DST (2018)

[jeffandnicole]

DST is pointless, but let's make it confusing and over-complicated, like IoT.

Being that most people want DST, and if given the option would elect to have it year-round, it's hardly pointless. 

I don't believe most people would elect to have it year-round.  It was extremely unpopular when year-round was actually tried.

Here at 47 degrees north, the morning commute is already in twilight a couple of weeks before and after the winter solstice and it's pretty unpleasant.  We don't need it to be months of twilight or full darkness for the commute.

And that is the problem.  There's a lot of people, here included, that hate switching times.  But regardless if you leave it at Standard time, Daylight time, or even :30, there's going to be issues people won't be happy with.

Now, when it was tried 40 years ago people hated it, so 4 decades later the result may be different.  But the problems will still exist.

[hbelkins]

I would like to see a state by state referendum on DST.  Then we know how really popular it is or isn't and make changes accordingly.

Why do we even need a state by state referendum?  Just move the clocks back half an hour next fall and be done with it.  People will adjust and life will go on.

Most of the world lives on 1 hour increments to help with synchronizing events. Going to 30 min increments would look moronic. 
Moving time zone lines is much more realistic.

Isn't there some isolated time zone somewhere that's a half-hour off its neighbors? I'm pretty sure there was at one time, but not sure if it still exists or not.

[formulanone]

I would like to see a state by state referendum on DST.  Then we know how really popular it is or isn't and make changes accordingly.

Why do we even need a state by state referendum?  Just move the clocks back half an hour next fall and be done with it.  People will adjust and life will go on.

Most of the world lives on 1 hour increments to help with synchronizing events. Going to 30 min increments would look moronic. 
Moving time zone lines is much more realistic.

Isn't there some isolated time zone somewhere that's a half-hour off its neighbors? I'm pretty sure there was at one time, but not sure if it still exists or not.

Newfoundland, among others, as per this site.

But Nepal UTC +5:45 and New Zealand at +12:45 and +13:45 is mystifying. That's not marching to a different beat, but marching to two different drum kits.

[kalvado]

I would like to see a state by state referendum on DST.  Then we know how really popular it is or isn't and make changes accordingly.

Why do we even need a state by state referendum?  Just move the clocks back half an hour next fall and be done with it.  People will adjust and life will go on.

Most of the world lives on 1 hour increments to help with synchronizing events. Going to 30 min increments would look moronic. 
Moving time zone lines is much more realistic.

Isn't there some isolated time zone somewhere that's a half-hour off its neighbors? I'm pretty sure there was at one time, but not sure if it still exists or not.

India, due to English joke of up-side-down clock. Iran, I believe, and central Australia. There was even 45 minutes somewhere.

[1995hoo]

There's an area of central Australia around Eucla that uses an unofficial 45-minute time zone to reduce the time differential between that area and Perth and Adelaide. During standard time the difference from Perth to Adelaide is an hour and a half and during DST it's two and a half hours because Western Australia doesn't observe DST. (I suppose without the unofficial zone they'd be on the same time as Perth, so I guess it's a nuisance being up against the other time zone boundary with such a big difference so they split the difference?)

Somewhere online there's a picture of a road sign noting that time zone.

[kkt]

People like DST in the summer, and they like standard time in the winter, but they don't like switching.  We need to give them lollipops.

[Pete from Boston]

I 100 percent dislike DST. It's a concept past its time (pun unintended)–one that seems to only create unnecessary difficulty in the modern information era. Most people don't live and work by the solar clock anymore. The US needs to drop the idiocy and either stick with standard time, or permanently move forward an hour.

But.. But.. But... KIDS! GO! TO! SCHOOL! IN! THE! DARK!!!!

Tradespeople generally start their day at sunrise in the winter.  Pushing sunrise an hour later would also cram a bunch more folks on the road together.

The year-round DST argument is an obvious one mostly to 9-to-5ers.  The rest of us, not so much.

[1995hoo]

I was reminded while working today of another way that DST time changes screw things up - the fact that it creates days which are not 24 hours long. When trying to do analysis on a years' worth of data collected in 15-minute intervals, this becomes a bit of a headache to have to account for. Especially since the 23 and 25 hour days do not fall on the same calendar date each year.

....

The changing dates could be addressed via various calendar-reform proposals that would make all or substantially all the months the same length and then use "blank days"–days not assigned to a particular weekday, plus perhaps a couple of days assigned to weeks but not numbered as days of a month–to balance it out. The "Shire Calendar" from the Lord of the Rings (found in one of the appendices to "The Return of the King," or online via a Google search) is an example of this sort of thing. The Shire Calendar uses a fictional "Mid-year's Day" as the "blank day," but you could use New Year's Day if you wanted something more universal.

Of course, that sort of idea would run into a lot of opposition from religious people who believe the seven-day week is sacred and from people who would grouse about things like the dates of holidays (should US Independence Day still be observed on July 4? Do you need to adjust the Computus used to determine the date of Easter?*) or whose birthdays no longer exist (such as those of us born on the 31st of a month). Not to mention the calendar industry, of course, who make money off the way the dates change days change every year.

I've always thought the calendar reform ideas are an interesting concept that stand almost no chance of becoming reality.

*Regarding the Computus issue, it'd be similar to what most of the Orthodox Churches do now because they determine the date of Easter via the Julian Calendar and then map it to the Gregorian Calendar.

Calendar issues are more or less non-existant, with leap year being relatively easily accounted for and irregularities being quite infrequent. Daylight savings, however, is a constant nuisance - and to make it worse, it is not fully predictable as politicians love to play with the clock for whatever reasons.
I know that a big factory over here uses internal time, and equipment control system runs on EST the year round, no EDT.
On a separate, but similar notice - as far as I know, NavStar system (commonly referred to as GPS) does not accommodate leap seconds. Which are, like leap years, a result of natural cycles being not exactly proportional to human-made units. In fact solar system motion is somewhat chaotic... But as a result, GPS time is offset from observed time by, if I remember correctly, 15 seconds by now.

Notice I was responding specifically to the sentence highlighted in boldface in the post I was quoting. That's why I brought up the calendar reform issue. Obviously it's not an issue that's ever going to gain serious traction in society any time soon. I think there's a better chance of the USA adopting metric measurement than there is of the calendar being reformed!

[english si]

There's an area of central Australia around Eucla that uses an unofficial 45-minute time zone to reduce the time differential between that area and Perth and Adelaide.

No, they split the difference between the two time zones to reduce the time difference to their near neighbours (anywhere along the road about 150 miles from the border either way though most of the small population is within 30 miles of the border) across the border.

They actually create a 45 minute time difference (105 for South Australia in summer) with their respective state capital - but as they are over 1000km away, it doesn't matter much to be on the same time as them. It matters a bit more that they aren't on the same time as their nearest towns - but even they are a long drive away (and they might go west or east) and so a time change isn't a problem even them.

[Duke87]

For data like that collected every 15 minutes, 24x7, I'd see if it was possible to use UTC instead of local civil time.  That's what astronomers do.

I'm not the one collecting the source data, I have to work with it as is.
And actually that is itself part of the headache, since "as is" involves DST being handled differently in different datasets.

Also, while being presented data indexed to UTC would simplify life somewhat, for the particular analysis I am doing, the local time matters - so I can't just work wholly in UTC and ignore clock changes.

[MikeTheActuary]

DST interferes with one portion of business at work. Our restaurant POS is set to run its daily closure routines at 2:45 a.m. every night. On the night that the time changes in the spring, the clock jumps from 1:59:59 directly to 3:00:00, and the server doesn't close that Saturday's business because 2:45 doesn't happen. Last year, I figured out the correct order to manually run the processes. This year, we're changing the time to 3:15 temporarily.

Why not change the process to 3:15 permanently?

In the US, having daily processes run between 1am and 3am is asking for trouble if the computers involved operate on observed local time.

[vdeane]

As a matter of fact someone already tried that. USSR was running a 6-day "week" calendar in parallel with 7-day week in 1930-s, with "weekend" being 6,12,18, 24 and 30th of each month.

Then there was the French Republican Calendar, which tried to do everything in terms of tens (a "décade"  of ten days instead of a seven-day week, ten hours in a day, other weirdness). It had a number of problems and didn't last long at all. A major reason it was formulated was part of the anti-religion aspects of the French Revolution and the Gregorian Calendar being seen as tied to religion.

As I type this, under that calendar the time is 4:72 and the date is 24 Ventôse CCXXVI.

From what I've read, the reason metric time failed is because most people actually owned clocks, which were pretty expensive, and didn't want to replace them.

[bulldog1979]

DST interferes with one portion of business at work. Our restaurant POS is set to run its daily closure routines at 2:45 a.m. every night. On the night that the time changes in the spring, the clock jumps from 1:59:59 directly to 3:00:00, and the server doesn't close that Saturday's business because 2:45 doesn't happen. Last year, I figured out the correct order to manually run the processes. This year, we're changing the time to 3:15 temporarily.

Why not change the process to 3:15 permanently?

In the US, having daily processes run between 1am and 3am is asking for trouble if the computers involved operate on observed local time.

We did just shift it this week to move it back permanently. We'll have to see how it changes the auditors' workflows though. For one, it will mean a longer lunch break waiting for the reports to process and print. For the other, it could mean she ends up staying over at the end of her night because it pushes things back and she runs out of time at the end of her shift.

[1995hoo]

As a matter of fact someone already tried that. USSR was running a 6-day "week" calendar in parallel with 7-day week in 1930-s, with "weekend" being 6,12,18, 24 and 30th of each month.

Then there was the French Republican Calendar, which tried to do everything in terms of tens (a "décade"  of ten days instead of a seven-day week, ten hours in a day, other weirdness). It had a number of problems and didn't last long at all. A major reason it was formulated was part of the anti-religion aspects of the French Revolution and the Gregorian Calendar being seen as tied to religion.

As I type this, under that calendar the time is 4:72 and the date is 24 Ventôse CCXXVI.

From what I've read, the reason metric time failed is because most people actually owned clocks, which were pretty expensive, and didn't want to replace them.

I read there were a whole host of issues: replacing clocks, difficulty dealing with people in other countries who followed the standard calendar and time, general resentment of a change from having a seven-day week with one day off to a ten-day décade with one day off, the calendar not being synced to an actual orbit around the sun because the year was to begin on the autumnal equinox and that doesn't fall on the same day every year, uncertainty as to exactly how leap years were to be calculated.....

It would be kind of neat to own a French Republican dual clock that showed both that time and regular time, but we have more important expenses.



Regarding Australian Central Western Time, here is that road sign I mentioned. I love the "WHY?" someone wrote on there.

[kalvado]

It would be kind of neat to own a French Republican dual clock that showed both that time and regular time, but we have more important expenses.

There should be an app for that... Or writing one should be fairly easy!

[1995hoo]

It would be kind of neat to own a French Republican dual clock that showed both that time and regular time, but we have more important expenses.

There should be an app for that... Or writing one should be fairly easy!

There is. I have two. That's how I knew the date and time. But the analog clocks look a lot more interesting!

[vdeane]

I've wondered why South Australia and Northern Territory are on that half hour offset.  Why not a full hour offset like it was when time zones were established?

I've also wondered why Saint Pierre and Miquelon is in UTC - 3 instead of UTC - 3.5 or UTC - 4.  The way it is now, it's like they're on DST in the winter and double DST in the summer.

The more I research the time zones everywhere, the more it seems like every single change (other than to end the practice of every single city deciding whether to follow DST individually) since they were first established has made things less logical than they were before.

[kkt]

For Australia, just as general background, the states were poorly connected until relatively recently.  The distances were long and the roads were poor.  Each state had its own railroad, but there were different gauges and not connected until 1969.  That means that each state would be free to set their time zone to the closest approximation of solar time for their biggest city, rather than use one hour jumps.

[wxfree]

I like the DST setup the way it is now, putting extra daylight in the evening when we have it to spare, and then conserving it for morning when there isn't enough to go around.  I don't mind the switch between the two, but a lot of people don't like it, so I have a solution.  Instead of changing times, in early spring, everyone stays on the same time but moves a few hundred miles to the west to enjoy the later sunset.  Then in late fall they move back to the east and take their clocks with them.  Coastal residents can take a cruise for the part of the year they move toward the water.

[kkt]

I like the DST setup the way it is now, putting extra daylight in the evening when we have it to spare, and then conserving it for morning when there isn't enough to go around.  I don't mind the switch between the two, but a lot of people don't like it, so I have a solution.  Instead of changing times, in early spring, everyone stays on the same time but moves a few hundred miles to the west to enjoy the later sunset.  Then in late fall they move back to the east and take their clocks with them.  Coastal residents can take a cruise for the part of the year they move toward the water.

A modest proposal

[formulanone]

I like the DST setup the way it is now, putting extra daylight in the evening when we have it to spare, and then conserving it for morning when there isn't enough to go around.  I don't mind the switch between the two, but a lot of people don't like it, so I have a solution.  Instead of changing times, in early spring, everyone stays on the same time but moves a few hundred miles to the west to enjoy the later sunset.  Then in late fall they move back to the east and take their clocks with them.  Coastal residents can take a cruise for the part of the year they move toward the water.

A modest proposal

Also, if we consume one child per year, the school scheduling and overpopulation problem goes away entirely.

[slorydn1]

Workplaces that have workers on the overnight shift during fallback night in the fall may have some issues too.  If an employee usually works Saturday night at 10 PM until 6 AM Sunday it's usually 8 hours, but during fallback night it's 9 hours and they're entitled to overtime.

It's not really a problem. What we do at our agency is write down the 12 hours we usually work regardless. So if I work the spring one I'm only working 11 hours, but I'll make up for it in November by working 13, so over the course of the year it all balances out.


Back in the day we used to put down 11 and 13 but it was decided to just have us put down the same 12 either way. It saved the county a half hour of comp time and we don't get shorted because the other week is short by 1 hour.

[jakeroot]

Workplaces that have workers on the overnight shift during fallback night in the fall may have some issues too.  If an employee usually works Saturday night at 10 PM until 6 AM Sunday it's usually 8 hours, but during fallback night it's 9 hours and they're entitled to overtime.

It's not really a problem. What we do at our agency is write down the 12 hours we usually work regardless. So if I work the spring one I'm only working 11 hours, but I'll make up for it in November by working 13, so over the course of the year it all balances out.

Back in the day we used to put down 11 and 13 but it was decided to just have us put down the same 12 either way. It saved the county a half hour of comp time and we don't get shorted because the other week is short by 1 hour.

Unless I missed something, OT is calculated for the work week, not over the course of an entire year. In the fall, an employee that normally works 40 hours works 41, and is entitled to overtime pay for that extra hour. Just because it's an hour made up that was previously lost in March doesn't mean he's not entitled to the OT pay. He still worked a longer-than-normal week.

[jeffandnicole]

Workplaces that have workers on the overnight shift during fallback night in the fall may have some issues too.  If an employee usually works Saturday night at 10 PM until 6 AM Sunday it's usually 8 hours, but during fallback night it's 9 hours and they're entitled to overtime.

It's not really a problem. What we do at our agency is write down the 12 hours we usually work regardless. So if I work the spring one I'm only working 11 hours, but I'll make up for it in November by working 13, so over the course of the year it all balances out.

Back in the day we used to put down 11 and 13 but it was decided to just have us put down the same 12 either way. It saved the county a half hour of comp time and we don't get shorted because the other week is short by 1 hour.

Unless I missed something, OT is calculated for the work week, not over the course of an entire year. In the fall, an employee that normally works 40 hours works 41, and is entitled to overtime pay for that extra hour. Just because it's an hour made up that was previously lost in March doesn't mean he's not entitled to the OT pay. He still worked a longer-than-normal week.

Yep.  What the county is doing is illegal. 

[vdeane]

It probably depends on whether he's paid hourly or salary, and whether he's entitled to full time and a half overtime, just straight time overtime, or no overtime at all.  And if they're going to give him overtime for the long day, are they going to dock his pay for the short one?  Seems like the issue is messy no matter how you do it... if you ignore it, it's fair if the number of long and short days is even, but not if someone works a different number of each due to dates of their employment.  And if you factor it in, depending on how you do it, the company might have to eat that hour, or employees will arbitrarily have a smaller paycheck one pay period.

Overtime rules can lead to interesting policies.  At my last job, employees were paid straight time, and we had flex time, so the only rule was that your hours worked and paid time off used needed to add to 80.  Interns, however, could not flex their time across weeks, because they were entitled to full time and a half overtime, so the accounting didn't work.