Among the less substantive of my many reasons I hate daylight savings time, I have six watches that I have to change. Two of which I have to change twice because they are digital-analog combos. I am actually coming around to the notion that we ought to do away with time zones entirely.
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Here’s my crank on the subject. Daylight Savings Time, i.e., the non-standard time now runs from March through October. That’s eight months out of the year. So if “Standard” time runs for half as long out the year as the super-special, daylight-savings, time, which time is really standard now and which one is “different”? Hmmm??Report
Dang Rod, you stole my crank rant.Report
I actually wonder if we aren’t heading towards permanent DST. I fear that’s more likely than doing away with it. I do have to say I’m proud to live in a state that is at least questioning DST even if we don’t do anything about it.Report
Remember when we originally lengthened Daylight Savings Time? “It’s to save energy!”, the Republicans told us.
Of course, it didn’t. People used *MORE* energy, thus lining the pockets of their oil baron friends.
Let’s go back to the way things used to be. Six and Six. Come on. For the People.Report
Daylight savings time seems like a relic of an era where use of electrical lighting was not as ubiquitous as it is now (or was more costly for the average person). There’s no real point to it given that people don’t regulate their sleep cycles based on when the sun is up.
Time zones, though, I can see the point of, because people in the rest of the world shouldn’t have it arbitrarily declared that noon is in the middle of the night just because of the time in Greenwich. Or do you mean multiple time zones within one country? Changing that would still be very weird (a “9-5 workday” would look very different on the east coast versus the west) but not as much as abolishing them worldwide.
And it would mean Canada could stop fighting over reporting of election results. (Broadly, years ago we brought in a law saying you can’t report results from the east coast until the polls close on the west, because people in the Prairies and BC got tired of finding out the Liberals had won before we actually voted. Now the Internet has made that law kind of moot.)Report
My view is that midnight and noon are decoupled with 12pm. Maybe add an official dusk and dawn in between the two for comparison sake. So midnight would be 12am in Greenwich, but 4am in this other place, and 6pm, and so on.
Also, to me, part of the reason for this would be to move away from 9-5 (well, 8-5 in the US). It would provide the perfect opportunity for more companies to stagger their workday. Some might start at what we now call 8:00, some at 9, maybe even some at 10 or 7.
The big thing for me, though, is that when someone on the east coast and west coast say “6:00” nobody is having to ask which (even if – internationally speaking – we have to figure out what the time’s proximation to noon-dusk-midnight-dawn so that we’re not calling them in the middle of the night.
One of the many issues in Florida in 2000 was that they called Florida for Gore before the while the polls were still open in (Bush-heavy) western Florida. It’s a pretty legitimate concern, though with the Internet it’s hard to enforce (the media never called Ohio for Kerry, but they were implying that Ohio was looking bad for Bush in 2004 while other states were still voting).
My belief is that vote-counting shouldn’t even start until the last ballot has been cast in Hawaii.Report
My belief is that vote-counting shouldn’t even start until the last ballot has been cast in Hawaii.
Aw, but nobody wants to wait until the next morning for election results! (Or longer, if you assume the actual ballot-counters on the east coast want to get some sleep and start counting ballots the next morning, in which case you might not have results until the evening after election day.)Report
Well, there’s also a North South divide too. There’s almost an hour difference in daylight between Detroit and Jacksonville (Fl) right now. (and a bit over an hour for San Diego v Seattle)Report
We need 8 time zones! (Not counting AK and HI.)Report
Is it just an hour? Seems like more. Does that account for the extended summer daytime or are we just looking at winters?Report
I’m looking at the stats for today. It spreads out even more in a month and a half.Report
#humblebragReport
Cause I’m talking about how many watches I have? It’d seriously undermine my brag if I talked about what kind of watches they are. My digital-analogs are the prize of my collection and they were $30. It’s downhill from there.Report
Heh. There is something funny about complaining of the woes of owning six watches. But I was really just razzing you.
I own one nice watch but never wear it, because I always end up getting a rash from the band. Seems to signal me I shouldn’t wear watches. Also, in my line of work, any watch I wore would get torn up, dirtied, or otherwise destroyed in short order.
But as someone who owns lots of belts because I think they are a fun way to accessorize, I see no issue with owning multiple watches. Again, just a cheap razz… :-pReport
Sometimes I’m a Crank.
I see what you did there.
Would you say that this issue gets you unnecessarily (wait for it) “wound up”?Report
One of the little discussed issues of changing times is that when we “jump forward” it leads to an increase in traffic accidents, with an attendant increase in mortality and injury.Report
the biggest question here is “why do you have six watches?”
second biggest: do you wear them all at once? ’cause that’d be kinda bitchin’.Report
Remember Swatches?
That was awesome.Report
Because I am a freak and cannot wear a brown watch with black belt and shoes or vice-versa. All must be coordinated. I have a geek watch, a bigface watch (grade schholers LOVE them) and a cheap inconspicuous watch. Times two for black and brown.Report
there’s a time to be thorough, i suppose.Report
But which watch goes with a black belt and brown shoes?Report
Just everybody switch to using GMT as a standard so that we can have time stamps mean the same thing the world over.Report
Yeah. That’s what I was getting at with my last bit. I’m not sold on the idea, but I think I may soon be.Report
People’s brains are pretty fungible on that score. “We get up at 3 pm GMT” means that wake-up time happens to coordinate with 3pm GMT. “Lunchtime” is an abstraction, it doesn’t need to equal “noonish”. I suspect it would make switching time zones a lot easier, too.Report
I’m not sure what it says about you thta I saw “six watches” on the front page and thought, “Tha’s gotta be Will.”Report