The evidence in favour of daylight saving is somewhat flimsy
October 13, 2024 12:04 PM Subscribe
While scanning these files I came to realise that timezones were even more complicated than I had originally understood, with the rules in a constant state of flux. I was intrigued to see what patterns might emerge if I could visualise this dataset in its entirety ... from Exploring 120 years of timezones [Scott Logic, 2021]
Similarly, here in the Scottish Highlands, it's pretty convenient not to have the sun set around 4pm in the dead of winter. The UK (by which I mean the south of England, natch) this comes up every single year. Perhaps, after independence, Englandshire can scrap it - they'd only be mildly inconveniencing the north, which doesn't usually seem to bother them otherwise.
posted by deeker at 1:32 PM on October 13 [5 favorites]
posted by deeker at 1:32 PM on October 13 [5 favorites]
I never curse Daylight Savings when it gets lifted (early November hereabouts) and suddenly I get an extra hour's sleep when I need it most. I can entirely see the point of it in June around the Solstice when day is breaking at roughly 4:30 AM (early enough, thank you).
Time is just an abstract anyway -- we should feel free to muck around with it every now and then.
posted by philip-random at 1:43 PM on October 13 [3 favorites]
Time is just an abstract anyway -- we should feel free to muck around with it every now and then.
posted by philip-random at 1:43 PM on October 13 [3 favorites]
Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 1:52 PM on October 13 [27 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 1:52 PM on October 13 [27 favorites]
In am era when all the working hours of all businesses and most people are available on the Internet, its original use for long-distance business coordination seems moot. Bring back solar noon!
posted by McBearclaw at 1:55 PM on October 13 [8 favorites]
posted by McBearclaw at 1:55 PM on October 13 [8 favorites]
I favor just shifting clock ahead by an hour every six months. Occasionally it will work out.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:18 PM on October 13 [14 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:18 PM on October 13 [14 favorites]
the darkest timeline-
posted by HearHere at 2:49 PM on October 13 [8 favorites]
posted by HearHere at 2:49 PM on October 13 [8 favorites]
Whenever DST changes, I'm glad I'm retired and no longer have to deal with the software consequences.
posted by MtDewd at 3:06 PM on October 13 [4 favorites]
posted by MtDewd at 3:06 PM on October 13 [4 favorites]
deeker, I'm not sure what effect abolishing DST would have on "the dead of winter". BST runs from the end of March to the end of October, affecting no Winter months. If it were really important to change the times of sunrises and sunsets, you'd assume we'd do this in the winter (when there are only a few hours' sunlight) rather than in the summer (when there are only a few hours' of darkness).
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:19 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:19 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]
Keep DST all year round! Oh my gods I hate when we have to switch it back in November and suddenly it's already getting dark at 1800. I live in the far southwestern part of my time zone, and every time I visit the Northeast in the Standard Time months, it's dark out by 1630 and I'm practically suicidal. I totally LIKE the dark mornings: it's peaceful and soothing.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 3:27 PM on October 13 [11 favorites]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 3:27 PM on October 13 [11 favorites]
*Double* Daylight Savings time, I say. Either by breaking the year up into 4 sections and ramping up to +2/-2; or just jumping right to +2/-2. You're already not going to get people to agree on which one's better because it's dependent on where people live relative to their time zone, so let's shake loose this "But there's a time it's supposed to be and it's the *wrong one*" inertia.
"But why not just have businesses & schools change their hours to suit the season?" Which is easier to change, all the clocks or societal expectations & norms? Hint: We've been a lot more successful at one of them.
posted by CrystalDave at 3:38 PM on October 13 [3 favorites]
"But why not just have businesses & schools change their hours to suit the season?" Which is easier to change, all the clocks or societal expectations & norms? Hint: We've been a lot more successful at one of them.
posted by CrystalDave at 3:38 PM on October 13 [3 favorites]
The flow of time is relative to the speed of the object being measured. That's to say that here on Earth, it's almost the same time everywhere, but the rest of the universe keeps a whole boatload of different clocks. Time flows at different rates, like eddies swirling along the bank of a fast-moving stream. I'm sure nobody's ever calculated the actual net speed of our planet after accounting for the various rotational and orbital speeds, the rotational speed of our galaxy, and the galaxy's speed as it hurtles helter-skelter toward the Virgo Supercluster.
So, here on Earth, it's safe to say it's the same time everywhere. I worked in a facility that ran on UTC (Zulu Time) for several years. At the beginning of each 8-hour shift, we celebrated our clock with one of the Zulu transmitters; our receiver compensated for the distance from the emitter to our antenna and corrected the clock to 9 zeros. We put this time code on every recording we made. The boys back at the Puzzle Palace used this code as an early version of the GPS we all now enjoy on our smartphones. Because we used analog tapes, the WoW factor could be ignored since the distortion affected both the timestamp and the data.
I liked living on Zulu time. Daylight Savings Time is a cosmic joke. Time zones should be banished to antiquity for the same reason we no longer see hand-powered butter churns and brass spitoons.
Let common sense prevail! In modern times, a broken clock is no longer right twice daily—it's never right because the digits don't light up. Ever. It's high time we all recognized that a 24-hour clock reflects reality, not the stupid 12-hour mess we now struggle with. Not only do we put the cart before the horse, we put the damned horse in the cart.
it's time to fight for rational time keeping. I urge you all to write to your appropriate movers and shakers. Go Zulu Time!
posted by mule98J at 4:08 PM on October 13 [13 favorites]
So, here on Earth, it's safe to say it's the same time everywhere. I worked in a facility that ran on UTC (Zulu Time) for several years. At the beginning of each 8-hour shift, we celebrated our clock with one of the Zulu transmitters; our receiver compensated for the distance from the emitter to our antenna and corrected the clock to 9 zeros. We put this time code on every recording we made. The boys back at the Puzzle Palace used this code as an early version of the GPS we all now enjoy on our smartphones. Because we used analog tapes, the WoW factor could be ignored since the distortion affected both the timestamp and the data.
I liked living on Zulu time. Daylight Savings Time is a cosmic joke. Time zones should be banished to antiquity for the same reason we no longer see hand-powered butter churns and brass spitoons.
Let common sense prevail! In modern times, a broken clock is no longer right twice daily—it's never right because the digits don't light up. Ever. It's high time we all recognized that a 24-hour clock reflects reality, not the stupid 12-hour mess we now struggle with. Not only do we put the cart before the horse, we put the damned horse in the cart.
it's time to fight for rational time keeping. I urge you all to write to your appropriate movers and shakers. Go Zulu Time!
posted by mule98J at 4:08 PM on October 13 [13 favorites]
I don't care whether it's DST or standard time. I just want them to stop changing the damn clocks. It not only does nothing useful causes death and injury. And on a personal note it ruins my sleep for about two weeks, even the supposedly "good" shift that supposedly gives you an extra hour of sleep.
Way back towards the beginning of this year for a few brief glorious moments it looked like the US government was going to do the right thing and end the practice and then it just.... never happened. And so we're continuing to do the stupid thing. No one likes it. No one wants it. And yet, somehow, we keep doing it.
posted by sotonohito at 4:11 PM on October 13 [19 favorites]
Way back towards the beginning of this year for a few brief glorious moments it looked like the US government was going to do the right thing and end the practice and then it just.... never happened. And so we're continuing to do the stupid thing. No one likes it. No one wants it. And yet, somehow, we keep doing it.
posted by sotonohito at 4:11 PM on October 13 [19 favorites]
Either:
posted by MrGuilt at 4:21 PM on October 13 [8 favorites]
- Keep DST Year 'Round
- Provide workers enough flexibility they can shift their schedule to take advantage of the sun outside, or not, as they see fit.
posted by MrGuilt at 4:21 PM on October 13 [8 favorites]
For me the evidence in favor is 100% - I trade an hour of daylight in the morning for an hour of daylight in the evening, works 100% every time, and I of course prefer that extra hour in the evening. As for which edge of the time zone you sit, I grew up on the western edge and thought that having daylight until 10pm was pretty cool. I do admit that being retired from the 9-6 rat race I care a whole lot less about this these days. I always thought all the arguments about working efficiency, energy efficiency, etc. were just excuses to justify the pleasure getting some sunlight after the workday was over.
posted by caddis at 4:48 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]
posted by caddis at 4:48 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]
If you live on the leading edge of a time zone, as those on the northeast coast of the US do, daylight savings makes plenty of sense.
In Atlanta, at the far west of the Eastern Time Zone, it means we are stuck with the sun not rising until after 8 am for months. Our equinox daylight is 7:30 am to 7:30 pm. If you are a person who gets to set your own schedule or who doesn't have to be at work until 9, I guess that's fine. But for those of us who teach 8 am classes, and thus must be at work well before 8, it is months of driving to work in soul crushingly dark mornings punctuated by being blinded by ridiculously bright fucking headlights with no end in sight. I'm so damn excited for the end of DST in a few weeks and already dreading the spring time change.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:09 PM on October 13 [10 favorites]
In Atlanta, at the far west of the Eastern Time Zone, it means we are stuck with the sun not rising until after 8 am for months. Our equinox daylight is 7:30 am to 7:30 pm. If you are a person who gets to set your own schedule or who doesn't have to be at work until 9, I guess that's fine. But for those of us who teach 8 am classes, and thus must be at work well before 8, it is months of driving to work in soul crushingly dark mornings punctuated by being blinded by ridiculously bright fucking headlights with no end in sight. I'm so damn excited for the end of DST in a few weeks and already dreading the spring time change.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:09 PM on October 13 [10 favorites]
The obvious answer is too work fewer hours period in the darker months. Switch to a six-hour workday or even four. It's dark, it's colder, it's a dumb time to work, and that's why we all get depressed and want to sleep through it.
posted by emjaybee at 5:19 PM on October 13 [20 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 5:19 PM on October 13 [20 favorites]
> "Similarly, here in the Scottish Highlands, it's pretty convenient not to have the sun set around 4pm in the dead of winter."
Clocks get set *back" for the winter. You're making an argument for keeping DST all year, not getting rid of it.
Which I'd be fine with.
posted by kyrademon at 5:22 PM on October 13 [3 favorites]
Clocks get set *back" for the winter. You're making an argument for keeping DST all year, not getting rid of it.
Which I'd be fine with.
posted by kyrademon at 5:22 PM on October 13 [3 favorites]
Time zones should be banished to antiquity for the same reason we no longer see hand-powered butter churns and brass spitoons.
I agree. The sun should come up at 06:00:00 every day every place and let the chips fall where they may.
posted by flabdablet at 5:30 PM on October 13 [12 favorites]
I agree. The sun should come up at 06:00:00 every day every place and let the chips fall where they may.
posted by flabdablet at 5:30 PM on October 13 [12 favorites]
The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine have both endorsed permanent standard time. That would be my preference as well, but I will take any end to the biannual sleep disorder jubilee that is our current system (in my jurisdiction - I realize others already avoid this fiasco).
posted by the primroses were over at 5:32 PM on October 13 [14 favorites]
posted by the primroses were over at 5:32 PM on October 13 [14 favorites]
Here in Arizona the evidence against Daylight Savings Time is overwhelming. It’s hot enough at 8:30 pm in the summer, we sure as hell don’t need the sun still out.
posted by azpenguin at 5:51 PM on October 13 [4 favorites]
posted by azpenguin at 5:51 PM on October 13 [4 favorites]
The onset of Australian Eastern Daylight Time this year didn't fuck me over as much as it has always done in previous years because (a) I am retired now so my schedule is my own (b) my body clock, always kind of busted (it wants to run about a 25 hour cycle if left to its own devices; I might be Martian) is getting progressively more busted now that I have the freedom to sleep when I'm sleepy and wake when I wake and (c) stuff I needed to get done had already been scrambling my sleep times in the two weeks leading up to the onset of AEDT. Bedtime had been varying by as much as ±5 hours per day and the missing hour just disappeared under the noise floor.
This is the first year I can remember in which I have felt no negative effects at all from everybody around me inexplicably agreeing to do everything an hour earlier. The failure of the customary unpleasantness to arrive in my life this year has actually been extraordinarily pleasant.
Those of you still suffering from this lunacy have my heartfelt sympathy.
posted by flabdablet at 5:52 PM on October 13 [4 favorites]
This is the first year I can remember in which I have felt no negative effects at all from everybody around me inexplicably agreeing to do everything an hour earlier. The failure of the customary unpleasantness to arrive in my life this year has actually been extraordinarily pleasant.
Those of you still suffering from this lunacy have my heartfelt sympathy.
posted by flabdablet at 5:52 PM on October 13 [4 favorites]
so we're continuing to do the stupid thing. No one likes it. No one wants it. And yet, somehow, we keep doing it.
Well, that's the American way, isn't it?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:44 PM on October 13 [7 favorites]
Well, that's the American way, isn't it?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:44 PM on October 13 [7 favorites]
I'm in camp "I don't care if you leave DST on or off, just pick one and stop playing with the switch".
posted by Dysk at 7:02 PM on October 13 [9 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 7:02 PM on October 13 [9 favorites]
I would prefer to get rid of DST rather than Standard Time, because in the winter months my internal clock much better matches the wake-up time imposed by my job. During DST, my internal clock is just settling in for another round of deep sleep right around the time the alarm goes off, and after 30-odd years in the workforce I've never been able to acclimate to it. If we switched to all-DST all the time, I'd have to lobby my employer to let me start the day at 9am instead of 8am.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:03 PM on October 13 [5 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:03 PM on October 13 [5 favorites]
The last time the US switched to year-round DST in 1973, it proved to be a failure and was abandoned after just one year.
posted by fairmettle at 8:27 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]
posted by fairmettle at 8:27 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]
Me falling back: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!
Me springing forward: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
posted by Reyturner at 9:06 PM on October 13 [12 favorites]
Me springing forward: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
posted by Reyturner at 9:06 PM on October 13 [12 favorites]
I am not reading this. I live north of the 45th parallel in Pacific time and can not stand the time shift to so-called standard time. Sunrise is after eight, sunset is about 4:30. I want to shift to Mountain Time, aka, permanent DST.
posted by drfu at 10:26 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]
posted by drfu at 10:26 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]
In any discussion of DST changes it's worth re-reading Rizvi's falsehoods programmers believe about time zones as well as qntm's generic checklist:
You advocate a
( ) solar ( ) lunar ( ) atomic
approach to calendar reform. Your idea will not work. Here is why...
( ) "7am" is a social construct
( ) social constructs are actually very important
( ) "daylight saving" doesn't
...
( ) the Earth is not, in fact, a cube
...
Specifically, your plan fails to account for:
( ) humans
( ) rational hatred for arbitrary change
(x) the history of calendar reform is insanely complicated and no amount of further calendar reform can make it simpler
posted by autopilot at 12:27 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]
You advocate a
( ) solar ( ) lunar ( ) atomic
approach to calendar reform. Your idea will not work. Here is why...
( ) "7am" is a social construct
( ) social constructs are actually very important
( ) "daylight saving" doesn't
...
( ) the Earth is not, in fact, a cube
...
Specifically, your plan fails to account for:
( ) humans
( ) rational hatred for arbitrary change
(x) the history of calendar reform is insanely complicated and no amount of further calendar reform can make it simpler
posted by autopilot at 12:27 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]
it's not just the "daylight saving" or the "standard" or whatever prefix that's the problem, it's time itself that is the problem.
posted by busted_crayons at 1:22 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]
posted by busted_crayons at 1:22 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]
Saving. Saving. Daylight Saving Time. The kind of time that saves daylight. What would “Daylight Savings” even mean? Are you picturing a stately Greek Revival building into which we deposit an hour of daylight each evening for use the next morning – the Daylight Savings Bank? Oh no you are aren’t you. There’s no bank! We’re just saving daylight. Do you need a hyphen? Here: Daylight-Saving Time.
posted by nicwolff at 3:51 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]
posted by nicwolff at 3:51 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]
In Atlanta, at the far west of the Eastern Time Zone, it means we are stuck with the sun not rising until after 8 am for months. Our equinox daylight is 7:30 am to 7:30 pm. If you are a person who gets to set your own schedule or who doesn't have to be at work until 9, I guess that's fine. But for those of us who teach 8 am classes, and thus must be at work well before 8, it is months of driving to work in soul crushingly dark mornings punctuated by being blinded by ridiculously bright fucking headlights with no end in sight. I'm so damn excited for the end of DST in a few weeks and already dreading the spring time change.
Greetings, fellow ATLien. I concur with your assessment of the situation.
Atlanta really should be in the Central Time Zone, but was moved to Eastern many years ago so the trains would be on the same schedule as the coastal ports. CAPITALISM!
posted by Fleebnork at 4:55 AM on October 14 [4 favorites]
Greetings, fellow ATLien. I concur with your assessment of the situation.
Atlanta really should be in the Central Time Zone, but was moved to Eastern many years ago so the trains would be on the same schedule as the coastal ports. CAPITALISM!
posted by Fleebnork at 4:55 AM on October 14 [4 favorites]
Daylight Saving Time. The kind of time that saves daylight. What would “Daylight Savings” even mean?
See, the problem is that "saving daylight" through time zone shenanigans is a nonsense concept to begin with, so a nonsensical name actually makes more sense than a sensible one. Plus there is an obvious analogy to making annual deposits and withdrawals in a zero-interest savings account.
"Daylight-saving" should IMO be reserved for reforms that would actually accomplish that, like banning RTO or shortening the legal workday.
posted by Not A Thing at 6:02 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]
See, the problem is that "saving daylight" through time zone shenanigans is a nonsense concept to begin with, so a nonsensical name actually makes more sense than a sensible one. Plus there is an obvious analogy to making annual deposits and withdrawals in a zero-interest savings account.
"Daylight-saving" should IMO be reserved for reforms that would actually accomplish that, like banning RTO or shortening the legal workday.
posted by Not A Thing at 6:02 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]
The Province of Saskatchewan doesn't have the bi-annual time switch. It is a minor perk of living there. You never seem to miss that twice-a-year disruption, it amounts to just one less irritant in your life.
posted by SnowRottie at 6:34 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]
posted by SnowRottie at 6:34 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]
If you live on the leading edge of a time zone, as those on the northeast coast of the US do, daylight savings makes plenty of sense.
In Atlanta, at the far west of the Eastern Time Zone, it means we are stuck with the sun not rising until after 8 am for months.
There was a map published a few years ago that purported to show where it made more sense to keep DST vs. standard time, which took into account whether one was on the eastern or western side of a time zone. I can’t find it now, but it did a good job of demonstrating why there is such a divide on this issue. And since we can’t agree to keep one time vs. the other, we will keep switching back and forth, thereby making everyone unhappy.
posted by TedW at 7:16 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]
In Atlanta, at the far west of the Eastern Time Zone, it means we are stuck with the sun not rising until after 8 am for months.
There was a map published a few years ago that purported to show where it made more sense to keep DST vs. standard time, which took into account whether one was on the eastern or western side of a time zone. I can’t find it now, but it did a good job of demonstrating why there is such a divide on this issue. And since we can’t agree to keep one time vs. the other, we will keep switching back and forth, thereby making everyone unhappy.
posted by TedW at 7:16 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]
Let me just join the chorus of Atlantans that say we should be on Central time. We used to be! We can do it again!
posted by madcaptenor at 8:00 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]
posted by madcaptenor at 8:00 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]
The last time the US switched to year-round DST in 1973
I remember standing on the corner waiting for the bus to my high school and looking up at the stars, perfectly visible in the pre-dawn sky. As a solution to the oil crisis, it was one of the dumber ones.
posted by tommasz at 8:13 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]
I remember standing on the corner waiting for the bus to my high school and looking up at the stars, perfectly visible in the pre-dawn sky. As a solution to the oil crisis, it was one of the dumber ones.
posted by tommasz at 8:13 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]
How many time zones there are is a fun trivia question, to me at least. I like the handful of +00:45 ones.
I wonder if at some point, as server set clocks become more and more ubiquitous, a country will experiment with a continuously shifting time zone. Hold noon at when the Sun is actually at the top of the sky, say.
posted by lucidium at 8:32 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]
I wonder if at some point, as server set clocks become more and more ubiquitous, a country will experiment with a continuously shifting time zone. Hold noon at when the Sun is actually at the top of the sky, say.
posted by lucidium at 8:32 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]
*Double* Daylight Savings time, I say. Either by breaking the year up into 4 sections and ramping up to +2/-2 …
Even better, we could just add 20 minutes every month for 6 months, then subtract 20 minutes a month for 6 months. How much easier can you get!
posted by TedW at 8:33 AM on October 14 [3 favorites]
Even better, we could just add 20 minutes every month for 6 months, then subtract 20 minutes a month for 6 months. How much easier can you get!
posted by TedW at 8:33 AM on October 14 [3 favorites]
In Atlanta, at the far west of the Eastern Time Zone, it means we are stuck with the sun not rising until after 8 am for months.
I also live in Atlanta, and will fight you all to stay on both permanent DST and staying in Eastern Time. This is my favorite time of year here, because it's not quite so ghastly hot anymore and we get the nice peaceful dark mornings.
This is why no accord will ever be reached on this subject, and we'll keep flipping the damn switch back and forth forever.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 9:40 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]
I also live in Atlanta, and will fight you all to stay on both permanent DST and staying in Eastern Time. This is my favorite time of year here, because it's not quite so ghastly hot anymore and we get the nice peaceful dark mornings.
This is why no accord will ever be reached on this subject, and we'll keep flipping the damn switch back and forth forever.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 9:40 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]
For some maps showing how it affects different US States, Mental Floss did an article: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/71521/heres-how-daylight-saving-time-affects-your-part-country.
Here in WA State, we are all in on DST year round, it's tiresome having the sun not rise until 8:30AM and go down at 4:30PM for several months during the cloudiest part of the year.
posted by drossdragon at 12:26 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
Here in WA State, we are all in on DST year round, it's tiresome having the sun not rise until 8:30AM and go down at 4:30PM for several months during the cloudiest part of the year.
posted by drossdragon at 12:26 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
IMO, that mental floss article is not great - a 'reasonable' sunset time is when everyone is just getting off work, but a 'reasonable' sunrise time is 1-2 hours before Dolly Parton's average workday (9-5). That's not a good starting point IMO. It's placating early birds.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:50 PM on October 14 [4 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:50 PM on October 14 [4 favorites]
Sunrise at 0600 and let the chips fall where they may? What?! Nope nope nope: solar noon at 1200 and let the chips fall where they may.
(Have not read any of the linked articles but that doesn't stop me from ranting.)
posted by inexorably_forward at 4:07 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
(Have not read any of the linked articles but that doesn't stop me from ranting.)
posted by inexorably_forward at 4:07 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
How many time zones there are is a fun trivia question
In the Soviet Union?
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 4:19 PM on October 14 [4 favorites]
In the Soviet Union?
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 4:19 PM on October 14 [4 favorites]
The Mental Floss article drossdragon linked links to the Daylight Saving Time Gripe Assistant Tool, which is the map tool I was thinking of; I knew someone here would come up with it!
posted by TedW at 4:24 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
posted by TedW at 4:24 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
I save my daylight.
I keep it in a bag,
And bring it out
When my candle burns low.
Ah, the endless day at the northernmost latitudes,
Where the summer sun moves
In flattened circles
Trying to escape the dark horizon,
But the horizon swallows the sun.
The winter sun hides--no one knows where--but
We make up stories of its whereabouts
To tell our children during the long, long night.
posted by mule98J at 5:02 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
I keep it in a bag,
And bring it out
When my candle burns low.
Ah, the endless day at the northernmost latitudes,
Where the summer sun moves
In flattened circles
Trying to escape the dark horizon,
But the horizon swallows the sun.
The winter sun hides--no one knows where--but
We make up stories of its whereabouts
To tell our children during the long, long night.
posted by mule98J at 5:02 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
IMO, that mental floss article is not great
It also implies that it's somehow acceptable for The Accursed Daystar to peek its infernal face above the horizon at 4:30 in the morning just because that's earlier than 7. No, I say. Earlier than 6 is also haram.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:08 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
It also implies that it's somehow acceptable for The Accursed Daystar to peek its infernal face above the horizon at 4:30 in the morning just because that's earlier than 7. No, I say. Earlier than 6 is also haram.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:08 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
Sunrise at 0600 and let the chips fall where they may? What?! Nope nope nope: solar noon at 1200 and let the chips fall where they may.
Serious question: why is that better?
Reason I picked sunrise at 06:00 as the daily fixed point for Flabdablet Aggressively Universal Local Time is to keep the whole process of waking up and getting the day started as as routine as possible, as a kindness to waking bodies. As far as I'm aware, body clocks use the advent of daylight as their daily sync signal, so keeping the wall clocks in line with that just seemed to me to be the least inhumane option.
Does using noon for the fixed point have any genuine advantages beyond minimizing variation in the atomic-clock-referenced timespan that 24 hours denotes, so as to make civil timekeeping using simple mechanisms easier? I ask because given ubiquitious microcontrollers that can implement arithmetic of arbitrary complexity while costing literally cents each, I struggle to see how minimizing that variation is still worthwhile.
If we want to measure time intervals accurately and precisely, we should do that according to standards derived from atomic clocks. But none of the civil purposes that wall clock times exist to serve actually need anything like atomic-clock accuracy, and business processes would have fewer bugs if every day really were consistently accountable as exactly 86400 seconds, so it would be better to base wall clock times on surface and sunlight.
The maximum timespan difference between the year's shortest sunrise-to-sunrise interval and its longest is well under 1% for the overwhelming majority of the Earth's population (shortest interval occurs at the autumn equinox when the days are shortening the fastest, longest at the autumn equinox when they're lengthening the fastest) and the maximum day-to-day difference is two orders of magnitude smaller again. That's a drift rate well below that of the best mechanical wristwatches, and most uncompensated quartz clock mechanisms too. In practice I don't believe that any living creature would even perceive a drift rate of that order without instrumentation, so I doubt that it would cause anywhere near the kind of adaptation effects that daylight saving time does.
Noon-to-noon intervals also vary across the year, though not as much, so even defining a fixed wall clock time for solar noon rather than sunrise does not entirely eliminate the variation in what 24 hours means.
posted by flabdablet at 8:24 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
Serious question: why is that better?
Reason I picked sunrise at 06:00 as the daily fixed point for Flabdablet Aggressively Universal Local Time is to keep the whole process of waking up and getting the day started as as routine as possible, as a kindness to waking bodies. As far as I'm aware, body clocks use the advent of daylight as their daily sync signal, so keeping the wall clocks in line with that just seemed to me to be the least inhumane option.
Does using noon for the fixed point have any genuine advantages beyond minimizing variation in the atomic-clock-referenced timespan that 24 hours denotes, so as to make civil timekeeping using simple mechanisms easier? I ask because given ubiquitious microcontrollers that can implement arithmetic of arbitrary complexity while costing literally cents each, I struggle to see how minimizing that variation is still worthwhile.
If we want to measure time intervals accurately and precisely, we should do that according to standards derived from atomic clocks. But none of the civil purposes that wall clock times exist to serve actually need anything like atomic-clock accuracy, and business processes would have fewer bugs if every day really were consistently accountable as exactly 86400 seconds, so it would be better to base wall clock times on surface and sunlight.
The maximum timespan difference between the year's shortest sunrise-to-sunrise interval and its longest is well under 1% for the overwhelming majority of the Earth's population (shortest interval occurs at the autumn equinox when the days are shortening the fastest, longest at the autumn equinox when they're lengthening the fastest) and the maximum day-to-day difference is two orders of magnitude smaller again. That's a drift rate well below that of the best mechanical wristwatches, and most uncompensated quartz clock mechanisms too. In practice I don't believe that any living creature would even perceive a drift rate of that order without instrumentation, so I doubt that it would cause anywhere near the kind of adaptation effects that daylight saving time does.
Noon-to-noon intervals also vary across the year, though not as much, so even defining a fixed wall clock time for solar noon rather than sunrise does not entirely eliminate the variation in what 24 hours means.
posted by flabdablet at 8:24 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
Bah. Edit windows.
longest at theautumn spring equinox when they're lengthening the fastest
posted by flabdablet at 8:30 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
longest at the
posted by flabdablet at 8:30 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
Reason I picked sunrise at 06:00 as the daily fixed point for Flabdablet Aggressively Universal Local Time is to keep the whole process of waking up and getting the day started as as routine as possible, as a kindness to waking bodies.
Not everyone wants to be up that early. And even then, as someone who has worked near every shift pattern, I will very very happily go to work in pitch darkness if it means I get a couple hours daylight after work (6-2/early shift is good for this!) I want the sun up when it matters, not while I'm stuck getting ready for and walking to work. Daylight there would be wasted.
Noon seems like the best compromise: you split the available daylight evenly between morning and afternoon. If you're not by the equator, it is inevitable that part of the year sucks; no amount of fiddling with the clocks will make up for the fact that there just isn't much light in winter. So keep it indexed to noon to keep it as even as possible, rather than robbing the evening light for the sake of some early birds, or robbing the morning light for the sake of night owls.
posted by Dysk at 10:21 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
Not everyone wants to be up that early. And even then, as someone who has worked near every shift pattern, I will very very happily go to work in pitch darkness if it means I get a couple hours daylight after work (6-2/early shift is good for this!) I want the sun up when it matters, not while I'm stuck getting ready for and walking to work. Daylight there would be wasted.
Noon seems like the best compromise: you split the available daylight evenly between morning and afternoon. If you're not by the equator, it is inevitable that part of the year sucks; no amount of fiddling with the clocks will make up for the fact that there just isn't much light in winter. So keep it indexed to noon to keep it as even as possible, rather than robbing the evening light for the sake of some early birds, or robbing the morning light for the sake of night owls.
posted by Dysk at 10:21 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
Not everyone wants to be up that early.
Not everyone wants anything. It's always a numbers game, and my current working assumption remains that the number of people who would prefer a consistent relationship between their alarm clock and the onset of daylight is likely greater than the number who wouldn't, on purely biological grounds, and that the same grounds would predict improved population health with this system in place compared to what we're all used to already.
posted by flabdablet at 10:38 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
Not everyone wants anything. It's always a numbers game, and my current working assumption remains that the number of people who would prefer a consistent relationship between their alarm clock and the onset of daylight is likely greater than the number who wouldn't, on purely biological grounds, and that the same grounds would predict improved population health with this system in place compared to what we're all used to already.
posted by flabdablet at 10:38 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
Yes, and I'm here pushing back on that assumption. Even with people all working the same shift pattern, they all get up at different times. You are at best arguing for tyranny of the majority, but with the assumption that your preference is a majority preference without a vote or any other way to verify that.
posted by Dysk at 10:44 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 10:44 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
(Also keeping a noon index also doesn't break/render useless every sundial ever constructed! It's like it's naturally the only observable fixed point in time, and this obvious and natural to index to!)
posted by Dysk at 10:46 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 10:46 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
Tyranny of the majority is inherent in any system of civil timekeeping, so I don't think FAULT is worse on that score.
And sundials already require date-dependent correction in order to yield civil time, most conveniently done using a lookup table in an almanac. FAULT would simply alter the correction table applicable to any given sundial, not render the sundial itself any less useful.
posted by flabdablet at 12:22 AM on October 15 [1 favorite]
And sundials already require date-dependent correction in order to yield civil time, most conveniently done using a lookup table in an almanac. FAULT would simply alter the correction table applicable to any given sundial, not render the sundial itself any less useful.
posted by flabdablet at 12:22 AM on October 15 [1 favorite]
Tyranny of the majority is inherent in any system of civil timekeeping, so I don't think FAULT is worse on that score.
Except noon-index. It's a compromise between the morning and evening people. The perfect compromise: nobody gets exactly what they want, but we all get a little.
If you're concerned about sleep quality, I would posit that it would make more sense to index sundown to say, 9pm. That makes it the easiest to have a consistent bedtime, and get to sleep at that time. The health benefits should be obvious.
Except that and your idea are in obvious conflict. Hence the compromise.
And sundials already require date-dependent correction in order to yield civil time
Sure, but they're useful in themselves without, a lot of them having markings for both winter and summer extremes, making it easy to estimate the current time based on nothing but the sundial itself. Hell, with noon indexing you don't even need the dial, you can get a roungh idea of the time by looking at the sky for a good chunk of the day. (If you wanted the exact time, you're using a modern timekeeping device rather than the sun anyway.)
(Bonus feature of the compromise: all historical time references still make sense!)
posted by Dysk at 12:31 AM on October 15 [1 favorite]
Except noon-index. It's a compromise between the morning and evening people. The perfect compromise: nobody gets exactly what they want, but we all get a little.
If you're concerned about sleep quality, I would posit that it would make more sense to index sundown to say, 9pm. That makes it the easiest to have a consistent bedtime, and get to sleep at that time. The health benefits should be obvious.
Except that and your idea are in obvious conflict. Hence the compromise.
And sundials already require date-dependent correction in order to yield civil time
Sure, but they're useful in themselves without, a lot of them having markings for both winter and summer extremes, making it easy to estimate the current time based on nothing but the sundial itself. Hell, with noon indexing you don't even need the dial, you can get a roungh idea of the time by looking at the sky for a good chunk of the day. (If you wanted the exact time, you're using a modern timekeeping device rather than the sun anyway.)
(Bonus feature of the compromise: all historical time references still make sense!)
posted by Dysk at 12:31 AM on October 15 [1 favorite]
Quoting one of Art Linkletter's kids:
"Some people say they can tell the time by looking at the sun, but I've never been able to make out the digits".posted by rochrobbb at 4:05 AM on October 15 [4 favorites]
Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL) did the only thing I have ever agreed with him on when he introducted the "Sunlight Preservation Act" (ick) in 2022 and it passed the Senate by unanamous consent. Not one single Senator objected.
It called to end the madness of switching time around and would have made the change in November 2023 the last time it ever happened.
For a brief, glorious, moment it looked as if sanity might finally prevail and our murderous [1] twice annual ritual of changing time would end.
And then.... the goddamn motherfucking House killed it in committee. I can't even blame that on Republicans because Nancy "I love insider trading" Pelosi was Speaker then. Maybe she thought she'd have a chance to steal more money if the clocks continued to change?
Since then there has been no movement, and we seem doomed to continue the annual ritual of human sacrifice in the name of office workers who whine about not getting enough sun after work.
Fun fact! Ben Franklin originally proposed the idea of daylight saving time... as satire. He wrote that in Paris they could save money on candles and lamp oil by forcing everyone awake an hour earlier with church bells and cannonfire. I'm sure he'd laugh himself sick if he knew that centuries later America would actually implement the clearly insane idea.
[1] Yes, murdeorus. Fatal car accidents increase by 6% in the days following the switch. Heart attacks go up by 24%.
Clock changes kill people. You'd hope that alone would outweight all the whining about wanting to see more sun after work or whatever. But no.
posted by sotonohito at 6:40 AM on October 15 [6 favorites]
It called to end the madness of switching time around and would have made the change in November 2023 the last time it ever happened.
For a brief, glorious, moment it looked as if sanity might finally prevail and our murderous [1] twice annual ritual of changing time would end.
And then.... the goddamn motherfucking House killed it in committee. I can't even blame that on Republicans because Nancy "I love insider trading" Pelosi was Speaker then. Maybe she thought she'd have a chance to steal more money if the clocks continued to change?
Since then there has been no movement, and we seem doomed to continue the annual ritual of human sacrifice in the name of office workers who whine about not getting enough sun after work.
Fun fact! Ben Franklin originally proposed the idea of daylight saving time... as satire. He wrote that in Paris they could save money on candles and lamp oil by forcing everyone awake an hour earlier with church bells and cannonfire. I'm sure he'd laugh himself sick if he knew that centuries later America would actually implement the clearly insane idea.
[1] Yes, murdeorus. Fatal car accidents increase by 6% in the days following the switch. Heart attacks go up by 24%.
Clock changes kill people. You'd hope that alone would outweight all the whining about wanting to see more sun after work or whatever. But no.
posted by sotonohito at 6:40 AM on October 15 [6 favorites]
Local systems such as schools should be run on a strictly local time, e.g. from two hours after dawn to three hours after noon. We should all live by the rising and setting of the sun. RETVRN!
posted by whuppy at 12:03 PM on October 15 [1 favorite]
posted by whuppy at 12:03 PM on October 15 [1 favorite]
Me falling back: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
Me springing forward: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:46 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
Me springing forward: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:46 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
You don't get an extra hour if you have an animal that tells time by the Sun.
posted by whuppy at 5:23 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
posted by whuppy at 5:23 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
There's a story about someone who had a baby and decided to try easing them into the time change by waking them up 5 minutes earlier each day for the 12 days before the switch. And on the day of the switch they found they'd gotten it backwards and the baby was either waking up two hours earlier or super cranky becuse they were ready to wake up two hours later than time.
It's probably an urban myth, but it's a plausible one. I can easily see myself screwing up that badly.
posted by sotonohito at 11:46 AM on October 16 [2 favorites]
It's probably an urban myth, but it's a plausible one. I can easily see myself screwing up that badly.
posted by sotonohito at 11:46 AM on October 16 [2 favorites]
Which is easier to change, all the clocks or societal expectations & norms? Hint: We've been a lot more successful at one of them.
Actually, changing the clocks has proven to be equally difficult here in Queensland, Australia. So, as well as the obvious things like the sun blazing in the windows at 4:30 am, I live in a city divided by a state border, so we have a farcical situation of an hour time difference on opposite sides of a busy street. Handy if you forget to pop to the shops because they're still/already open over the road, but a nightmare for anyone living in the area, particularly those that live/attend school on opposite sides of the border to where they live. In my younger days, though, we did used to celebrate NYE twice by quickly downing our 12th drink of the evening and driving madly to the border to get in another round. So I guess it's not all bad.
People here joke about it, but the actual, documented reasons people here voted against continuing daylight savings after a three-year trial included concern that it fades curtains more and confuses cows.
I wish we could, as a country, just agree on this one thing or at least disagree consistently. Because different states have either no DST or varying amounts, we end up with five time zones for a fair chunk of the year - a challenge for national organisations trying to co-ordinate meetings etc.
In theory, I do like very much the ancient method of adjusting the length of hours to match the amount of daylight so there's always equal hours of daylight and dark. Sadly, this would only work in very localised areas, so chaos would quickly result in our 'modern' world (which might be fun, I guess). Doesn't exactly the same problem occur with sunrise or noon-indexed clocks, because the sun rises and sets at different times depending on longitude?
posted by dg at 11:34 PM on October 17
Actually, changing the clocks has proven to be equally difficult here in Queensland, Australia. So, as well as the obvious things like the sun blazing in the windows at 4:30 am, I live in a city divided by a state border, so we have a farcical situation of an hour time difference on opposite sides of a busy street. Handy if you forget to pop to the shops because they're still/already open over the road, but a nightmare for anyone living in the area, particularly those that live/attend school on opposite sides of the border to where they live. In my younger days, though, we did used to celebrate NYE twice by quickly downing our 12th drink of the evening and driving madly to the border to get in another round. So I guess it's not all bad.
People here joke about it, but the actual, documented reasons people here voted against continuing daylight savings after a three-year trial included concern that it fades curtains more and confuses cows.
I wish we could, as a country, just agree on this one thing or at least disagree consistently. Because different states have either no DST or varying amounts, we end up with five time zones for a fair chunk of the year - a challenge for national organisations trying to co-ordinate meetings etc.
In theory, I do like very much the ancient method of adjusting the length of hours to match the amount of daylight so there's always equal hours of daylight and dark. Sadly, this would only work in very localised areas, so chaos would quickly result in our 'modern' world (which might be fun, I guess). Doesn't exactly the same problem occur with sunrise or noon-indexed clocks, because the sun rises and sets at different times depending on longitude?
posted by dg at 11:34 PM on October 17
Day length varies a lot less in Queensland, much of which is tropical, than in the more southerly states. If the sun isn't coming up super early, there's less incentive to pull working hours more in line with it.
Brisbane is the most populous city in Queensland, though, and is in no way tropical. So there's that.
obvious things like the sun blazing in the windows at 4:30 am
FAULT would fix that, simply by declaring the time that the rising sun blazes in through the windows to be 6am all year round.
we have a farcical situation of an hour time difference on opposite sides of a busy street
FAULT would fix that too, reducing the difference to well under a second, worst case, for opposite sides of any street in the world.
posted by flabdablet at 12:26 AM on October 18
Brisbane is the most populous city in Queensland, though, and is in no way tropical. So there's that.
obvious things like the sun blazing in the windows at 4:30 am
FAULT would fix that, simply by declaring the time that the rising sun blazes in through the windows to be 6am all year round.
we have a farcical situation of an hour time difference on opposite sides of a busy street
FAULT would fix that too, reducing the difference to well under a second, worst case, for opposite sides of any street in the world.
posted by flabdablet at 12:26 AM on October 18
Great podcast on this: On the Clock: A (Brief) History of Time [Spring 2015]
As we switch the clocks to “spring forward” this week, we’re taking a look at time itself in American history. In this episode, we look at the changing ways Americans have experienced the 24-hour day — from pre-industrial times right on up through today’s era of time-shifted media. Along with their guests, Peter, Ed, and Brian examine the role of economic forces in shaping our relationship with the clock – like the powerful Gilded Age railroad officials who got together in 1883 and carved the continental U.S. into five time zones, introducing Americans to the idea of “standard time.” And they explore how people have experienced the rhythm of night and day — and why the advent of electric lighting changed that rhythm forever. And finally, they ask, is unlimited time always a good thing? A loving look at basketball’s iconic “shot-clock” offers answers.posted by christopherious at 11:10 AM on October 18 [1 favorite]
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