Time again for a Daylight Saving thread

[Q.Q.Switcheroo]

It worked in A Visit from the Goon Squad…

[Pork_Rind]

Aw hell, now there’s going to be an economy-ruining lever race. We must not allow a lever gap

[Spiderman]

@Pork_Rind

We must not allow a lever gap

Why not? We allow a clothing gap

[robby]

@Thudlow_Boink

@Lumpy

What was the rationale for making the permanent time Daylight Savings rather than Standard?

I believe there are a substantial number of people who think they want year-round Daylight Saving Time when what they really want is the long days that naturally occur in the summer.

“I really like how it stays light until late into the evening. That’s because we’re on DST. Let’s pass a law and make it stay light late into the evening all year.”

Of course “long days” and “staying light late into the evening” are two completely different things.

The former is physically impossible during winter at higher latitudes than the equator.

Then latter is certainly possible, but would involve switching the clocks forward much more than a mere hour. If you moved the clocks forward by 3 hours during the winter, it would stay light until about 7:30 pm in December. Of course sunrise would be at 10am.

Works for me!

[SailorHG]

@Pork_Rind

Let’s get the science nerds working on that one. Let’s get this tilting earth business on lock down once and for all. Long summer days year-round for everyone in the northern hemisphere and if the southern hemisphere folks don’t like it, well they can put their own science nerds to work on a second sun.

Sounds exactly like something Cave Johnson would say! (Portal 2 reference, for those who are WTF?ing right now.)

[Lumpy]

How do people in Scandinavia deal with short winter days AND the demands of a modern economy that people be up and about for at least 11-12* hours a day? Might have been easier in pre-industrial times when there wasn’t as much farm work during the winter.

*get up, eat something, commute to work or school, hours there, commute home.

[dtilque]

@robby

Of course “long days” and “staying light late into the evening” are two completely different things.

The former is physically impossible during winter at higher latitudes than the equator

Not actually impossible. You just have to increase the Earth’s precession rate from once per 26,000 years to once every year. It’s just a matter of engineering.

[robby]

@Lumpy

How do people in Scandinavia deal with short winter days AND the demands of a modern economy that people be up and about for at least 11-12* hours a day? Might have been easier in pre-industrial times when there wasn’t as much farm work during the winter.

*get up, eat something, commute to work or school, hours there, commute home.

Or Alaska, which is just as far north?

I was just there last week, and you have the opposite issue in the summer. In Kenai, sunrise was around 4:30 am, and sunset was at 11:30 pm. And it never gets completely dark at night.

But in winter, sunrise is at 10am, and sunset is around 4pm.

[DrDeth]

@Thudlow_Boink

I believe there are a substantial number of people who think they want year-round Daylight Saving Time when what they really want is the long days that naturally occur in the summer.

“I really like how it stays light until late into the evening. That’s because we’re on DST. Let’s pass a law and make it stay light late into the evening all year.”

Hmm.

@JRDelirious

Add me to the skeptics about whether there really is “massive” mortality over what’s acknowledged to be a “mild inconvenience”.

My cite proved there are no “massive increases in strokes, heart attacks,”.

[DrDeth]

The Republican idea has been tried, and Americans dont like it-

What happened the last time daylight saving became yearlong?

• A 1973 law aimed at saving energy during an oil crisis made daylight saving yearlong for a two-year period beginning Jan. 6, 1974.
• Americans reported disliking the darker winter mornings, and news outlets reported increased traffic accidents.
• The U.S. ended the trial early and returned to standard time Oct. 27, 1974.

[Ancient_Nerd]

We sprung ahead on Monday January 6. Those late sunrises were close to the maximum. Many people were returning to normal routines after the Christmas and New Years break. It’s hard to make the whole thing more unpleasant.

[LSLGuy]

Many people both then and later have suggested the timing was too awful to have been an accident.

Big DST will not be denied; the fix was in.

I’m not sure I buy that argument but I’m not sure I don’t. It’s always convenient to blame incompetence even when something more sinister was going on instead. Or in addition to.

[MeepersC]

So I have a myriad of mental health issues, including suicide ideation. November is a bad month for me, since so many people I love have either died or had serious health issues in November (honestly, I fucking hate Thanksgiving for that reason). Seasonal depression is one of my many mental health disorders, and the sudden change from having some sunshine at the end of the workday to having no sunshine at the end of the workday sends me into a spiral every year. Most Novembers, my suicide ideation skyrockets due to the memories and lack of sunshine. I’m one of the few who would trade driving to work in the dark if I could just have some needed sunshine when I got off work.

[Mark_Finn]

Those to the east of the middle of the time zone (15 degree multiple of longitude) tend to want Daylight time; those to the west tend to prefer Standard.

[LSLGuy]

Yep. And all the worse when the TZs are positioned for political or economic reasons, not their correspondence to solar time.

[susan]

That experiment in the 70s prompted me, then a child, to write to the president asking him to recind it because getting to school was inky black and icy. It was both miserable and frightening.