Daylight Savings is for the golfers, says Tuffs U

http://enews.tufts.edu/stories/414/2005/08/31/AnHourHereAnHourThere

by Duckpaddle2 • 15 years ago

10 8 15 years ago

enews.tufts.edu

sp332• 15 years ago

Tufts, not Tuffs.

jdludlow• 15 years ago

And "Daylight Saving" not "Daylight Savings".

michaelochurch• 15 years ago

It's not about golfers per se, but it never was about the energy savings. At least, that's not why people want it. It's purely cultural.

Why do I say that it's cultural? It should be obvious. It starts in mid-March and ends in November. This doesn't make sense in the context of day length (February has more daylight than November). The standard time period (which is less than half the year) corresponds with the coldest months.

DST could be year round, but in the winter, it's more of a downer to have darkness at 8 am than at 5 pm, and outdoor activities tend to be limited to 3-4 contiguous hours because of the cold, so short afternoons aren't an issue. But in the October-November leaf season, people still want light at 6:00 in the afternoon, which they wouldn't get without DST. That makes a lot of sense in the context of, e.g., fall hiking trips.

DST isn't a bad thing. It's bizarre, but most people hate the idea of getting up an hour earlier. DST tricks everyone into doing this at the same time: to get up at 6 and just call it 7. It's brilliant how well it works.

For the record, before DST, businesses had summer and winter hours because it just didn't make sense to expect people to conform to the same clock-time schedule year-round. DST just regularizes that process.

anonymous• 15 years ago

Back when business had Summer and Winter hours, i.e. before DST was implemented, we didn't have cheap everywhere-available electricity or inexpensive lightbulbs, so it kind of made sense. Nowadays it's just stupid - I'm a programmer with a flexible schedule and I've implemented my own Summer & Winter hours precisely to avoid the trouble of having to deal with readjusting my sleeping schedule when DST kicks in. If you can convince management to come one hour early in the winter (and leave one hour early, too) I'd suggest you go for it - it's awesome.

As for hiking trips, I don't know what planet you hike on, but my hiking trips take 10h minimum and 3days usually, and for them I'm more interested in light availability than some numbers on a zifferblat, so DST makes precisely no difference.

thret• 15 years ago

I don't see why it is expected to "put our clocks seriously out of sync with Europe’s, costing airlines $150 million a year". Changing DST shouldn't cause sync problems. More puzzling, why would such a problem only affect Europe?

throw_away• 15 years ago

this link: http://crankyflier.com/2007/11/05/how-daylight-saving-time-i... says that it's a combination of how airport slots are allocated, the interaction between international and domestic connections and the fact that EU and the US used to be more synchronized in their clock fiddling.

I wonder how much productivity is lost in IT due to spending time dinking with TZ configs, which sometimes involve complex interactions between OS and language platform and are not the easiest thing to test 100% before the switch happens.

Interesting too is the list of lobbyists for and against the energy policy act of 2005:

"Lobbyists for this provision included the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, the National Association of Convenience Stores, and the National Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation Fighting Blindness.

"Lobbyists against this provision included the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the National Parent-Teacher Association, the Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium, the Edison Electric Institute, and the Air Transport Association"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005#Chang...

ricardobeat• 15 years ago

No data provided. Here in Brazil DST actually reduces peak energy consumption by 4% to 5%, reducing strain on energy plants. I'd guess it has a similar effect on the US.

http://www.aneel.gov.br/65.htm (if you can read portuguese)

1010011010• 15 years ago

No, no. DST is for idiots

Daylight Savings is for the golfers, says Tuffs U

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