
The European Commission is polling if daylight savings should be abolished - jaywink
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/5/17536400/european-union-polling-citizens-daylight-saving-time-necessary
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vfc1
Try to get 3 kids out of bed still in the middle of the night in December, and
you will know why daylight savings should be abolished.

DST is very taxing to children (and to adults also), and completely
unnecessary in this day and age where electricity is ubiquitous.

There is simply no valid reason for using DST, it should have been abolished a
very long time ago, maybe 30 years or more.

~~~
ac29
There is no DST in December, so abolishing it wouldn't make a difference.

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ddebernardy
URL of the poll:

[https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/2018-summertime-
arrange...](https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/2018-summertime-
arrangements?surveylanguage=EN)

But it appears unexpected interest/traffic knocked it off the web.

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monocularvision
As a lifelong resident of the state of Arizona (which is the one state that
doesn’t do DST), I have never understood the practice. And I would say
universally, my distributed co-workers complain about both shifts. When will
we end this madness?

~~~
sveme
Well, Arizona is far south compared to Northern Germany or Scandinavia and the
sun sets at approx. the same time in summer and winter. In my hometown it‘s
bright till 11 pm in summer and dark at 3:30pm in winter. DST might make more
sense in this case, though I‘m still in favour of abolishing it.

~~~
oxymoron
It makes sense to pick a timezone that aligns winter daylight with working
hours. Daylight is abundant during summer though, so switching is pure
stupidity.

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jopsen
I see how a world with out DST would be simpler, but I have no strong feelings
on the subject. Regardless, it would take decades before other countries
outside the EU gets rid of DST.

So I have to ask, is this really a fight worth having?

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jnurmine
Yes, this is definitely a fight worth fighting.

It is completely nonsensical, not to mention unhealthy, both physically and
mentally, to suddenly hard-reset the body clock plus/minus one hour on a
permanent basis, especially if one lives up north.

One day you sleep an hour less and it is just as dark and cold outside. What
for?

Actually, what are the arguments FOR "daylight saving time"?

I personally hope they will fast-track this and get rid of DST as fast as
possible!

~~~
ac29
The argument for DST is that it keeps sunrise approximately the same time
throughout the year. Take a look at the chart here for an example:
[https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/san-
francisco](https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/san-francisco)

Without DST, twilight would be about 430AM during the longest days of Summer,
which harms sleep (at least it does for me).

~~~
jnurmine
Sunrise even with DST in Stockholm is now 0345 (AM). And the Sun sets at about
2200 (10 PM). DST is just an annoyance at best.

I don't know if people do that in US but around here one can buy light
blocking curtains to make the room(s) completely dark. I have no trouble
sleeping in general when it's brighter but do sleep much better with the
curtains.

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flingo
Hopefully my country handles this right. Since, we have DST in the winter,
instead of the summer, our standard time is other countries' summer time (DST)
and vice-versa.

Right now, everything syncs up with Europe, but it mightn't after this.

~~~
dmurray
If your DST is in the winter, if you are say 1 hour ahead of Europe in your
summer, won't you be 3 hours ahead in your winter? Assuming you are in the
southern hemisphere. I don't see how everything can "sync up".

~~~
flingo
Clocks go backward for DST.

It lines up with London time.

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anonu
Things like this should not be decided by referendum. I get it, this isn't an
official vote. But still ... Waste of resources asking the populace. You'll
only end up with Boaty McBoatface like outcomes...

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mrfusion
I find if you treat people like adults they’ll act like adults.

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chrisseaton
But that's exactly what Boaty McBoatface proved wrong. People are childish and
want to waste your time for fun.

~~~
maxxxxx
What's wrong about Boaty McBoatface? They should not have overruled that
decision. People would probably be more engaged if their opinion was asked and
respected more often, not like now where they sometimes get asked when it's
convenient and often overruled anyway.

You also see that at the workplace. We often get asked by management how to do
things better. Then people bring up proposals only to be ignored. No wonder
people aren't engaged.

~~~
chrisseaton
> What's wrong about Boaty McBoatface?

The other choices were about recognising people who had achieved something and
contributed in order to inspire others. This name celebrates inanity and being
stupid for the sake of it.

~~~
rndmio
I think they missed a trick really, calling the ship Boaty McBoatface would
have given the opportunity to keep people engaged with the work they're doing.
Think of the children's animated series, books, duvet covers, so much
marketing potential while reinforcing the value of scientists (think Captain
Planet for the Antarctic). Whimsy isn't necessarily inane or stupid.

~~~
maxxxxx
Very true. Personally I would have more fun working on Boaty McBoatface than
on the RRS Sir David Attenborough.

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pmontra
It's nice to have light until late in summer, I'd vote to keep DST.

~~~
greglindahl
You can have that without changing the clocks twice a year.

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pmontra
Yep, permanently move to GMT+2.

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zerostar07
trying to vote gives me 404 in 28 languages

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jopsen
I guess the EU isn't used to people taking an interest :)

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miloc_c
Just great! I really hope it will happen.

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walshemj
nah the farming lobby will stop this dead

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miketery
Why does the farming lobby care? Is it because of wake up times tied to
sunrise?

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walshemj
Yes and you really don't' know the power the farming lobby has in eu - Its not
called the French and German garden for nothing.

~~~
rndmio
That's garbage, a friend is a dairy farmer, the cows need milking when they
need milking, they don't respect DST.

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anotheryou
My only problem is that it means getting up earlier for work in winter. (I
doubt work times will adjusted)

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zerr
Work without flex-time should be abolished as well.

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mort96
A store is open from 08:00. You have the first shift as a cashier. How would
flex-time work in that situation?

~~~
hyperman1
Our group has flex time, and we have a fixed time window where we provide
support. We just talk to one another so there is always someone when there
should be someone. I presume the general idea is, if we stop acting like
adults, management would step in and write our schedules for us.

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dezzeus
We are used to consider time-zones due to the useful subdivision of the
Longitude in 24 steps and with that we all (should) agree.

The disagree generally comes when we talk about DST based on our main location
(and thus experience), but the problem is intrinsic in the elliptic, so it
must be addressed from another point of view (IMO): the Latitude.

I think that we should consider a further subdivision of the coordinate space;
not only Longitude by 24, but also Latitude by something reasonable (e.g.
every ±30° from the Equator; maybe not even of equal size but based on regions
of the climate system).

With "time", we may acquaintance with this new kind of grid-based time-zones
(which are easy to memorize/map-to given a basic knowledge of the Earth).

Any (useful) opinion ? :)

~~~
dragonwriter
> We are used to consider time-zones due to the useful subdivision of the
> Longitude in 24 steps and with that we all (should) agree

Time zones don't actually form an even division of longitude into 24 zones, or
even consistently follow lines of longitude at all.

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astura
Yeah and we got stuff like Newfoundland, which is in a half timezone. It's 30
minutes ahead of Eastern Time.

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kodablah
> all EU members must follow the same timetable to keep trade and travel
> running smoothly

Maybe that's what should be abolished. No country sovereignty on something
like DST? I don't believe a country choosing not to follow DST interrupts
trade any more than a US state. I'm naive towards EU policies, but the more I
hear the more I understand those against super-country federalism.

~~~
21
Switching DST at the same moment keeps the delta time the same.

I'm from one EU country, live in another, I know that the delta between the
two is always 2 hours.

Because EU and US switch DST at different times, in the multi-national
software companies I worked there is this two week period when the delta
changes, and there are mails and mis-scheduled things all around.

It's not a huge thing, but what is the benefit of each country randomly
switching times, just for the sake of sovereignty. Next people will advocate
using true solar time and getting rid of full hour based deltas.

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StavrosK
I wish everyone would just use UTC for coordination. Then I wouldn't schedule
my time around a meeting at "3PM GMT" only to discover that the Brit who
scheduled it didn't know it was summertime.

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Analemma_
This wouldn't fix anything, because people would still have to convert UTC to
their local time before agreeing to anything, and they'd make the same
mistakes in that process ("Shit, are we +7 or +8 right now?")

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StavrosK
Not so much, because they'd be more aware of their UTC offset. I usually get
people not even knowing that their timezone changes with DST.

