Daylight Saving Time

[Montreal Ltd]

Didn't the US have prolonged or year round DST in the late 1970s, during the oil "shortage"? We Canucks enjoyed watching the Late Show at a reasonable hour.

 

[JayPea]

Didn't the US have prolonged or year round DST in the late 1970s, during the oil "shortage"? We Canucks enjoyed watching the Late Show at a reasonable hour.

We did during the 1973-74 time frame. I remember going to school in the dark the winter of 1973-74.

 

[ScouseAndy]

Perhaps Trump can fix this by following Russia's lead and have all trains run on Moscow time at least then all Putins KGB operatives will know what time the train is due even if no one else does lol

 

[ehbowen]

This whole issue largely strikes me as half a dozen of one, and six of the other.

For every person who dislikes seasonal time changes, there will be someone else absolutely livid at the idea of changing school hours. If we should ever abolish Daylight Savings Time, somebody will start complaining about the continental United States being divided into four time zones, and then want to change that too.

There are at least a couple of people who seriously want to abolish all time zones everywhere....

 

[jis]

Daylight Saving Time actually does none of the things that it is supposed to do, and it is just a pain in the butt for a whole lot of people. ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-10/proof-daylight-saving-time-is-dumb-dangerous-and-costly

 

[A Voice]

Daylight Saving Time actually does none of the things that it is supposed to do, and it is just a pain in the butt for a whole lot of people. ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-10/proof-daylight-saving-time-is-dumb-dangerous-and-costly

Daylight Savings Time is supposed to give us an extra hour of daylight in the evenings. How exactly does it not do this?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Daylight Saving Time actually does none of the things that it is supposed to do, and it is just a pain in the butt for a whole lot of people. ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-10/proof-daylight-saving-time-is-dumb-dangerous-and-costly

Daylight Savings Time is supposed to give us an extra hour of daylight in the evenings. How exactly does it not do this?

Beats me but I did find this claim inside the very first link...

Representing the first meta-analysis in this literature, we collect 162 estimates from 44 studies and find that the mean reported estimate indicates modest energy savings: 0.34% during the days when DST applies.

That may not seem like much of a savings at first glance, and indeed that's how the authors presented it, but when you're talking about a country that is home to over 300 million people and is responsible for something like 20% of the world's total energy consumption it's huge.

I'd be curious if an anti-DST person can explain how changing the rules at the state level is going to make things easier for those of us who travel and communicate across state lines. In the past you only had to remember a couple of rogue states that refused to join with the vast majority. Now with a new wave of state-level repeals those of us visit and communicate with other states will need to start consulting new DST maps showing which states that have abandoned DST which have not. Not just one or twice a year, but every time we need to travel to or communicate with a state we haven't checked recently. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Then again this is America, so maybe we should just outlaw seasons altogether? None of us is as dumb as all of us.

 

[railiner]

This whole issue largely strikes me as half a dozen of one, and six of the other.

For every person who dislikes seasonal time changes, there will be someone else absolutely livid at the idea of changing school hours. If we should ever abolish Daylight Savings Time, somebody will start complaining about the continental United States being divided into four time zones, and then want to change that too.

There are at least a couple of people who seriously want to abolish all time zones everywhere....

That certainly does not include myself....I think that the current system of approximately 24 time zones based on solar time around the globe is just fine...

I just do not like the advancing of the clocks by season....

And a side note....that quote enclosed, is not mine....but "A Voice".....see post #43.....

 

[Lonestar648]

The cost to maintain DST is massive. I know with the company I used to work with, there was specific team assigned to test every piece of software, middleware, firmware, and hardware for every component our company developed for proper DST operation. That was a 365 day a year task since new developments are being made almost daily. Just one inconspicuous piece of hidden middle ware that doesn't handle the change properly can bring an entire major computer system to its knees. There were more issues with DST than any other issue on the trouble reports. Thing of the money that could be saved by eliminating DST. When the last change to DST by Congress was passed, it put our company and our competitors into a frenzy. ALL development had to stop for months while all the development folks focused on the DST changes for our existing customers. We were in the field loading software updates 7 days a week without a break, even weeks after the first change occurred. Congress stated how this was saving everyone money, when it actually cost businesses millions and millions that they could not recoup. Ask anyone in these groups, they would ALL say eliminate DST, the seasonal changes are a killer in technology.

 

[PVD]

Probably the biggest software issue arose when we moved the dates from where they were. Quite a bit of equipment was set up to change automatically, you had 2 choices on or off for changing at the standard date and time. Older s/ware that did not have a flexible parameter for when the change occurred needed to be "off" and changed manually, otherwise they would be changing on the wrong day. Twice a year I used to set up a "midnight run" for a tech to visit a small group of hotels with older software in their telephone and property management links, to make sure wake up calls were delivered properly. They took that very seriously.

 

[railiner]

Shades of "Y2K"?

 

[amamba]

I'd rather have it get dark a bit earlier at night, which would mean no more springing forward.

Given southwestern Michigan's position in the time zone, it stays light until 9:30-10:00. It makes it hard to settle down and do the nighttime relaxation thing before bed.

i agree. If we have to do away with the switch, I would rather live on standard time. Sunrise would be like 8 am in December on daylight savings time.

 

[PVD]

A discussion of Y2k (or as I knew it "cha-ching") as relates to software, could extend this thread even further off topic and there are so many stories it could be like the viewliner thread. I know I have dozens, but for sanity's sake I'm going to pass.

 

[jis]

The most bizarre DST related event was when Israel decided one week before the schedule change date to shift the date by several weeks. This caused a huge pain for a whole bunch of people who had scheduled meetings that involved participants from other countries. Which is doubly silly because Israel is far enough south to not really make much of a difference whether they have DST or not.

The two upcoming weeks will be confusing for a lot of us who have meetings scheduled with participants from Europe, since Europe does not change for another two weeks.

 

[John Bobinyec]

This year I remembered a conversation that member acelafan and I had about Amtrak's time adjustments when Standard Time becomes Daylight Time, so I'm adjusting schedules accordingly.

This is not about the Arizona or Indiana time zones. It's about the missing hour. As you know, on Sunday, 3/12/2017, at 2.01 a.m., time instantaneously jumps ahead to 3.01 a.m. Consider train 48 which normally arrives at Toledo at 2.50 a.m. and departs at 3.20 a.m. Within ARROW, the heart of Amtrak's reservation system, time is, for the lack of a better word, "undefined" between 2.01 a.m. and 3.01 a.m. Therefore, ARROW does not allow any train to be scheduled to arrive or depart during that period. On the morning of the twelfth, that arrival time cannot exist within ARROW. So, what to do? Well, Amtrak rescheduled the train to arrive at Toledo at 3.50 a.m. and they left the departure time as 3.20 a.m. In other words, the train is scheduled to depart 30 minutes before it is scheduled to arrive.

This wreaks of Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity thought experiments such as when trying to capture a car traveling at nearly the speed of light when it attempts to drive through a building with entrance and exit doors closing instantaneously and simultaneously as soon as the car enters the building. The car isn't captured - it's already gone.

There are other examples like train 48 this weekend. So if you call up Julie to find out where your train is, and time has changed for that train, you'd better be very careful, or else you'll miss it.

jb

This year, 2018, Amtrak solved the problem of the missing hour. Starting at 2.01 a.m. on 3/11/2018, it actually adjusted the schedule by adding an hour to all the remaining station stops, for that particular train. (I think it missed 58 and 59, though).

jb

 

[jis]

The State of Florida has started the ball rolling to get rid of the Spring and Fall time change in Florida. They want to permanently stay in EDT or in the Atlantic Time Zone.

A Federal law needs changing to have that take effect. Expect a bill in the next Congress to make it happen. The Florida State Legislature overwhelmingly passed the motion to do so, and Governor Scott is expected to sign on.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/07/us/florida-year-round-daylight-saving-time-trnd/index.html

 

[pennyk]

The State of Florida has started the ball rolling to get rid of the Spring and Fall time change in Florida. They want to permanently stay in EDT or in the Atlantic Time Zone.

A Federal law needs changing to have that take effect. Expect a bill in the next Congress to make it happen. The Florida State Legislature overwhelmingly passed the motion to do so, and Governor Scott is expected to sign on.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/07/us/florida-year-round-daylight-saving-time-trnd/index.html

some Floridians are NOT happy about this.

 

[John Bobinyec]

I hope the states all abandon DST or else it will be a royal mess trying to keep track of what time it is when you travel from state to state, if some of them observe DST and others don't - like a patchwork quilt.

jb

 

[jis]

Florida would merely join Arizona and Hawaii. This Floridian is quite happy about it. Florida is so far south that DST is mostly a pointless gyration anyway. The proposed change was overwhelmingly supported by the legislature and as far as I know general sentiment is in support of it. Of course there will be some that would not support it. That is true for almost anything.

What is interesting is that Florida has chosen to go for the Atlantic Time Zone rather than the Eastern Time Zone.

 

[pennyk]

I think abandoning DST and staying in the Eastern Time Zone would be a better move. I do not like the idea of being in a different time zone than the rest of the east coast during the winter. I think it will cause a lot of confusion when trying to watch network tv or travel on Amtrak and it will cause school children to go to school in the dark for many months.

 

[Rail Freak]

The State of Florida has started the ball rolling to get rid of the Spring and Fall time change in Florida. They want to permanently stay in EDT or in the Atlantic Time Zone.

A Federal law needs changing to have that take effect. Expect a bill in the next Congress to make it happen. The Florida State Legislature overwhelmingly passed the motion to do so, and Governor Scott is expected to sign on.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/07/us/florida-year-round-daylight-saving-time-trnd/index.html

I would be "One Happy Camper"!!!

 

[jis]

I think abandoning DST and staying in the Eastern Time Zone would be a better move. I do not like the idea of being in a different time zone than the rest of the east coast during the winter. I think it will cause a lot of confusion when trying to watch network tv or travel on Amtrak and it will cause school children to go to school in the dark for many months

Oddly enough, at least out here in the Space Coast, almost every parent of school going children that I talked to preferred to have their kids get on school buses in the dark in exchange for having more light during the evening after school activities. I have never had a kid so I have no specific position on this matter myself.

As for network TV, haven't touched that stuff directly in years. Anything I watch is typically time shifted to a convenient time suing DVR, or watched using streaming over the internet. More so the latter lately than the former.

As for traveling, always use local time and things will work out fine. It is no different than traveling to a different country or to a different time zone within the US.

I don't see this causing any more confusion here than it causes in Arizona, which is, really not that much.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I hope the states all abandon DST or else it will be a royal mess trying to keep track of what time it is when you travel from state to state, if some of them observe DST and others don't - like a patchwork quilt.

&

Florida would merely join Arizona and Hawaii. This Floridian is quite happy about it. Florida is so far south that DST is mostly a pointless gyration anyway. […] What is interesting is that Florida has chosen to go for the Atlantic Time Zone rather than the Eastern Time Zone.

It sounds like Florida is actually trying to abandon standard time and make daylight savings time permanent. Which sort of makes sense since in my experience most people who think they're complaining about daylight savings time are actually complaining about standard time instead. Calling Florida's proposal Atlantic Time is no more logical than claiming Arizona is on Pacific Time. Pacific Time changes twice each year, Arizona time does not. If federal law is amended to allow Florida's proposal we'll likely end up with more states switching rules and time zones in an arbitrary fashion. How that is supposed to help people keep track of time in any given location is beyond my comprehension.

 

[jis]

I have no idea what it will be called. The Time Zone they are going for is UTC-4.

In the world around North America, such a time zone is called either Eastern Daylight Time or Atlantic Time.

Of these EDT is clearly only in the winter.

Atlantic Time Zone is used all year round in Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, most of the Eastern Caribbean Islands and Quebec East of 63 deg West Lon.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Right now I only have to worry about keeping track of AZ time. HI, PR, VIR, etc. are relatively tiny outliers that have little if any impact on my daily life. But FL time does. As well as dozens of other states that may follow in their footsteps. Locations that are likely to soon have the option to independently choose (1) permanent daylight savings time, (2) permanent standard time, or (3) retain a combination of both. Locations that will likely make this decision independently of each other and based on their own provincial mindset and cultural proclivity. Anyone who thinks this is going to make things better needs to first explain how it won't make things worse.