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The annual DST thread (2017 edition)

Started by CNGL-Leudimin, March 06, 2017, 07:13:44 AM

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english si

Quote from: SignGeek101 on March 06, 2017, 11:25:28 PMIf DST were to ever be dropped, it would be better where I am to have it sprung ahead all year. Doesn't get dark here in the summer until 9-9:30 with DST.
So presumably doesn't get light until 8:30-9 in the morning in midwinter if you were on DST? Having that on normal time a couple of degrees further north, I can tell you that isn't a happy thing at all, given I have it for about 8 weeks a year, and post-8am dawns for most of October, November, December, January and February (note lopsidedness thanks to DST - despite Jan having later sunrises than Dec).

Quote from: kkt on March 07, 2017, 12:41:13 AMActually, before clocks people got up when it got light enough to see what they were doing.  Kind of like we do by shifting the clocks an hour later.
Except they were able to fine tune it well, whereas DST is a blunt instrument of a large shift twice a year. Add in that the 7-5 (Europe) / 8-4 (US) month bias towards noon-at-1am is lopsided - Spring starts about the right time for a 6 (Europe) or 6.5 (US) month stint of DST, but we then don't change back until a good few weeks after we should, and DST becomes an even more terrible way of meeting the aim of our natural bodies - with overly late sunrises in Fall meaning we're all getting up in the dark in October just because we want the kids trick-or-treating in the light.

DST makes sense when the dawn wakes us up a good while before the alarm clock, but the numbers on the clock when we are 'meant' to wake up don't really allow for much time in the year when that is the case - especially in North America where dawns don't get as extreme as in the UK (other than Alaska and the large expanses of Canada north of the 50th where just a tiny fraction the people live) and there's a culture of getting up earlier than we do in the UK. But DST isn't about maintaining the dawn to be a useful time - it's about making evenings lighter - a worthwhile aim, but not one we particularly cared about until the late 19th century - we're happy to stay up long after nightfall, but we are not as happy to get up in the dark.*

Plus the energy consumption argument has been debunked.

*We're also not that happy to go to bed in the light. It being light at 10pm is the bane of many parents who haven't invested in blackout curtains in the UK (of course, much of their worry is based on the incorrect notion that we need the same amount of sleep in summer as winter). And Cub camps (as a cub, and as a quasi-young leader as my Dad was pressganged in to be a leader when I left) in June were always fun: most years it never got dark, so we had to be tired out. Going on 5 mile hikes leaving around 8:30-9 pm (physical exercise, but not adrenaline producing like a running around game would be). Force-fed low-sugar high-milk cocao to try and make us drowsy. We were never sent (or never sent the cubs) to bed until gone 11pm and they had a strict rule of no noise until we say so. The second night was a bit easier as we tire them out more during the day, but even then it's still about an 11pm bedtime - just that they actually fall asleep not long afterwards.


NWI_Irish96

I grew up in Indiana with no DST.  I liked it better that way, but as an adult I came to learn that the benefits of not being on DST were outweighed by the confusion that it caused everybody else visiting the state and not knowing the time.

The biggest problem with DST is in areas that are already in the wrong time zone (like Indiana) so DST pushes a sunrise that is already one hour too late to being two hours too late.  Kids should not have to wait for school buses in darkness at 7:30 am because adults like having more sunlight in the evening.
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1995hoo

Assuming most employers are unlikely to accept the notion of a wholesale change in work hours, I can't see any benefit to year-round DST here in the mid-Atlantic region as some people propose, and it would only be worse further north. Using Christmas Day for convenience because I can never remember whether the solstice is Dec. 21 or 22, in my ZIP Code (22315) sunrise on Dec. 25 using standard time is at 7:25 and sunset is at 16:53, meaning if it were a work day rather than a holiday you get up in the dark and come home in the dark. If you push that to DST, from a practical standpoint nothing changes–the majority of people working a 9-to-5 (or 5:30, which I think is a more common end time) would still get up in the dark and come home in the dark. At least with standard time the morning commute has some level of light. For the sake of comparing to summer I used a date six months away, June 25; in my ZIP Code, the DST sunrise and sunset times are 5:45 (before many people get up) and 20:37. The 19:37 sunset if we kept standard time is no big deal in principle, but the 4:45 sunrise would be if, as I suggested, we operate under the presumption that employers won't open offices earlier.
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jeffandnicole

Quote from: 1995hoo on March 07, 2017, 07:32:40 AM
Assuming most employers are unlikely to accept the notion of a wholesale change in work hours, I can't see any benefit to year-round DST here in the mid-Atlantic region as some people propose, and it would only be worse further north. Using Christmas Day for convenience because I can never remember whether the solstice is Dec. 21 or 22, in my ZIP Code (22315) sunrise on Dec. 25 using standard time is at 7:25 and sunset is at 16:53, meaning if it were a work day rather than a holiday you get up in the dark and come home in the dark. If you push that to DST, from a practical standpoint nothing changes—the majority of people working a 9-to-5 (or 5:30, which I think is a more common end time) would still get up in the dark and come home in the dark. At least with standard time the morning commute has some level of light. For the sake of comparing to summer I used a date six months away, June 25; in my ZIP Code, the DST sunrise and sunset times are 5:45 (before many people get up) and 20:37. The 19:37 sunset if we kept standard time is no big deal in principle, but the 4:45 sunrise would be if, as I suggested, we operate under the presumption that employers won't open offices earlier.

Based on commuting times and rush hour traffic, normal working hours start as early as 7 or 7:30am...and working days end commonly starting around 3:30/4pm. (And of course, earlier and later than that)

That said, around Christmas, those people will still be going to work in the dark.  The earliest workers get home with a little daylight left, but most are still coming home during the last bits of sunlight for the day.

RoadWarrior56

When I was a senior in high school (winter of 1974), based on the shock of the first Arab oil embargo, full-time Daylight Savings Time was enacted for that winter.  After less than a month year-round daylight savings time was rescinded, due to numerous early morning accidents around the country involving school busses and students.

realjd

Quote from: Duke87 on March 06, 2017, 08:18:16 PM
Quote from: kphoger on March 06, 2017, 12:01:30 PM
someone who works a normal shift (7-to-4 or 8-to-5) should have approximately the same amount of daylight before work as after work.

Your definition of a "normal shift" intrigues me. My office is nominally 9 to 5 and that is what I've always understood to be the standard. Dolly Parton seems to concur as well.

9-5 assumes no lunch break. 8-5 is more common in my experience because that's gives folks an hour for lunch. My office is nominally 7:45 to 5:30 with 45 for lunch since we work a 9/80 schedule (9 hour days, every other Friday off) but it's flexible as long as you get your time in that day.

SignGeek101

#31
Quote from: english si on March 07, 2017, 06:25:49 AM
So presumably doesn't get light until 8:30-9 in the morning in midwinter if you were on DST? Having that on normal time a couple of degrees further north, I can tell you that isn't a happy thing at all, given I have it for about 8 weeks a year, and post-8am dawns for most of October, November, December, January and February (note lopsidedness thanks to DST - despite Jan having later sunrises than Dec).

DST has nothing to do with why the latest sunrise / earliest sunset doesn't fall on solstice. It would happen either way:

https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/equation-of-time.html
http://earthsky.org/earth/winter-solstice-and-late-sunrise

QuoteThe exact date of earliest sunset varies with latitude. But the sequence is always the same. For the Northern Hemisphere, earliest sunset in early December, winter solstice, latest sunrise in early January.
- Which is the case where I live.

Quote from: english si on March 07, 2017, 06:25:49 AM
So presumably doesn't get light until 8:30-9 in the morning in midwinter if you were on DST?

Latest sunrise here is 8:27 AM (without DST). Even before that time, most people would be going to work / at work, and kids would be getting ready to go to school. Making the sunrise an hour later wouldn't change much because most people are already getting up and ready in darkness anyway (either way). The earliest sunset is around 4:30 or so. Extending to 5:30 would increase personal safety by allowing people to commute home in daylight, especially for women. It also (at least for me) is psychologically better to be able to work during more daylight (instead of wasting it sleeping early in the morning).

english si

Quote from: SignGeek101 on March 07, 2017, 09:58:21 AMDST has nothing to do with why the latest sunrise / earliest sunset doesn't fall on solstice. It would happen either way:
And my point went whoosh over your head. The lopsidedness in when late dawns are is caused by DST carrying on too late in the fall and works the other way to the actual lag in sun times.
QuoteLatest sunrise here is 8:27 AM (without DST). Even before that time, most people would be going to work / at work, and kids would be getting ready to go to school.
Because we don't change our working hours with the seasons as if we've conquered nature and can ignore the sun. Plus we start too early anyway (even though an 8-5 day still is designed to give us more light before work than after, despite having an added hour at the beginning of the day over the traditional 9-5) - a study in Newcastle, England showed that starting high schools an hour later to 10am significantly decreased truancy (especially in winter) and increased grades.
QuoteMaking the sunrise an hour later wouldn't change much because most people are already getting up and ready in darkness anyway (either way). The earliest sunset is around 4:30 or so.
So you are on half-DST anyway - 3h33 before noon the sun rises, 4h30 after it sets: solar noon is therefore at half 12.
QuoteExtending to 5:30 would increase personal safety by allowing people to commute home in daylight, especially for women.
By making the morning more dangerous - when the UK trialled moving to CET in the 1970s by not changing the clocks back one fall, the accident rate went up, as did mental heath issues, for the years we trialled it.

I'm fine with DST in the summer as there is actually the sunlight to shift it to the end of the day without stealing it from the beginning. I'm not fine with it early Spring/late Fall when there's not the spare light in the morning to move to the evening. And I'm definitely not OK with it in winter when there's not even the light in the morning in the first place.
QuoteIt also (at least for me) is psychologically better to be able to work during more daylight (instead of wasting it sleeping early in the morning).
You are using it in the morning if you wake up after dawn - it's wasted if we don't let the light reset our circadian rhythms. OK, there's dawn lights and such like that can fake it, but the same can happen in the evening with regular lights (a far cheaper solution). Of course it's better to work during daylight - the issue is that we work too long in winter, forcing us to finish later than we would want (despite starting too early), not that we start too late.

Of course the problem is less DST and more an unhealthy cultural fetish for early risers, starting everything too early.


english si

Quote from: CNGL-Leudimin on March 06, 2017, 04:12:04 PMI agree. Spain is technically in DST all year round (Even in double DST for seven months), as we are in Central Europe time zone but we should be in the Western Europe one.
Stupid fascists!

How's the proposal to undo Franco's act of solidarity with Hitler going? Last I heard it was going well and the Spanish were progressing towards readopting sensible timekeeping, though the French proposal to abandon what they all happily smear as Berlin time has lost steam in the last couple of years.
QuoteAnd of course, our schedules are silly, we go to sleep near midnight for example.
Or in other words, you've shifted your day an hour later wrt the clocks to make it fit the sun better as year-round DST is bad, even as far south as Spanish latitudes.

jeffandnicole

Quote from: realjd on March 07, 2017, 09:50:40 AM
Quote from: Duke87 on March 06, 2017, 08:18:16 PM
Quote from: kphoger on March 06, 2017, 12:01:30 PM
someone who works a normal shift (7-to-4 or 8-to-5) should have approximately the same amount of daylight before work as after work.

Your definition of a "normal shift" intrigues me. My office is nominally 9 to 5 and that is what I've always understood to be the standard. Dolly Parton seems to concur as well.

9-5 assumes no lunch break. 8-5 is more common in my experience because that's gives folks an hour for lunch. My office is nominally 7:45 to 5:30 with 45 for lunch since we work a 9/80 schedule (9 hour days, every other Friday off) but it's flexible as long as you get your time in that day.

Ironically, Dolly Parton's normal schedule would've been weeknights and weekends...the exact opposite of most people!

If the normal schedule was 9 - 5, then why are the roads jammed with traffic before 5pm?


bandit957

Cincinnati is on DST in winter, and double DST the rest of the year.
Might as well face it, pooing is cool

epzik8

I sort of like the time change. It feels cool "manipulating" the time.
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vdeane

Quote from: jeffandnicole on March 07, 2017, 12:01:24 PM
If the normal schedule was 9 - 5, then why are the roads jammed with traffic before 5pm?
I think it's people who offset their schedule backwards to "beat the traffic".
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.

kkt

Quote from: english si on March 07, 2017, 06:25:49 AM
Quote from: kkt on March 07, 2017, 12:41:13 AMActually, before clocks people got up when it got light enough to see what they were doing.  Kind of like we do by shifting the clocks an hour later.
Except they were able to fine tune it well, whereas DST is a blunt instrument of a large shift twice a year. Add in that the 7-5 (Europe) / 8-4 (US) month bias towards noon-at-1am is lopsided - Spring starts about the right time for a 6 (Europe) or 6.5 (US) month stint of DST, but we then don't change back until a good few weeks after we should, and DST becomes an even more terrible way of meeting the aim of our natural bodies - with overly late sunrises in Fall meaning we're all getting up in the dark in October just because we want the kids trick-or-treating in the light.

It is a blunt instrument, making the change all at once.  However, you probably know that most of the natural change in sunrise times is packed into the months of the equinoxes.  For Seattle (where I live, 47 degrees north) sunrise times:

March  1:  6:49 AM PST
March 31: 6:49 AM PDT (5:49 AM PST)

Despite its defects, I definitely don't want to use standard time year around, much less DST year around.  Making an hour shift all in one night seems like a lot better idea than two or three half-hour shifts.

The change back does happen too late in the year, even in Europe, and even later in the US and Canada.  It should be dark during trick or treating.  If that's too scary, maybe you should keep your elementary school kids inside watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" instead of trick or treating.  I'd put it at the beginning of October.

What would it take for the US, Canada, and Europe to switch on the same dates?  Obviously I don't expect equatorial countries to start changing, but there's no reason the northern temperate zone countries couldn't all change at the same time.

Quote
DST makes sense when the dawn wakes us up a good while before the alarm clock, but the numbers on the clock when we are 'meant' to wake up don't really allow for much time in the year when that is the case - especially in North America where dawns don't get as extreme as in the UK (other than Alaska and the large expanses of Canada north of the 50th where just a tiny fraction the people live) and there's a culture of getting up earlier than we do in the UK. But DST isn't about maintaining the dawn to be a useful time - it's about making evenings lighter - a worthwhile aim, but not one we particularly cared about until the late 19th century - we're happy to stay up long after nightfall, but we are not as happy to get up in the dark.*

Of course nobody cared about it much until the late 19th century, there weren't all that many activities that ordinary people engaged in that required exact times of day.

Quote
Plus the energy consumption argument has been debunked.

*We're also not that happy to go to bed in the light. It being light at 10pm is the bane of many parents who haven't invested in blackout curtains in the UK (of course, much of their worry is based on the incorrect notion that we need the same amount of sleep in summer as winter). And Cub camps (as a cub, and as a quasi-young leader as my Dad was pressganged in to be a leader when I left) in June were always fun: most years it never got dark, so we had to be tired out. Going on 5 mile hikes leaving around 8:30-9 pm (physical exercise, but not adrenaline producing like a running around game would be). Force-fed low-sugar high-milk cocao to try and make us drowsy. We were never sent (or never sent the cubs) to bed until gone 11pm and they had a strict rule of no noise until we say so. The second night was a bit easier as we tire them out more during the day, but even then it's still about an 11pm bedtime - just that they actually fall asleep not long afterwards.

I'm curious, is there really good evidence that kids require less sleep in the summer than the winter?

kphoger

Quote from: Duke87 on March 06, 2017, 08:18:16 PM
Agreeing to start work an hour earlier from Mid-March through early November is mathematically equivalent to setting the clocks forward, but the latter is easier for people to handle psychologically because we're socially conditioned to react to what the clock says.

I do realize that what I'm quoting was not in direct reply to me, but...

We anti-DST folks generally advocate both not changing the clocks twice a year and not changing our work schedules twice a year.  My point earlier is that full-time DST is mathematically the same as eliminating DST altogether, except that 12:00 is moved even further away from midday and midnight.  I say we put 12:00 as close to midday and midnight as reasonable, then leave the darned clocks alone.
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Male pronouns, please.

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02 Park Ave

North America and Europe did change the clocks on the same days at one time.  It was the United States which changed the dates.
C-o-H

kphoger

Quote from: 02 Park Ave on March 07, 2017, 03:19:12 PM
North America and Europe did change the clocks on the same days at one time.  It was the United States which changed the dates.

In March 2010, I drove south of the border, then drove back north again six days later.  While I was in Mexico, the USA switched to DST.  I had to explain to everyone with me why they hadn't had to change their clocks on the way down yet had to change them on the way back up.  I told them the US Congress doesn't have any authority in Mexico so, when they extended DST in 2005, it didn't apply to Mexico.  Minds were blown.
Keep right except to pass.  Yes.  You.
Visit scenic Orleans County, NY!
Male pronouns, please.

Quote from: Philip K. DickIf you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.

kkt

Quote from: 02 Park Ave on March 07, 2017, 03:19:12 PM
North America and Europe did change the clocks on the same days at one time.  It was the United States which changed the dates.

Really?  Um.. Sorry about that, folks.

Pink Jazz

Quote from: 02 Park Ave on March 07, 2017, 03:19:12 PM
North America and Europe did change the clocks on the same days at one time.  It was the United States which changed the dates.

Actually, spring forward in Europe is a week earlier than it used to be in the United States (last Sunday in March, vs. first Sunday in April as it once was in the US).

CNGL-Leudimin

And in Spain we used to do the fall change on the last Sunday of September, thus staying half a year in both DST and standard time. Now we spent more time in DST than in standard time.
Quote from: english si on March 07, 2017, 11:42:45 AMStupid fascists!

How's the proposal to undo Franco's act of solidarity with Hitler going? Last I heard it was going well and the Spanish were progressing towards readopting sensible timekeeping, though the French proposal to abandon what they all happily smear as Berlin time has lost steam in the last couple of years.

No news about that.
Quote from: english si on March 07, 2017, 11:42:45 AMOr in other words, you've shifted your day an hour later wrt the clocks to make it fit the sun better as year-round DST is bad, even as far south as Spanish latitudes.

Yup, that explains why I think 6:00 a.m. is too early. In fact I was on the road at that time only once.
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english si

Quote from: kkt on March 07, 2017, 02:28:47 PMDespite its defects, I definitely don't want to use standard time year around, much less DST year around.  Making an hour shift all in one night seems like a lot better idea than two or three half-hour shifts.

The change back does happen too late in the year, even in Europe, and even later in the US and Canada.  It should be dark during trick or treating.  If that's too scary, maybe you should keep your elementary school kids inside watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" instead of trick or treating.  I'd put it at the beginning of October.
Agree with all of this.

02 Park Ave

There were two interesting items in the news over the past year:

Utah was considering exempting itself from DST.

Massachusetts was considering moving to the Atlantic time zone and then exempting itself from DST.

Does anyone here know the outcome on these considerations?
C-o-H

inkyatari

Quote from: 02 Park Ave on March 07, 2017, 04:53:30 PM
There were two interesting items in the news over the past year:

Utah was considering exempting itself from DST.

Massachusetts was considering moving to the Atlantic time zone and then exempting itself from DST.

Does anyone here know the outcome on these considerations?

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/01/11/massachusetts-time-zone-change-eastern-daylight-saving-time-standard/

Apparently they have until March 21, 2017 to finish a report.
I'm never wrong, just wildly inaccurate.

kalvado

Quote from: 02 Park Ave on March 07, 2017, 04:53:30 PM
There were two interesting items in the news over the past year:

Utah was considering exempting itself from DST.

Massachusetts was considering moving to the Atlantic time zone and then exempting itself from DST.

Does anyone here know the outcome on these considerations?
MA still considers that, as far as I know. They believe shifting clock in winter would make life better in terms of people seeing more sunlight and being willing to actually stay in Boston after graduating MIT/Harvard. Somehow I doubt that would make a difference...

inkyatari

I'm never wrong, just wildly inaccurate.



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