Sunday, March 9, 2014

Wait, people hate Daylight Saving Time?

Because I sure don't. I don't know how it is further down south, where daytime duration is more consistent throughout the year, but here I always find myself anticipating it greatly, especially since we started doing the switch in early March instead of early April. It marks the period when the sun starts setting at a reasonable hour (up until yesterday there was no light whatsoever past 5:30 PM), and it also rises a bit later, so I don't get woken up too early as easily. I kid you not, if it weren't for DST, the sun would rise as early as 4 AM in June, and that's absolutely unacceptable. (Heck, 5 AM is already borderline NOPE.) On the other hand, if we had it all year round, it'd rise at 8:30 AM in December. Also unacceptable.

While I understand adjusting our biological clocks to it is a mild inconvenience, it's far less of a problem than having to wake up and go to work in the dark, or wake up way too early for no good reason and lack sleep as a result. Think about it.

12 comments:

  1. I've never run into a person who said "DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME SUCKS!". The only reason someone would not like it is because of the first couple of days when they wake up at 5 o clock and they feel like they're getting up at four.

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  2. Umm... Slowflake? I think you're confused. Today we're entering real time. That's why it's great now. That period during winter was the fake time daylight savings invented, which is why it sucks (think about it. Applying it to what you said there, the sun would be gone by 6:30). If there were no daylight savings time, the sun would still be rising at 5AM IN JUNE. IT DOESN'T AFFECT SUMMER. IT MAKES WINTER SUCK WORSE BECAUSE IT'S FORCING US TO WAKE UP WHEN IT'S STILL DARK! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR Benjamin Franklin was a tyrant!

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  3. no your confused, daylight savings time is in the summer, "real" time is in the winter

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  4. I'm happiest when we have little sunlight, and I don't usually see the sunrise no matter what time of year it is, so I love the time change in the fall for setting sunset back an hour. The spring change, however, puts me in an irritable mood.

    Most of the world doesn't use DST, and that's one of the major arguments against it. I don't mind either way, but isn't the point of DST to give morning commutes more light and thus make them safer?

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    1. Of course not, DST means LESS light in the morning. It gives more light in the evening.

      Also, the reason why most of the world doesn't use it is because it's mostly used by North America and Europe, which are the regions where daytime duration is the most inconsistent, and thus actually need DST more.

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    2. No, I'm talking about when we go back an hour in the fall. That means the sun rises earlier during the winter months, when it's actually needed.

      The problem with using DST when a large portion of the rest of the world doesn't is just about the confusion in communication.

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    3. Ah, I actually just realized that winter is 'real' time, not summer, so DST isn't in effect during the winter. In that case, I am firmly in the camp of disliking DST, because that means more daylight in the summer as long as you wake up after sunrise (which I almost always do unless I work at 6AM). I'd rather the sun rise and set earlier during the summer months. It can set as late as 8:30-9 PM in mid-June, and that's just unacceptable for me.

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    4. But there's one day in Norway when the sun doesn't set. It's a two-day day! That's more consistent than north america?

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  5. I'm in the group that dislikes DST admittedly.

    One big problem is that not all countries follow it. As a result, when the clocks change for countries that do follow it, businesses can get knocked a bit out of sync with each other. That can have some economic issues if things aren't planned well. There are places in Europe and the USA that don't follow DST after all, and even some parts of Canada don't observe it.

    There are even cases of the change being linked to bad health believe it or not. There was a report last year about an elderly couple in the UK who refuse to change their clocks as when they did the husband would always suffer from severe headaches for long periods caused by the stress of adjusting the body clock.

    DST also affects the production of Dairy. Cows are surprisingly sensitive to when they're milked and their systems are affected by a change in milking times caused by DST.

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  6. The only thing I really care about DST is that it forces me to change all clocks and stuff twice per year. It's annoying, but not that much to me.

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  7. I only like the part where there's a day where I can sleep an extra hour. The rest doesn't really matter. I feel like I'm getting up in the middle of the night unless I sleep until about 10 or 11 either way...

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