Daylight Savings

[Actaeon]

Take the poll and discuss.

[keira]

all time should be measured in UTC. this isn't the damn stone ages, we are a global society and one clock is enough.

 

just wait until we go to space and we have multiple planets. christ

[Randomizer]

but it's so much fun to watch people try to reset their clocks correctly.

[Level 1 Hermit]

It just screwed today for me. Missed an hour of my first class. gg

[Cairo Jim]

This may be a common thing for people from my state since we don't use it, but I can't stand it.

[Khoth]

I'm always glad when the clocks change.

[Aran]

We're not getting it for another two weeks here in Europe. You can imagine how fun this makes calculating cross-Atlantic time differences.

 

I'm personally fine with using UTC or even any other incrementing counter that has an 86400-second period and gets leap second adjustments. (China already operates on a single timezone despite spanning five of them geographically.)

 

Using straight Unix timestamps - or even a timestamp without leap seconds - would be kind of cool but impractical since we operate on a daily rhythm. I can't do modulo arithmetic in my head in order to figure out that 1415001600 and 1415088000 are both 8AM, one day apart. Note, though, that it's really fun to get used to (approximately) converting time intervals into seconds in your head. 15:40 minutes is one Ks, 11.6 days is one Ms, 31.7 years is one Gs, etc.

[Actaeon]

Seconds seem like a truly arbitrary measurement. 1/60 of 1/60 of 1/24 of a day, plus they were slightly off in calculating the length of a day so even that's not quite right. If we're going to restructure our time system, why not just start with a day and use base ten from there? A miliday is pretty close to the minute we're used to and just about long enough to microwave a cup of coffee.

[Jerakeen]

A day is a semi-arbitrary measurement as well, since it depends on the rotation of the earth, which is subject to change. Not enough change that a human would notice, but enough to mess up your units. So basically you'd have to pick one day for your system to be based on. Arbitrarily.

 

Not saying it's worse than the system we have now, but I don't think it's better enough to be worth bothering with.

[Lilith]

Seconds seem like a truly arbitrary measurement. 1/60 of 1/60 of 1/24 of a day, plus they were slightly off in calculating the length of a day so even that's not quite right. If we're going to restructure our time system, why not just start with a day and use base ten from there? A miliday is pretty close to the minute we're used to and just about long enough to microwave a cup of coffee.

 

actually the second is now defined not in terms of the day but in terms of the frequency of radiation emitted by a caesium atom. tmyk

[Aran]

It's still arbitrary, of course, based on the coincidence that 9192631770 periods of this radiation just happen to be reasonably close to 1/86400 of a solar day. However, this does mean the value of the second is now based on fundamental physical laws, and won't change as the Earth's rotation slows down.

 

As far as I know, though, the only SI unit that still has a "dirty" definition is the kilogram.

 

(One of my favorite impractical time formats would be to use the PGP word list - basically a phonetic alphabet for bytes instead of letters - to spell out the Unix timestamp. While I was writing this, it was "dwelling businessman clamshell article". The last word changes every second; the third every 4:16 minutes, the second every 18:12:16 hours, and the first every 194 days. This format doesn't handle negative pre-1970 times though, and after 2036 it'll require five words.)

[Dikiyoba]

Time zones and daylight savings at least attempts to match local day and night cycles, which is pretty important for outdoor work and activities and for maintaining circadian rhythms. Daylight savings does a bit to keep the workday in sync with day and night cycles, though I have no idea whether it does enough to be worth the confusion of keeping it around. Time zones seem a lot less useful than they could be since they don't take latitude into account. They should probably be squareish, rather than a giant longitudinal stripe, perhaps with some additional adjustments for major mountain ranges or climate. That said, having a standard time system like the UTC for comparison and synchronizing activities with participants from multiple time zones is important too. Probably what we need to do is just get used to using a local time and UTC together. Need to know the time related to a local activity or when outside? Local time. Travel a lot, or online, or recording data? UTC.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Edgwyn]

I routinely see items marked in UTC and then translate to local time. I am not interested in giving up local time, because I like consistently knowing when sunrise and sunset are going to occur (within an hour or so at least pending on how far North or South I am from the equator) which drives so much other activity. We haven't been able to convert America to the SI or metric system which might have an economic benefit, I do not see how we could get folks to change time systems without any real benefit. Theoretically, daylight savings time generates some energy savings and therefore some reduction in green house gas emissions.

[Kelandon]

Theoretically, daylight savings time generates some energy savings and therefore some reduction in green house gas emissions.

This is literally the entire point, except not "theoretically" but "actually." I don't know how the votes in this poll could be going the way that they're going except ignorance.

 

Also, DST is much less confusing now than it has ever been before, because most people's timekeeping devices (computers, phones) adjust automatically. I still wear a wristwatch, so I have to adjust that manually, but most people don't.

[Alorael at Large]

DST was implemented on the strength of energy savings and benefits to business, but I don't think there's any clear and compelling evidence validating the energy savings.

 

—Alorael, who has no strong feelings one way or the other. DST is no fun in the spring, but it's lovely in the fall. His schedule conspires to keep him in the dark no matter what.

[Dikiyoba]

This is literally the entire point, except not "theoretically" but "actually." I don't know how the votes in this poll could be going the way that they're going except ignorance.

Probably because most SW members are sleep-deprived students and not employees in businesses that benefit from DST. So yes, ignorance.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Actaeon]

I guess my sense is that most of the benefits of DST could be accomplished by changing schedules where necessary. Many businesses have different summer and winter hours anyway.

[Edgwyn]

Essentially, that is what DST is, a changing of schedules, except it is uniform instead of haphazard. If a business changes its schedule it has a large impact on its employees who happen to be parents unless the schools and day care centers change their schedules as well Likewise with people who work multiple jobs.

[Balladeer]

I cared about this more before I started sleeping with a pillow over my head. And now I have an alarm clock with a one-push DST on/off button so... meh.

[Questionably Legal]

Daylight Savings Time probably causes a major, if short-lived, loss of productivity in the workforce. Even more so among sleep deprived students.

[VCH]

I still wear a wristwatch, so I have to adjust that manually, but most people don't.

 

Nice!

 

So do I.

[Edgwyn]

I wear a watch as well. I am used to traveling a lot and so DST to me is no more memorable than changing timezones on a trip, it is just something that you do. As a sometimes sleep deprived adult I do not enjoy the loss of an hour of sleep in the Spring, but I know that I will get an extra hour of sleep in the Fall.

[Actaeon]

Are wristwatches out of vogue now? Does that mean in another decade pocket watches will come back and I'll be momentarily cool?

[Sudanna]

Pocket watches are already cool.

[Edgwyn]

A lot of people who always have cel phones with them no longer bother to wear wrist watches. Cel phones never require setting, there are apps for all of the different functions you might want (stop watch, count down, etc), there is not a lot of point to buying and wearing a watch. I still do out of habit and because there are some situations that I am in where having a cel phone out is not socially acceptable.

 

I am curious if a certain segment of society will eventually embrace wrist watches the way they have pocket watches. Of course it will take a while for wrist watches to be dead. Too bad I did not accumulate a collection of swatch watches that I could hold on to for another forty or so years and then sell when wrist watches become cool.

[Lilith]

A lot of people who always have cel phones with them no longer bother to wear wrist watches. Cel phones never require setting, there are apps for all of the different functions you might want (stop watch, count down, etc), there is not a lot of point to buying and wearing a watch. I still do out of habit and because there are some situations that I am in where having a cel phone out is not socially acceptable.

 

phones are small enough these days that you could just keep one strapped to your wrist and call it a watch

[Khoth]

I make few enough phone calls that I could just keep a watch strapped to my wrist and call it a phone.

[adc.]

What is this?

[Aran]

There are watches that can wirelessly interface with a phone now, by the way.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Such watches operate by pure sorcery. I still have a (broken) watch that requires winding daily.

 

I know I'm part of the minority, but I enjoy wearing a watch. In fact, I prefer analog watch faces. DST is a pain for me twice a year.

[Edgwyn]

Changing my watch is always easier then changing every other device in the house that displays time. I always have difficulty remembering how to change the time on the Washing Machine, Microwave, Oven, Car Stereo, etc, but never have problems with my watch.

[Actaeon]

Your washing machine has a clock?

[Randomizer]

I never considered resetting clocks that weren't controlling important timers. I had three power outages in one day when they were working on the power lines.

[Aran]

In other news, I just set my watch to correspond with the radio clock again. It gains about a quarter second per day, so I set it every 4-5 days or so.

 

(don't judge me)