun set at midnight so that it's easier to sleep in in
the mornings?

------
fold
I wouldn't mind everyone moving to UTC. Sure, only people in Greenwich would
be able to eat lunch at 12 noon. But at least it would simplify my life as a
programmer.

~~~
teeray
As nice as that would be for code, people would still be left with trying to
answer "is this a reasonable time to contact someone?" across great distances.
The utility provided by time zones is a function for us to take our local time
and determine whether or not we're interrupting someone's evening or sleep.

Not to mention, travel alarm clocks everywhere would need to be sold with a
book of "reasonable waking times" for different cities, which is really no
different than the time zone offsets we have today.

I would completely agree with moving to UTC if we weren't animals beholden to
a diurnal sleep cycle.

~~~
Osiris
> trying to answer "is this a reasonable time to contact someone?" across
> great distances

This is a problem right now. My brother lives in Japan but I have no idea if
4pm my time is a reasonable time for him or not without going online and
looking it up.

Going to UTC would make scheduling meetings really easy because you'd just say
"Meeting at 13:00" and for some people that's the afternoon and others it's
the morning and some it's the middle of the night, but there's no timezone
math to be done.

I'm doing interviews right now and I have always put "I'm available 10am to
4pm (Mountain)" or I get an interview for "3:30pm EST" (which I then have to
think about is 1:30pm my time).

If there were no timezones we wouldn't have to do all that.

~~~
acjacobson
Wouldn’t you have the same problem of availability though? The issue is not
whether the meeting time is the middle of the night - you can do the same
thing now by saying the meeting is at 4pm EST and not being concerned about
what time it is elsewhere. Making the time UTC everywhere doesn’t resolve that
a person in Japan at the same UTC time simply will not attend the meeting
because they’re asleep at that time. Switching to UTC everywhere simply
changes the question form what time is it there? To are they asleep or awake
there? It doesn’t seem like this makes the scheduling aspect easier because
regardless of what the clock says you always have to ask the availability
question.

------
Sargos
I am fully in favor of this. I enjoy having more sunlight after work when I
can actually go out and enjoy it.

~~~
derekp7
But why do we need to change the time on the clock in order to have this? Just
go into work an hour early, and leave an hour early. If it is a matter of
coordination, have an official government statement that summer business hours
adjust during x - z months.

~~~
function_seven
> Just go into work an hour early, and leave an hour early.

Boss, clients, etc won't allow me to.

> If it is a matter of coordination, have an official government statement
> that summer business hours adjust during x - z months.

That's exactly^H^H^H^H effectively what DST is.

~~~
golangnews
_That’s exactly what DST is_

No, it’s not.

Time zones and DST change clock time, this suggestion is to instead change the
agreed times for work in a given place.

~~~
function_seven
That seems like a distinction without a difference, though. If the government
says, "Between x and y months, all work start and stop times will shift
earlier by one hour", it has the same effect as moving the clock itself.

I should rephrase my comment: "That's effectively what DST is"

~~~
mattigames
Not even a little bit the same; timezone are extremely crucial for
communication, if people outside the state don't have to look up the current
timezone to understand "3:00 PM" means exactly the same one month from now
that's a win all round.

Also, now that everyone has a powerful computer in their pockets its extremely
useful to register the times without changes based on regional laws.

~~~
function_seven
What does "3:00 PM" mean? Serious question. If the government is shifting work
hours at different times of the year, then "3:00 PM" will mean different
things. It will be before school lets out sometimes, and after school lets out
during other months. It'll be 2 hours before work ends, or only one hour.

I'm no fan of DST, I think we should pick a timezone and stick with it. My
argument is that DST is better than having a massively coordinated change in
work schedules, because that's even more complicated than just moving the hour
hand twice a year.

~~~
mattigames
"Massively coordinated" is just every news anchor being obligated to say
"Remember today the work day starts at 9:00PM and ends at 7:00PM" (with casual
reminders weeks before of course), that's it, has anybody even tried to see if
that brings chaos or if is just a baseless myth?

~~~
function_seven
Not all work shifts start and end at the same time, nor are they the same
length. Some people work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, others do 4/10s. Bus
drivers have to be working when others are commuting.

------
inetknght
> _In parts of Maine, for example, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sun
> sets before 4 p.m. — more than an hour earlier than it does in Detroit, at
> the other end of the Eastern time zone._

Why is the solution "permanent daylight savings"? Why is it not "let's split
up the timezones better"?

~~~
bostonpete
The problem is that in parts of the Northeast, permanent EST would have
significant deficiencies in the summer while permanent EST-1 would have
significant deficiencies in the winter.

Permanent EST: As it is, the sun rises in Boston before 5:30 AM from May
9-July 25, 2.5 months. With permanent EST, the sun would rise before 4:30 AM
for those 2.5 months. People would much rather have that sunlight later in the
day when they can enjoy it after work, etc.

Permanent EST-1: As it is, the sun rises in Boston _after_ 7 AM from Dec 7-Jan
30. With permanent EST-1, the sun would rise after 8 for those ~2 months. This
would be a real danger for kids walking to school. Shifting the school day
isn't straightforward because of parents work schedules, etc.

The response to these is inevitably that we could shift our lives around to
adjust to a permanent EST or EST-1, but such shifts would be much more
disruptive than people think. It's easy to make a change like this in a
southern state -- less so the further north you go.

~~~
zanny
You only have the cultural expectation of "always get up at 7am" because of
the insane timezone system. If sunrise changes throughout the year, changing
the time you wakeup is the _natural_ answer. Having an obtuse and
indecipherable timekeeping system instead is insane.

The answer is to get up at 5 in the Summer and 7 in the Winter, or even better
to get up at 10 in the Summer and 12 in Winter since you would put everyone on
UTC.

If everyone was on the same time table society would quickly adopt a strategy
where business hours shift seasonally. In Summer your hours might be 12-22, in
Spring and Fall have them be 13-23, and in Winter have them be 14-00. They
_already do that_ , except the government changes everyones clocks at once
rather than just changing business hours every season. Its _less_ overhead to
change business hours than _every clock_ , especially when you factor
international scheduling around DST changes and timezone changes.

~~~
gpvos
I'm with you when you say to get up at 5 in summer and 7 in winter, but
putting everyone on UTC, now that's _really_ insane. The people in Australia
aren't going to eat lunch at 12 so-called midnight.

~~~
zanny
No, they wouldn't, they would eat lunch in the middle of their day, which
would be centered around the times the sun rises and sets. Just like how days
work everywhere pretty much. They just would know what those times are where
they live naturally, and know that they can schedule a conference call with
someone in London without getting the time off by +/-2 hours depending on if
they do the time zone changes properly, know the time zone the other person
will be in at the time, know if they are in or out of DST at the same time,
etc.

~~~
dennisgorelik
I think we will, actually, move to UTC ... in about 70 years from now.
Currently, international communications are not popular enough to justify move
to UTC. But it is already time to get rid of daylight savings switch that we
apply 2 times per year.

------
mindways
I hope my own state follows suit.

Before I became a parent, I found the shift to and from daylight savings time
a mild annoyance.

By the time I had an infant and a toddler, I was roundly cursing whomever
decided that arbitrarily slip-shifting our clocks twice a year was a good
idea. Kids' sleep schedules don't adjust instantaneously, and when they're too
young for explanations to mean much it means it's a twice-a-year festival of
not-enough-sleep.

~~~
zanny
Changing the clocks doesn't have a good explanation at any age. You don't
"gain" more hours of daylight, you don't warp reality doing it. You just want
to keep getting up as "insert arbitrary time you get up" year round so rather
than adjust your alarm clock when the sun starts rising earlier or later in
the day you... change your alarm clock anyway? Except instead of setting the
alarm back an hour you set the _clock_ back an hour.

------
ethhics
I don’t get the downright hatred that some have for DST. If we were
perpetually on winter time, then at my latitude during the summer the sun
would rise at 5 in the morning which is too early for many people. If we were
to be perpetually on summer time, then in winter the sun will not rise until
after 8, with people starting to work before the sun came up.

Is there something wrong with wanting the sun to come up at a semi-standard
time of 6–7? Is it just the system we have in place?

~~~
zanny
The sun will rise at "5 in the morning" no matter what time your clock says it
is.

You could always, instead of _changing time itself_ , just set your alarm an
hour earlier or later. If your clocks go back an hour but you keep your alarm
the same you are still getting up an hour earlier. You just made things way
more complicated than they needed to be in the process.

~~~
squiggleblaz
But that isn't true if my company tells me "you have to work between this hour
and that hour". I can change my alarms till the cows come home but it means
nothing. Moreover, the majority can have an effect on what government we have,
but we can't have an effect on what business decisions are. Because business
leaders are a small subset of the community. If they naturally have an
interest in not setting separate working hours summer and winter and employees
naturally do have an interest in setting separate working hours summer and
winter, the only plausible mechanism available to the employees (who need to
work if they want to feed their family and can't afford to gratuitously quit
in the hope of finding a job that doesn't exist) is to change the clocks.

You're not obliged to follow us. If you don't like daylight savings, you can
set your own alarms in the summer and winter differently. It will be no harder
for you to do that than it will be for me to do that. If it was as trivial as
you make it out to be, you wouldn't even utter a breath in complaint because
it would be so easy for you to do it that you just wouldn't notice. But social
realities mean that changing the clocks is the best route available to us, and
so that's what our societies have settled on.

------
wellactually
> The problem? Florida doesn’t have the authority to adopt daylight saving
> time year-round.

> The federal government controls the nation’s time zones, as well as the
> start and end dates of daylight saving time. States can choose to exempt
> themselves from daylight saving time — Arizona and Hawaii do — but nothing
> in federal law allows them to exempt themselves from standard time.

~~~
what10th
we're all familiar with the article in the constitution that gives the federal
government the power to decide for states how to set their clocks, i assume.

i guess you can always count on the times to advocate for centralized power

~~~
CydeWeys
The Constitution grants the federal government the power to pass laws, and
"setting your own time" isn't explicitly enumerated as a right that is
reserved to the states.

~~~
krapp
Any rights not granted to the Federal government by the Constitution are
reserved by the states and the people by default.

~~~
CydeWeys
The commerce clause seems limitless in what it will allow.

------
nick238
This is reason #532 or so why we need gigantic libraries to deal with dates
and times. "24 hours in a day", "60 seconds in a minute", lol, no.

~~~
velobro
Microsoft Outlook for Mac has yet another DST related bug.

This time, all calendar events will start an hour late on the week of the 11th
if you a) have the week to start on Sunday and b) use the 7 day a week
calendar

It's been fun having to communicate this with all my clients.

[https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-
US/a43...](https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-
US/a43a6c67-7d02-4a62-95e5-5ff931f8f7ac/march-11-calendar-bug-outlook-
mac?forum=outlook)

~~~
nknealk
I made an account to tell you this was driving me mad and after much google, I
landed on your comment. Switching the start of week to Monday fixed the
problem and I'm eternally grateful.

------
theandrewbailey
If I'm reading this correctly ("Daylight saving time shall be the year-round
standard time of the _entire state_ and all of its political subdivisions"),
this is going to be terrible for people living in or near Pensacola. The far
end of the panhandle is in Central time, so it's going to be an hour (or two)
ahead of everyone else around them in the winter.

[https://www.timetemperature.com/tzus/current_time_in_florida...](https://www.timetemperature.com/tzus/current_time_in_florida.shtml)

~~~
hamandcheese
The phrasing of the bill makes me think it would apply to the the Panhandle as
well.

I’m not sure if that means bringing the entire state into one time zone or if
that means that the Panhandle would just always observe CDT.

------
pkaye
"Even if the governor signs the bill, nothing will happen now. Congress, rived
over tariffs and gun control and immigration, would have to act on clocks — or
the Transportation Department would have to issue a new regulation, an option
the Florida legislation does not mention."

------
ggg9990
One thing that DST discussions on HN always omit is that not everyone works as
a software engineer with a reasonably flexible culture and a 10AM start
culture. People who work at coffee shops, retail stores, foodservice prep,
etc. often need to be working by 5 or 6AM, they’re just not as politically
powerful as the wealthy who have schedule flexibility. They often have 2+ hour
commutes on public transportation, and permanent DST means they’ll be working
an extra hour in the dark (they already start work in darkness) and will be in
bed when it’s still light out.

------
taeric
I'm torn on this. Yes, having a shift of a full hour in a week is obnoxious.
However, the natural sun up and sun down time changes so dramatically in its
own, that it is hard to really complain about it. If anything, I could see
society moving to a time more based on when the sun comes up. Yes, there are
difficulties scheduling something with someone across distance on the earth.
But... I don't see a practical solution to that.

~~~
matte_black
UTC everywhere, done.

~~~
birdmanjeremy
This is such a terrible idea.

~~~
space_fountain
Why? Vary opening hours now the time. Makes sense to me.

~~~
bunderbunder
You'd end up with the official calendar day either flipping in the middle of
the day, or at a different time in every locale.

~~~
birdmanjeremy
This is a really good, simple, reason I had not even thought of. Thanks!

~~~
squiggleblaz
An alternative is just to count seconds. Be as precise as you need (m? k? M?).
A little like unix timestamps, except without the rule that says "there's
86400 of them in a day no matter how many seconds there were in that day".

And then let "Sunday", "Monday" etc become simply approximate terms. And I
never have any idea what day of the month it is so I don't care. (Birthdays
and public holidays are set based some recurring feature of the count.)

A refinement of this uses a time period that is approximately 100,000th of a
day so then people can easily notice the day. In practice we might use
hectokiloperiods instead of periods. Someone will invite a less woeful name.

Nothing about telling time will be particular familiar. Doesn't mean it won't
work. But I suspect it'll be awful. I'm fine with daylight savings and all the
rest of it. Except days of months. Can't we just say "Monday, third week of
June"? or "Wednesday, 39th week"?

------
peeters
Assuming the feds don't change on their end, what's stopping Florida from
joining Atlantic Time (and declining D.S.T.)? I looked at 15 USC 261-264 which
defines the time zones, but except for some exceptions about Idaho and
Texas/Oklahoma, I don't see anything that specifies which zone each state
needs to be in (or other geographical specifications)

------
swyx
commenters seem to be missing the sentence about "Florida doesn’t have the
authority to adopt daylight saving time year-round." this is just state
politicians being state politicians. Nothing to see here. Lets just say
Florida politicians probably have more important things to do and aren't doing
them, and leave it at that.

~~~
dragonwriter
The law is (as is not entirely uncommon in State laws) explicitly conditioned
on a change in federal law allowing permanent DST.

Of course, since States _do_ have the authority permanently opt-out of DST and
_which_ base zone states used is a matter of federal-state consultation, the
usual method suggested for a state to go on "permanent DST" is to opt _out_ of
DST, but move one zone East (so for Florida, instead of Central/Eastern, use
Eastern/Atlantic.)

------
lamontcg
This is great in principle, but doing it state-by-state in drips is going to
cause more problems than it solves, particularly if different states decide on
DST vs Standard.

The federal government needs to abolish one or the other across the board.

------
tombert
My parents live in Orlando...this is going to really confuse me when I call
them from New York, which used to be the same time zone.

Oh well, I think this is the right decision in the long run, I hope the rest
of the states follow.

~~~
jonknee
... Read the article, they aren't really changing anything (they don't have
the power!).

~~~
tombert
I realized this after I commented; I really should learn to read, might make
this software job easier :)

------
cmurf
This makes Florida daylight savings time permanent. It does not end daylight
savings time, it ends standard time.

Update: Which doesn't actually happen unless Congress _also_ "amends 15 U.S.C.
s. 260a to authorize states to observe daylight saving time year-round" which
is the wording used in the Florida bill that's passed. Unclear if the governor
signs it, this isn't a law yet.

------
cmcguinness
Tomorrow (March 9), the sun rises at 6:05 am in Pensacola. This bill would
have it rise at 8:05 am. A couple of months ago it would have risen, in their
new found EDT life, at 8:46am.

It's weird, given that the panhandle is solidly republican, that the GOP
dominated Florida legislature wants give those folks a ~9am sunrise. They are
probably very lucky it's not likely to happen.

------
jcadam
\- The winters on the central Florida coast are beautiful.

\- I work 9 hours a day, at a job I loathe, in a building with no windows.

\- Anyway, I'd like to enjoy some sunshine at the end of the day after work
(that is, until I rage quit my job and become a full-time beach bum, in which
case the extra sunlit hours in the evening will be a boon to my panhandling).
So, in any case, I'm all for this.

------
stretchwithme
We keep track of time so can coordinate our actions. We be better off using
ONE timezone world wide.

But it's going to get increasingly easier to deal with time zones. Computers
and artificial intelligence will see to that. So I don't see much impetus to
get people to change this.

------
runarberg
Iceland went to a permanent DST (GMT) back in the 60’s. But health officials
are seriously advocating moving Iceland back closer to the solar noon
(GMT-0100). Apparently consistently waking up way before sun rise may have
negative consequences on the general public.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Probably not that relevant to Florida, though, because Florida is at much
lower latitude...

------
jlmcgraw
Since devices that automatically set their own time are so common now I’ve
sometimes wondered why we don’t try moving the time forward/back by some
smaller increment each day instead of a full hour twice a year.

------
marshray
Eliminating changes for DST - good.

Introducing a fifth timezone in the lower 48 - bad. Are they trying to open a
stock exchange in Miami to open an hour earlier than New York?

Just dump this abomination of DST and stay on Standard Time.

------
paulie_a
Nearly good job Florida. I hate DST for personal and professional reasons, but
this is a very "Florida" reaction to dealing with this problem.

------
ufo
Does anyone why they voted to stay in permanent daylight-savings instead of
permanent standard time?

------
AnimalMuppet
What are they doing with the panhandle? It's on Central Time, not Eastern.

------
mortdeus
this is going to be annoying to implement in software.

------
MR4D
Here’s hoping Texas will follow.

Governor Abbott, are you listening?

------
jakelarkin
"Sunshine Protection Act" oh ffs

------
champagnepapi
EVERYONE USE UTC!

------
mkempe
Big props to ending the madness of skipping 1h back and forth each year.

However, what's wrong with tracking solar noon, so it's near 1200 instead of
being near 1300? (if you argue you want more time with daylight after work,
why not just set your work hours as 8-16, or even 7-15, instead of
manipulating all other people's clocks).

~~~
benrbray
Most people don't choose their working hours.

~~~
mkempe
Do you think they could and/or should do so? what's stopping them from making
that kind of choice where the hours of daylight after work are vitally
important to them?

~~~
squiggleblaz
Well anyone for whom daylight hours after work is vitally important is either
dead or they have made that kind of choice.

As for the rest of us, for whom sunlight after work is a nice-to-have,
Generally speaking, we are employees of companies who set their work hours
based on who-knows-what and not based on my desire for entertainment. If I
like watching daytime tv, they don't say "and you can have a two hour lunch
break".

The people who set clock time are subject to my vote. The pepole who set
working hours are not.

It would definitely better if employees had more power than they do now but I
think the solution of daylight savings is adequate and I wouldn't want to
waste my bargaining power on something when we already have a solution that
works well.

------
notjustanymike
As a web developer: screw you Florida!

~~~
BigChiefSmokem
Hello, welcome to the HN footer area.

I do have to ask though what is it that brings you to this opinion, as before
moving to California to pursue my big data dreams I too was a Florida web
developer, in a former life.

