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Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

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Douglas Roberts-2

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

I like daylight savings too, because I like listening to people bitch about it.

--Doug

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:

I like daylight savings. Gives another point of semi-regularity to my year.

-tj

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Joshua Thorp <[hidden email]> wrote:

But is the time change even needed? What purpose does it really serve? There are lots of stories about it rooted in wartime/economy etc. But these things do not seem to be valid anymore. And are they worth the collective cost?

I have to say I prefer light later in the day though.

Agreed. I do like the petition's approach: simply no time shifting during the year. Whether it stays DST all year long (my preference) or "standard time" is to be decided.

-- Owen

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--
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
<a href="tel:505.577.6482" value="+15055776482" target="_blank">505.577.6482(c) <a href="tel:505.473.9646" value="+15054739646" target="_blank">505.473.9646(h)
Twitter: jtjohnson

http://www.jtjohnson.com [hidden email]
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Doug Roberts
[hidden email]

http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
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Russ Abbott

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

I too like DST -- mainly because it stays light later in the evening and dark later in the morning. Strange, this is what it was supposed to accomplish. It actually works. Why change it?

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________

Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

My paper on how the Fed can fix the economy: ssrn.com/abstract=1977688
Google voice: 747-999-5105

Google+: plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/

vita: sites.google.com/site/russabbott/

CS Wiki and the courses I teach
_____________________________________________

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 1:04 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:

I like daylight savings too, because I like listening to people bitch about it.

--Doug

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:

I like daylight savings. Gives another point of semi-regularity to my year.

-tj

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Joshua Thorp <[hidden email]> wrote:

But is the time change even needed? What purpose does it really serve? There are lots of stories about it rooted in wartime/economy etc. But these things do not seem to be valid anymore. And are they worth the collective cost?

I have to say I prefer light later in the day though.

Agreed. I do like the petition's approach: simply no time shifting during the year. Whether it stays DST all year long (my preference) or "standard time" is to be decided.

-- Owen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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--
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
<a href="tel:505.577.6482" value="+15055776482" target="_blank">505.577.6482(c) <a href="tel:505.473.9646" value="+15054739646" target="_blank">505.473.9646(h)
Twitter: jtjohnson

http://www.jtjohnson.com [hidden email]
==========================================

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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--

Doug Roberts
[hidden email]
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

<a href="tel:505-455-7333" value="+15054557333" target="_blank">505-455-7333 - Office
<a href="tel:505-672-8213" value="+15056728213" target="_blank">505-672-8213 - Mobile

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Gillian Densmore

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

For some of us with a already wonky metabalism we don't need help with it being more wonky by some extremely dead person for gigles I hit wikiepedia with DST and the list is at this link
For those using plain text:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dst

work safe.

Clicking on the daylight savings time it says:

"The modern idea of daylight saving was first proposed in 1895 by George Vernon Hudson ^[9] and it was first implemented during the First World War. "

Well thank you Hudson for messing around with my metablism. Humans are seeking peace and some of us are interested in persuing science.

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

I too like DST -- mainly because it stays light later in the evening and dark later in the morning. Strange, this is what it was supposed to accomplish. It actually works. Why change it?

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

My paper on how the Fed can fix the economy: ssrn.com/abstract=1977688
Google voice: 747-999-5105
Google+: plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/

vita: sites.google.com/site/russabbott/

CS Wiki and the courses I teach
_____________________________________________

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 1:04 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:

I like daylight savings too, because I like listening to people bitch about it.

--Doug

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:

I like daylight savings. Gives another point of semi-regularity to my year.

-tj

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Joshua Thorp <[hidden email]> wrote:

But is the time change even needed? What purpose does it really serve? There are lots of stories about it rooted in wartime/economy etc. But these things do not seem to be valid anymore. And are they worth the collective cost?

I have to say I prefer light later in the day though.

Agreed. I do like the petition's approach: simply no time shifting during the year. Whether it stays DST all year long (my preference) or "standard time" is to be decided.

-- Owen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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--
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
<a href="tel:505.577.6482" value="+15055776482" target="_blank">505.577.6482(c) <a href="tel:505.473.9646" value="+15054739646" target="_blank">505.473.9646(h)
Twitter: jtjohnson

http://www.jtjohnson.com [hidden email]
==========================================

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

--

Doug Roberts
[hidden email]
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

<a href="tel:505-455-7333" value="+15054557333" target="_blank">505-455-7333 - Office
<a href="tel:505-672-8213" value="+15056728213" target="_blank">505-672-8213 - Mobile

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Nick Thompson

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

In reply to this post by Owen Densmore

So Owen. You want your school aged grandchildren children standing out by the mail box in the pitch dark of the night (January, 6am, DST) in rush hour traffic?

Why does it not work for you just to get up when you feel like and let us lemmings shift back to standard time when we feel like it?

And why would one petition the white house? As if it’s Obama who changes the clocks? As Pogo famously said, “We have seen the enemy and they is we.”

Sorry to be so cranky. I am feeling very Douggish today. Must be the time change.

Nick

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2013 1:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Joshua Thorp <[hidden email]> wrote:

But is the time change even needed? What purpose does it really serve? There are lots of stories about it rooted in wartime/economy etc. But these things do not seem to be valid anymore. And are they worth the collective cost?

I have to say I prefer light later in the day though.

Agreed. I do like the petition's approach: simply no time shifting during the year. Whether it stays DST all year long (my preference) or "standard time" is to be decided.

-- Owen

Douglas Roberts-2

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

I feel both insulted, and flattered. I can live with that.

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 2:59 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

So Owen. You want your school aged grandchildren children standing out by the mail box in the pitch dark of the night (January, 6am, DST) in rush hour traffic?

Why does it not work for you just to get up when you feel like and let us lemmings shift back to standard time when we feel like it?

And why would one petition the white house? As if it’s Obama who changes the clocks? As Pogo famously said, “We have seen the enemy and they is we.”

Sorry to be so cranky. I am feeling very Douggish today. Must be the time change.

Nick

Nick

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2013 1:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Joshua Thorp <[hidden email]> wrote:

But is the time change even needed? What purpose does it really serve? There are lots of stories about it rooted in wartime/economy etc. But these things do not seem to be valid anymore. And are they worth the collective cost?

I have to say I prefer light later in the day though.

Agreed. I do like the petition's approach: simply no time shifting during the year. Whether it stays DST all year long (my preference) or "standard time" is to be decided.

-- Owen

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Doug Roberts
[hidden email]

http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-672-8213 - Mobile

Gillian Densmore

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Yes he can actually he can abolish the time shift- and it looks like most of the rest of the world gets along just fine w/o one.

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 2:59 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

So Owen. You want your school aged grandchildren children standing out by the mail box in the pitch dark of the night (January, 6am, DST) in rush hour traffic?

Why does it not work for you just to get up when you feel like and let us lemmings shift back to standard time when we feel like it?

And why would one petition the white house? As if it’s Obama who changes the clocks? As Pogo famously said, “We have seen the enemy and they is we.”

Sorry to be so cranky. I am feeling very Douggish today. Must be the time change.

Nick

Nick

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2013 1:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Joshua Thorp <[hidden email]> wrote:

But is the time change even needed? What purpose does it really serve? There are lots of stories about it rooted in wartime/economy etc. But these things do not seem to be valid anymore. And are they worth the collective cost?

I have to say I prefer light later in the day though.

Agreed. I do like the petition's approach: simply no time shifting during the year. Whether it stays DST all year long (my preference) or "standard time" is to be decided.

-- Owen

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Edward Angel

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

I doubt this is still true but when I was younger the maps showed that Saudi Arabia was on solar time, i.e. the time depended on where you were standing.

__________

Ed Angel

Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon

Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home) [hidden email]

505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel

On Mar 15, 2013, at 3:07 PM, Gillian Densmore wrote:

Yes he can actually he can abolish the time shift- and it looks like most of the rest of the world gets along just fine w/o one.

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 2:59 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

So Owen. You want your school aged grandchildren children standing out by the mail box in the pitch dark of the night (January, 6am, DST) in rush hour traffic?

Why does it not work for you just to get up when you feel like and let us lemmings shift back to standard time when we feel like it?

And why would one petition the white house? As if it’s Obama who changes the clocks? As Pogo famously said, “We have seen the enemy and they is we.”

Sorry to be so cranky. I am feeling very Douggish today. Must be the time change.

Nick

Nick

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2013 1:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Joshua Thorp <[hidden email]> wrote:

But is the time change even needed? What purpose does it really serve? There are lots of stories about it rooted in wartime/economy etc. But these things do not seem to be valid anymore. And are they worth the collective cost?

I have to say I prefer light later in the day though.

Agreed. I do like the petition's approach: simply no time shifting during the year. Whether it stays DST all year long (my preference) or "standard time" is to be decided.

-- Owen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Steve Smith

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2

D-

I feel both insulted, and flattered. I can live with that.

hardly... I can hear you rolling in it (like a dog in an animal carcass) from 8 miles away! ;)

Sorry to be so cranky. I am feeling very Douggish today. Must be the time change.

-S

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Douglas Roberts-2

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

Rolling in shit is highly underrated.

On Mar 15, 2013 6:08 PM, "Steve Smith" <[hidden email]> wrote:

D-

I feel both insulted, and flattered. I can live with that.

hardly... I can hear you rolling in it (like a dog in an animal carcass) from 8 miles away! ;)

Sorry to be so cranky. I am feeling very Douggish today. Must be the time change.

-S

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Steve Smith

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

> Rolling in shit is highly underrated.
>
Oh yeh... dogs like to do that too!

Mine can do some amazing shoulder rolls at full gallop when she comes
across something.

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Douglas Roberts-2

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

How are you doing, neighbor?

On Mar 15, 2013 6:23 PM, "Steve Smith" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Rolling in shit is highly underrated.

Oh yeh... dogs like to do that too!

Mine can do some amazing shoulder rolls at full gallop when she comes across something.

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Arlo Barnes

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

Steve, thank you for linking the WikiMedia Commons SVG, I like vector graphics, particularly ones that are also infographics.

However, it does not display what is really going on with DST. Although everybody has stories about how it came about and was implemented and why (for factories, for gas lamps, whatever) including the urban legend that Ben Franklin invented it, the general goal behind all of those specific purposes is to align more closely the clock day with the light day. For example, a clock says 0600; how light is it outside? Is it dawn? Earlier? Later? Well, that changes throughout the year because the Earth is tilted. It would not if the Earth was vertical (to clarify, if it's pole of rotation was parallel to the pole of orbit) and a year was exactly 365 days, and each day were exactly 24 hours, and if [a more minor factor] there were no precession, and so on). So what DST is really doing is shifting the time scale 'down' relative to the light scale (in the WM diagram [or perhaps diagram]) to more closely 'fit' that sunset/sunrise curve. Now, yes, we might be able to simply ignore that curve, pick a place for the time day to start and stick with it; after all, electric lights are ubiquitous and few of our jobs actually depend on being up at the same time as the sun (perhaps farmers still, but there are fewer and fewer of them).

But I am saying I think it is possible and doable to have a system that follows the variance in the amount of daylight versus dark throughout the year, if we as a society think it is valuable to go that route. After all, before the invention of more and more specialised calendar systems that is what people would have considered a day: from sunrise to sunset and the following dark period, no matter what time of year.

-Arlo James Barnes

Steve Smith

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

Arlo -

You sed:

the general goal behind all of those specific purposes is to align more closely the clock day with the light day. For example, a clock says 0600; how light is it outside? Is it dawn? Earlier? Later? Well, that changes throughout the year because the Earth is tilted. It would not if the Earth was vertical (to clarify, if it's pole of rotation was parallel to the pole of orbit) and a year was exactly 365 days, and each day were exactly 24 hours, and if [a more minor factor] there were no precession, and so on). So what DST is really doing is shifting the time scale 'down' relative to the light scale (in the WM diagram [or perhaps diagram]) to more closely 'fit' that sunset/sunrise curve.

I'm fine with referencing all activity to "sunrise" and setting clocks according to hours/minutes/seconds after sunrise (or before sunset or both)...   I prefer to function that way myself... and do so as much as I can arrange easily.

I think throughout our pre-industrial history, people's lives *were* orchestrated according to roughly "first light", "sunrise", "early morning", "mid morning", "mid-day", "mid afternoon", "late afternoon", "sunset", "after dark" and occasionally perhaps "Midnight".   So mid-morning was not just say ... 9 or 10 AM, it was "halfway-between sunrise and noon", a longer period in the summer than in the winter.

Mechanical clocks, I hypothesize, naturally were calibrated to a single earth rotation or "24 hours".   Calibrating the time-shift to an easily identifiable reference such as *high noon* makes a great deal of sense.   No other reference is as easily identified while keeping the 24 hour cycle?

With the advent of long-distance communication and/or fast travel, it naturally made sense to want more perfect (to the minute?) synchronization...

I'm not a proponent of making our sexigesimal clock system (60 minute hours, 60 second minutes, etc.) into decimal, but if we don't have the will or desire or focus to even do that kind of normalization, I can't imagine we could redefine "time" in this more radical way.   I think GMT, the time zones, and DST are artifacts of the will of *governments* to impose common standards across political units.   The Navajo Nation, which spans AZ and NM and whose tribal headquarters are in NM (Window Rock) have exercised *their* sovereignty by choosing to follow NM time throughout their boundaries. They could have chosen AZ (non DST) time but for whatever reason (liked DST? Window Rock is in the NM borders?) they choose not to.

I'd prefer to see people choose to use solar time instead of clock time for their daily activities. Rise at sunrise, begin your daily labor after a suitable period of preparation (coffee, shower, breakfast, newspaper, walk, run, etc.), break at suitable periods (lunch when you get hungry, maybe sometime around "high noon"), work until your work is done or you feel satisfied you have put in "a good day", maybe take a long mid-day "siesta" if you are in a hot climate without AC or perhaps just because you like a midday nap or a nice stroll along the Alhambra or the Alameda or around the Rotunda or up on the Veranda...   Dinner is best eaten in my opinion, just at dusk, whether dusk is 4:30 in midwinter or 8 PM in mid summer... then at least a few hours to digest and relax before retiring to bed. And start all over again when the sun rises.   Of course, I don't live in Portland OR or London, England or any of the other overcast/foggy/smoggy places where the sun's appearance is a crapshoot.

Maybe we will have resolved this amongst ourselves in time for the next clock shift in the Autumn whereupon we can start all over discussing it?!   Meanwhile maybe we can hammer on the damned calendar of months? Why are they not moons? And who wants to deal with stoopid Leap Days and days of the month shifting around with days of the week? Isn't having 4 "weeks" aligned with 4 phases of the moon (new moon, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous) more sensible? Sure, the moons shift around with the sidereal time... the new/full moon doesn't reliably fall on solstice (summer nor winter) and the 3rd full moon after solstice isn't necessarily the right time to plant... it might be up to a half-a moon early by sidereal measures and your seedlings might freeze!

I'm afraid the moral of all this to me is that our (human?) need to measure and control and standardize everything is backfiring. It makes about as much sense as declaring "Pi" to be == 3 to make it easier to make calculations... as if the Kansas state legislature could warp space enough to make such a feature literally true!   It *is* a dense enough idea that maybe those dense enough to try it actually *do* warp space close to themselves enough to make it so, while contracting the 4.5Byears of earth's existence into something like 3-5Kyears?

- Steve

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Gillian Densmore

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

Just a quick interuption:
Clocks date back to at least babylon- with water and steam clocks as I noted in the DST discution
earlier: why dst on wikipedia

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

The modern idea of daylight saving was first proposed in 1895 by George Vernon Hudson ^[9] and it was first implemented during the First World War. Many countries have used it at various times since then. Although most of the United States used DST throughout the 1950s and 1960s, DST use expanded following the 1970s energy crisis and has generally remained in use in North America and Europe since that time.

The practice has been both praised and criticized.^[8] Adding daylight to evenings benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours,^[10] but can cause problems for evening entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun.^[11]^[12] Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting (formerly a primary use of electricity^[13]), modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited or contradictory.^[14]

back to the thread.

On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 1:05 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Arlo -

You sed:

the general goal behind all of those specific purposes is to align more closely the clock day with the light day. For example, a clock says 0600; how light is it outside? Is it dawn? Earlier? Later? Well, that changes throughout the year because the Earth is tilted. It would not if the Earth was vertical (to clarify, if it's pole of rotation was parallel to the pole of orbit) and a year was exactly 365 days, and each day were exactly 24 hours, and if [a more minor factor] there were no precession, and so on). So what DST is really doing is shifting the time scale 'down' relative to the light scale (in the WM diagram [or perhaps diagram]) to more closely 'fit' that sunset/sunrise curve.

I'm fine with referencing all activity to "sunrise" and setting clocks according to hours/minutes/seconds after sunrise (or before sunset or both)...   I prefer to function that way myself... and do so as much as I can arrange easily.

I think throughout our pre-industrial history, people's lives *were* orchestrated according to roughly "first light", "sunrise", "early morning", "mid morning", "mid-day", "mid afternoon", "late afternoon", "sunset", "after dark" and occasionally perhaps "Midnight".   So mid-morning was not just say ... 9 or 10 AM, it was "halfway-between sunrise and noon", a longer period in the summer than in the winter.

Mechanical clocks, I hypothesize, naturally were calibrated to a single earth rotation or "24 hours".   Calibrating the time-shift to an easily identifiable reference such as *high noon* makes a great deal of sense.   No other reference is as easily identified while keeping the 24 hour cycle?

With the advent of long-distance communication and/or fast travel, it naturally made sense to want more perfect (to the minute?) synchronization...

I'm not a proponent of making our sexigesimal clock system (60 minute hours, 60 second minutes, etc.) into decimal, but if we don't have the will or desire or focus to even do that kind of normalization, I can't imagine we could redefine "time" in this more radical way.   I think GMT, the time zones, and DST are artifacts of the will of *governments* to impose common standards across political units.   The Navajo Nation, which spans AZ and NM and whose tribal headquarters are in NM (Window Rock) have exercised *their* sovereignty by choosing to follow NM time throughout their boundaries. They could have chosen AZ (non DST) time but for whatever reason (liked DST? Window Rock is in the NM borders?) they choose not to.

I'd prefer to see people choose to use solar time instead of clock time for their daily activities. Rise at sunrise, begin your daily labor after a suitable period of preparation (coffee, shower, breakfast, newspaper, walk, run, etc.), break at suitable periods (lunch when you get hungry, maybe sometime around "high noon"), work until your work is done or you feel satisfied you have put in "a good day", maybe take a long mid-day "siesta" if you are in a hot climate without AC or perhaps just because you like a midday nap or a nice stroll along the Alhambra or the Alameda or around the Rotunda or up on the Veranda...   Dinner is best eaten in my opinion, just at dusk, whether dusk is 4:30 in midwinter or 8 PM in mid summer... then at least a few hours to digest and relax before retiring to bed. And start all over again when the sun rises.   Of course, I don't live in Portland OR or London, England or any of the other overcast/foggy/smoggy places where the sun's appearance is a crapshoot.

Maybe we will have resolved this amongst ourselves in time for the next clock shift in the Autumn whereupon we can start all over discussing it?!   Meanwhile maybe we can hammer on the damned calendar of months? Why are they not moons? And who wants to deal with stoopid Leap Days and days of the month shifting around with days of the week? Isn't having 4 "weeks" aligned with 4 phases of the moon (new moon, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous) more sensible? Sure, the moons shift around with the sidereal time... the new/full moon doesn't reliably fall on solstice (summer nor winter) and the 3rd full moon after solstice isn't necessarily the right time to plant... it might be up to a half-a moon early by sidereal measures and your seedlings might freeze!

I'm afraid the moral of all this to me is that our (human?) need to measure and control and standardize everything is backfiring. It makes about as much sense as declaring "Pi" to be == 3 to make it easier to make calculations... as if the Kansas state legislature could warp space enough to make such a feature literally true!   It *is* a dense enough idea that maybe those dense enough to try it actually *do* warp space close to themselves enough to make it so, while contracting the 4.5Byears of earth's existence into something like 3-5Kyears?

- Steve

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Carl Tollander

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

In reply to this post by Arlo Barnes

I do not think it a bad idea, to get hit upside the head, perhaps, say, twice a year, with the notion that was lives on a planet, not a treadmill.

It is at least an opportunity to occasionally discuss astronomy twice a year with those who might otherwise remain aloof. The days get longer, the ecliptic appears to move. We should notice.

Carl

On 3/17/13 9:19 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote:

Steve, thank you for linking the WikiMedia Commons SVG, I like vector graphics, particularly ones that are also infographics.
However, it does not display what is really going on with DST. Although everybody has stories about how it came about and was implemented and why (for factories, for gas lamps, whatever) including the urban legend that Ben Franklin invented it, the general goal behind all of those specific purposes is to align more closely the clock day with the light day. For example, a clock says 0600; how light is it outside? Is it dawn? Earlier? Later? Well, that changes throughout the year because the Earth is tilted. It would not if the Earth was vertical (to clarify, if it's pole of rotation was parallel to the pole of orbit) and a year was exactly 365 days, and each day were exactly 24 hours, and if [a more minor factor] there were no precession, and so on). So what DST is really doing is shifting the time scale 'down' relative to the light scale (in the WM diagram [or perhaps diagram]) to more closely 'fit' that sunset/sunrise curve. Now, yes, we might be able to simply ignore that curve, pick a place for the time day to start and stick with it; after all, electric lights are ubiquitous and few of our jobs actually depend on being up at the same time as the sun (perhaps farmers still, but there are fewer and fewer of them).

But I am saying I think it is possible and doable to have a system that follows the variance in the amount of daylight versus dark throughout the year, if we as a society think it is valuable to go that route. After all, before the invention of more and more specialised calendar systems that is what people would have considered a day: from sunrise to sunset and the following dark period, no matter what time of year.

-Arlo James Barnes
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Owen Densmore

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

Administrator

Sorry to bump, but now *another* DST fkup: Europe does not change DST when the US does.

So today our skype Italian class was shifted, and both Dede and I had to cancel scheduled events.

If we have to live with time changes, we should at least try to make it global, we're a pretty global community now and I bet others got hit by US/Euro/Worldwide differences.

-- Owen

Steve Smith

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

Owen-

Sorry to bump, but now *another* DST fkup: Europe does not change DST when the US does.

So today our skype Italian class was shifted, and both Dede and I had to cancel scheduled events.

If we have to live with time changes, we should at least try to make it global, we're a pretty global community now and I bet others got hit by US/Euro/Worldwide differences.

Yup... my Australian colleagues would love it if we made them set their clocks forward in *their* Autumn and back in *their* Spring. They could enjoy the *worst* of both the natural sidereal day's limitations and our ideal of mucking with it.

Better yet, let's defer to *them* and let them decide when *we* should set our clocks forward and back based on *their* preferences and convenience... if it got bad enough some of us might just quit referencing our clocks!

Let's just get it over with and set Pi == 3 (or 2 or 4 for those with a fetish for binary and for "better to be wrong than vague").

I agree that it would be convenient if the Southern Hemisphere could spring forward when we fall back and vice-versa... as having to adjust by 0 or 1 or 2 hours throughout the year is a bit wonky... but our model of solar time is imperfect and any and all adjustments are going to be flawed.

- Steve

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Nick Thompson

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

In reply to this post by Owen Densmore

Owen:

The thing that keeps puzzling me about your appeals here is the hidden assumption (I think I detect) that there is Somebody In Charge. It’s the parasitic ant model. There’s a species of ant that makes its living by its fertilized “queens” putting on perfumes and waving their little antenna until workers of another species pick them up and carry them to their queen, where upon the parasitic queen jumps on the back of the true queen, bites her in the back of the neck to terminate her egg laying, and then lays eggs which are cared for and raised by the parasitized ants. Faculty members at universities are particularly prone to the Parasitic Ant Fallacy. They think that if they just go and complain to the President, The World Will Change. It’s a harmless fantasy in its place, except that it leads to disparagement of the people who are actually trying to make change, and getting muck all over themselves in the process. Viz Obama. In short, I suspect you of being a closet royalist. So there!

Nick

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 10:35 AM
To: [hidden email]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

Sorry to bump, but now *another* DST fkup: Europe does not change DST when the US does.

So today our skype Italian class was shifted, and both Dede and I had to cancel scheduled events.

If we have to live with time changes, we should at least try to make it global, we're a pretty global community now and I bet others got hit by US/Euro/Worldwide differences.

-- Owen

Joshua Thorp

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

<base href="x-msg://960/">But DST is surely mandated by the government and could be undone by the government. Why they even shifted when it occurs by a couple of weeks recently. Well in 2005, by that royalist Bush and his congress. Looks like these guys actually do have the power to change things.

http://www.timetemperature.com/tzus/daylight_saving_time_extended.shtml

--joshua

On Mar 19, 2013, at 11:07 AM, "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Owen:

The thing that keeps puzzling me about your appeals here is the hidden assumption (I think I detect) that there is Somebody In Charge. It’s the parasitic ant model. There’s a species of ant that makes its living by its fertilized “queens” putting on perfumes and waving their little antenna until workers of another species pick them up and carry them to their queen, where upon the parasitic queen jumps on the back of the true queen, bites her in the back of the neck to terminate her egg laying, and then lays eggs which are cared for and raised by the parasitized ants. Faculty members at universities are particularly prone to the Parasitic Ant Fallacy. They think that if they just go and complain to the President, The World Will Change. It’s a harmless fantasy in its place, except that it leads to disparagement of the people who are actually trying to make change, and getting muck all over themselves in the process. Viz Obama. In short, I suspect you of being a closet royalist. So there!

Nick

From: Friam [mailto:friam-[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 10:35 AM
To: [hidden email]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

Sorry to bump, but now *another* DST fkup: Europe does not change DST when the US does.

So today our skype Italian class was shifted, and both Dede and I had to cancel scheduled events.

If we have to live with time changes, we should at least try to make it global, we're a pretty global community now and I bet others got hit by US/Euro/Worldwide differences.

-- Owen
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Owen Densmore

Re: [EXTERNAL] Please sign this thing! Eliminate the bi-annual time change caused by Daylight Savings Time

Administrator

I think I confused folks: the reference to europe's DSL change being 2 weeks after USA was just an example. Steve Smith: thanks for making me recall the north/south difference as well.

I just gotta think we have to

- Change times at the same date universally

- Just stick with standard time

- Build fascinating clocks that Deal With It

But man, my sleep cycle is a bitch to maintain through all this! Sigh.

-- Owen

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