Comment by fsloth | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fsloth | Hacker News Reader

Thank goodness. Daylights savings time is one of the most god-damned fiddly attempts to optimize something that it fails to achieve, and at the same time irritates most who have to deal with it.

It was invented out on a whim, and adapted because it sounded good. No results have shown that it saves anything or helps anyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time

"Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him leisure time to collect insects and led him to value after-hours daylight"

"Many publications credit DST proposal to the prominent English builder and outdoorsman William Willett,[29] who independently conceived DST in 1905 during a pre-breakfast ride, when he observed with dismay how many Londoners slept through a large part of a summer day.[15] An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk."

I don't mind people collecting bugs and golfing, but please keep your hands off the society's synchronization mechanism without a better reason.

>No results have shown that it saves anything or helps anyone.

Even worse, the changeover has demonstrably negative effects. Not just in the obvious lost productivity from people going to work tired, but more injuries on the job[1], car accidents[2], and heart-disease related death![3]

Killing it off is low-hanging fruit.

[1]: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/apl9451317.pdf

[2]: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199604043341416

[3]: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc0807104

I dislike changing the time twice a year too, but would prefer to stay on summer timer throughout the year instead of winter time.

In autumn when the day becomes smaller, there remains almost no light(day) time after a typical 9-5. Shifting to winter time at this very moment of smaller days makes this 0. (For reference I live in Greece).

I understand though, that people with different schedules have different preferences.

It is an insane world where it is easier to redefine how the time is measured than to agree that the job starts one hour earlier.

That reminds me of the episode of DuckTales where Huey, Dewey, and Louie convince Scrooge McDuck that it's Saturday in order to get their allowances early; the entire global economy must follow suit in order to keep doing business with the most powerful duck in the world; and chaos ensues.

DuckTales had some pretty interesting concepts. It's a pity that's uncommon in most shows for grown ups today.

Implementing this system seems like it’s going to be a nightmare . I have seen the horrors of implementing systems that deal with time. I can’t imagine how much more this change will make it worse .

Why? DST already changes quite a bit over the world[1]. Russia stopped observing it in 2011-4, for example.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_by_countr...

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