Exploring 120 Years of Timezones | Hacker News Reader

Exploring 120 Years of Timezones

blog.scottlogic.com

50 pointsGordonS9 comments

> In 2019 the European Union voted to abolish daylight saving in 2021, similarly the “Sunshine Protection Act of 2021” is gaining traction in the US. Over the next decade I feel quite sure that most of the globe will reject daylight saving entirely.

To be clear, the Sunshine Protection Act seeks to do the opposite and permanently adopt Daylight Saving.

It says, "to hell with noon being the highest the sun reaches", and instead makes more daylight hours in the after-work, after-school hours.

It prefers a later sunset, basically. So people can enjoy the evening more. Have more time outside. Spend more money.

This is a way better approach than caring about the position of the sun at noon. Or shifting everyone's schedules around.

To be clearer, the EU did not "abolish daylight saving" either, just the practice of switching back and forth every 6 months [0]. Each member state will decide whether to keep DST or Solar time. For instance, countries such as Italy, France, Spain, etc. will have to choose between CET (GMT+1:00) or CEST (GMT+2:00).

[0]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20190321IP...

> It prefers a later sunset, basically. So people can enjoy the evening more. Have more time outside. Spend more money.

Why can't that apply when you have more daylight in the mornings? Seems like a zero sum game to me.

just answering this exact question, quoting the parent comment "after-work, after-school hours" which is for the vast majority of people in the afternoon

never understood this. why does school/work has to start at the same time every day of the year? This is the 21st censtury, we can handle schedules.

You have to synchronize it with every business. Every parent. Every school. Businesses without workers with kids. International. That's a nightmare.

You can just say unilaterally: this is what time it is now. That's easy.

The interesting debate is that now that the time change is unpopular, which of the two times do we keep? The resounding answer isn't the classical "12:00 is when the sun is overhead," but rather, "we like to enjoy our daylight in the evening after work."

Most people organize their days such that the first thing they do when they wake up is go to work, and most people also start work in the mornings.

I wish I could find it again, but some years ago I purchased a book of Indiana maps from the 50s and 60s.

Because Indiana is right on the border between the Eastern and Central time zones, and because we have Chicago (on Central) nearby, the state has been in a tug of war between the two time zones for decades.

I found a series of time zone maps in the book, and over the span of a few years, the parts of Indiana that observed Eastern vs Central changed every year. Individual counties or cities would be in Eastern one year, Central the next.

I’m quite grateful that finally (mostly) stabilized; I can’t imagine the headaches it would cause today.

Would be great to have this as an animated globe with the changes over time.

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