On Dec 7, 2:20 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> In article <ga1jl35l1deb35oigltae05j2s3jqv6...@4ax.com>,
> John Schilling <schil...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 15:45:42 +0000 (UTC), Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com>
> >wrote:
>
> >>Marten Kemp <martendespamk...@thisplanet-link.net> wrote:
> >>> Keep the duration of the second, minute and hour the same as Earth's.
>
> >>> Start the clock at midnight, half a planetary revolution from
> >>> noon. A "day" is however many hours elapse until the next midnight.
>
> >> The problem here is that the clock doesn't match the time of day anymore.
> >>You're effectively adding or subtracting time just before midnight. So
> >>planet 'noon' will not be at 12:00, and the average day will not be between
> >>06:00 and 18:00. I think those are minor concerns compared to keeping the
> >>metric standard units intact, but they bother some people.
>
> >You mean the cranks who keep complaining about the barbarous and unnatural
> >concept of "daylight savings time"?
>
> I don't know about barbarous and unnatural but traffic accident
> rates go up after the time changes and it's not clear to me what beneficial
> thing we are buying with those traffic fatalities.
>
> --http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicollhttp://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll(For all your "The problem with
> defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

For good or ill, in practice it's a policy choice by voters who prefer
to have more daylight after work than before work, that is, they'd
rather drive _to_ their jobs with less daylight if it pays off with
more daylight after the work day is over. The reason for the switch
back in winter is that enough voters also want some daylight at the
start of the day for the trip to work and school.

Johnny1a wrote:

> For good or ill, in practice it's a policy choice by voters who prefer
> to have more daylight after work than before work, that is, they'd
> rather drive _to_ their jobs with less daylight if it pays off with
> more daylight after the work day is over. The reason for the switch
> back in winter is that enough voters also want some daylight at the
> start of the day for the trip to work and school.

I doubt it's that neat and clear. I suspect most people are moderately
annoyed by it, but more importantly, not annoyed enough to press
lawmakers to actually change it. The historical reasons for suggesting
it, I think, are pretty much obsolete. We still have it because nobody
has the political will or energy to do anything about it, and everyone
else is relatively apathetic about it.

Arizona, after all, does not observe Daylight Savings Time in the United
States, so it's not completely universal even here.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
No need to tell me lies / Am I losing you
-- Chante Moore

Erik Max Francis skreiv:
> Johnny1a wrote:

>> For good or ill, in practice it's a policy choice by voters who prefer
>> to have more daylight after work than before work, that is, they'd
>> rather drive _to_ their jobs with less daylight if it pays off with
>> more daylight after the work day is over. The reason for the switch
>> back in winter is that enough voters also want some daylight at the
>> start of the day for the trip to work and school.

> I doubt it's that neat and clear. I suspect most people are moderately
> annoyed by it, but more importantly, not annoyed enough to press
> lawmakers to actually change it.

I don't think it's random that we tend to cycle sleep-work-leisure
rather than the alternative sleep-leisure-work.

Most people are probably more productive the *first* 8 hours they're
awake than the *last* 8 hours they're awake, so it makes sense to do the
"important" stuff then.

A fairly average adult may be awake from 6:30 to 23:30 and work 7:30 to
15:30, which means he/she is awake for *one* hour prior to working and
for *8* hours after working.

Furthermore, the single hour before working will mostly be spent
dressing, showering, eating breakfast and getting to work, activities
that aren't very dependant on daylight, allthough it's nice for the latter.

After work youre much more likely to benefit from daylight.

Offcourse the same objective could be achieved without messing with the
clock simply by declaring: "Work starts one hour earlier in summer", I'm
not sure that would cause any noticeably different amount of annoyances
though.


Eivind Kjørstad

: Erik Max Francis <max@alcyone.com>
: I doubt it's that neat and clear. I suspect most people are moderately
: annoyed by it, but more importantly, not annoyed enough to press
: lawmakers to actually change it. The historical reasons for suggesting
: it, I think, are pretty much obsolete. We still have it because nobody
: has the political will or energy to do anything about it, and everyone
: else is relatively apathetic about it.
: Arizona, after all, does not observe Daylight Savings Time in the United
: States, so it's not completely universal even here.

If "nobody has the political will or energy to do anything about it", then
why are they still tweaking it? Wasn't there a change in the fall-back day
very recently. Somebody had the political will and energy to do that, yes?

Or put it this way. There seem to be people who care about it enough to
get all up in arms if the changeover day is off by a few weeks from where
they thought it should be. Why would there not be people who care about
it enough to get the changeover day changed to "when hell freezes over"?


Wayne Throop throopw@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:17:08 -0800 (PST), Johnny1a
<shermanlee1@hotmail.com> wrote:

> voters who prefer
> to have more daylight

Our Man Mitch totally ignored the voters.

His stated reason for the semi-annual flip-flop was that not
flip-flopping is old-fashioned and backwoodsy and made us look funny
in front of his friends.

Ironically, the current trend is to lengthen DST so as to get the
"benefits" for more of the year -- and Indiana had gone on year-round
Central Daylight three decades before; we'd been away ahead of the
curve.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net

On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:01:43 +0100, Eivind Kjorstad
<eivindorama@gmail.com> wrote:

>I don't think it's random that we tend to cycle sleep-work-leisure
>rather than the alternative sleep-leisure-work.
>
>Most people are probably more productive the *first* 8 hours they're
>awake than the *last* 8 hours they're awake, so it makes sense to do the
>"important" stuff then.

The question then becomes whether the "work for someone else" or the
"work for yourself (leisure)" is the "important stuff".
--

Wayne Throop wrote:

> If "nobody has the political will or energy to do anything about it", then
> why are they still tweaking it? Wasn't there a change in the fall-back day
> very recently. Somebody had the political will and energy to do that, yes?
>
> Or put it this way. There seem to be people who care about it enough to
> get all up in arms if the changeover day is off by a few weeks from where
> they thought it should be. Why would there not be people who care about
> it enough to get the changeover day changed to "when hell freezes over"?

That's a fair point; I obviously don't really know the exact notions.
There are a few obvious and surely true points to make in response,
though: First, it's an awful lot easier politically to tweak something
than to repeal it, and the current Congress has expended an awful lot of
energy on futile efforts, so that things are being tweaked doesn't
really say much about the political will (or lack thereof) to do
anything about _removing_ entirely.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
Could it be / That we need loving to survive
-- Neneh Cherry