House passes bill to enact year-round Daylight Saving Time across the country(www.cnn.com)
25 pointsby pseudolus2 hours ago10 comments
  • al_borland36 minutes ago
    I think saying on one time is better than switching back and forth, but we should really stick to Standard time.

    I know people like it to be light out later in the evenings, but they tried this before in the 1970s and it didn't last long[0]. It turns out not only do people not like it to be dark late into the morning, but it also makes it unsafe for kids going to school.

    Looking at sunrise and sunset times[1], people will spend a significant portion of the year with dark mornings.

    Historically, year-round DST was done to conserve energy during war time and other energy crunches. Standard time seems like the more balanced choice for year-round use... that's probably why it was the standard to begin with. As difficult as these things are to pass, and as disruptive as they are (especially now with software update requirements), getting it right instead of making the same mistakes of the past seems important.

    [0] https://washingtonian.com/2022/03/15/the-us-tried-permanent-...

    [1] https://savestandardtime.com/maps/

    • saulpw15 minutes ago
      I hate to say it, but you're the problem. One time is better than switching, but we switch because no matter which time standard we choose, some group of people takes issue. The only way we can get one time standard is if we all let go of our highest preference and allow the second-best thing to succeed. Otherwise we'll be doomed to third-best (devolving into worst--see Indiana and Arizona and all the other carveouts within carveouts) for eternity.
      • gboss10 minutes ago
        This is why I think we have to switch. Everyone should be equally miserable
  • gepeakean hour ago
    > But detractors say it could have economic consequences, particularly for farmers who would have to wrestle with later sunrises.

    I genuinely don't understand the "farmer's like DST" argument. Farmer's schedules are dictated by the sun not the time and the sun changes continuously year round. If the argument is about commercial coordination that follows the same logic of being difficult regardless given constantly shifting sunlight, at least without DST there's year-round consistency by the other businesses.

    • al_borlandan hour ago
      DST was never about farmers, it was to conserve energy for the war effort. Farmers also aren't punching a clock at an office. They can start and end work when they want, based on the weather and daylight that suits the work.
    • scheme271an hour ago
      It also varies depending on where in a time zone you are. The eastern and western sides of a timezone could see sunrise and sunset at significantly different times.
  • marssaxmanan hour ago
    I'm glad we're agreed that changing the clocks twice a year is a bad idea, but I don't understand why we should abandon Daylight Savings Time by adopting it permanently. What's so wrong with Standard Time?

    Oh, well: whether we put the clocks back or leave them permanently off-by-one, either is better than changing them around over and over.

    • mysterydip9 minutes ago
      The golf industry prefers daylight savings: https://gbej.org/golf-industry-fights-to-preserve-daylight-s...
    • Jtsummers44 minutes ago
      The reason for permanent daylight savings (versus permanent standard) is to provide for later sunsets in the winter. By clock time, the sun would be rising later (after 8am in many places) but setting later as well giving people some late afternoon or evening sun. Which is better is ultimately subjective, you get short days in the winter regardless when you live far enough north.

      The late sunrise can be more dangerous with a lot more people traveling in the dark (especially if there's mixed vehicle, bike, and pedestrian traffic, like around schools). So that's also something to consider, and a drawback to this particular choice.

  • hobonationan hour ago
    Cool. We did this before 1974 and immediately went back, and I never understood why. I guess I'll find out.

    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-the-...

    • bitshiftfaced35 minutes ago
      From what I'm reading, it was a big factor that children were walking to school in the dark. One stat I read was that since that time the percentage of kids walking/cycling to school went from almost 50% to now 10%. Maybe that could make the difference this time around.
  • ClassAndBurnan hour ago
    I finally built my side project and the government finally does something to make it pointless! Yay?

    https://www.daylightsmearings.com/

  • lioeters2 hours ago
    Curious how this affects date/time algorithms and software libraries, particularly those that do not have a way to sync with an external authoritative source of time. I guess they all need to be updated to account for this change?
    • toygan hour ago
      They need to be updated anyway, and always have been: somewhere in the world, someone changes time rules basically every year, or even every few months. All current OSes already have support for stating "locale X will not use daylight savings / will always use daylight saving, starting from day yyyymmdd at hhmm" through simple updates.
    • jaucoan hour ago
      Yes there’s databases like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database that track this and that are included in libraries that do the arithmetics. It’s why those libraries are often relatively bulky.
    • cpburns2009an hour ago
      An updated tz database.
      • bombcaran hour ago
        Or you set your timezone location to one that’s false, but matches what is now true (like Arizona, for example).
  • MilnerRoutean hour ago
    It still needs to pass the Senate.
  • an hour ago
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  • jmclnxan hour ago
    >though its chances in the upper chamber remain unclear

    Now they need to get it through the Senate. Maybe we'll see something useful passed during this admin :)

  • botacodean hour ago
    This will save a lot of lives! Hope it passes.

    The shift is a relic of an older economy and damages folks' lives through worse mental health and driving outcomes [0].

    [0]: https://www.coveragecat.com/blog/daylight-saving-time-car-in...