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United States Government

Will Montana Become America's Third State To Ditch Daylight Savings Time? (missoulian.com) 228

Posted by EditorDavid from the falling-backward dept.
"Okay...twice every year Slashdot disses Daylight savings time," writes turkeydance, bringing a story from Montana, where lawmakers are proposing that the state should stop setting their clocks forward by one hour every spring. Similar legislation in several past sessions...failed to advance even out of committee. But SB206 passed committee unanimously and once on the floor, more than twice as many senators voted for it as against it. Now the House will take up SB206 during the session's second half, and likely with a renewed focus on the history of daylight saving time and what it would mean for Montana to become only the third state in the country not to observe it.
Daylight savings time has been opposed by a grassroots group of Montana farmers and ranchers, who have to sync their work schedule to the sun rather than the time on the clock, but similar legislation has also been introduced in Texas, California, Iowa, New Mexico, Michigan, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Washington. Daylight savings time was originally introduced as an energy-saving measure during World Wars I and II, and returned during the 1970s energy crisis. There's just one problem, reports Live Science. "No one really knows whether daylight saving time saves energy at all. Research is decidedly mixed on the subject, with some studies actually finding that daylight saving time boosts energy consumption."
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Will Montana Become America's Third State To Ditch Daylight Savings Time? More

Will Montana Become America's Third State To Ditch Daylight Savings Time?

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  • SAVING (Score:5, Informative)

    by manicpop ( 1342057 ) on Saturday March 11, 2017 @07:39PM (#54020327)
    daylight saving time

    • Worth saving because I like having it be light outside until after 20:00 for as long as possible.

      • Re:SAVING (Score:5, Informative)

        by The Real Dr John ( 716876 ) on Saturday March 11, 2017 @08:08PM (#54020457) Homepage

        DST is biologically absurd. Earth time is based on an approximately 24 hr day, with seasonal shifts in the length of the day/night cycle based on latitude. Biological organisms synchronize with this cycle (termed circadian entrainment). Trying to shift that cycle by 1 hour artificially twice a year is counterproductive and harmful.

        http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/1... [nejm.org]

        It is time (pun intended) to stop this nonsense.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by clovis ( 4684 )

          Also, DST is entirely useless at high latitudes and in equatorial zones.
          DST also has less effect if you're located in the western side of the time zone as opposed to the eastern side.
          That is to say, people on the western side of the time zone already have the sunset an hour later than people on the eastern side, so the "usefulness" of DST's effects depends greatly upon your latitude and longitude.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

            Just get to work early and you can leave early so you will get more daylight after work. When you work in an office you don't need daylight anyway so why let it go to waste?

          • Also, DST is entirely useless at high latitudes and in equatorial zones. DST also has less effect if you're located in the western side of the time zone as opposed to the eastern side. That is to say, people on the western side of the time zone already have the sunset an hour later than people on the eastern side, so the "usefulness" of DST's effects depends greatly upon your latitude and longitude.

            Solution to this could be a fuzzy logic approach, which would be that instead of having time zones defined by, among other things, political preferences, have time zones defined only by longitude, and that too, instead of by hourly or half hourly increments, have them increment by minute. In other words, every 4 degrees of longitude, it'll be a new time. In the old days, maintaining a clock would have been cumbersome, but since smartphones, computers and other time pieces are mostly online and can be geo-

        • Trying to shift that cycle by 1 hour artificially twice a year is counterproductive and harmful.

          Man are these people are not going cope if they have to get up early to make a meeting to work one day.

        • DST is biologically absurd. Earth time is based on an approximately 24 hr day, with seasonal shifts in the length of the day/night cycle based on latitude. Biological organisms synchronize with this cycle (termed circadian entrainment). Trying to shift that cycle by 1 hour artificially twice a year is counterproductive and harmful.

          Not as absurd as not shifting it.
          The best option would be natural shifting of about a minute per week to match the seasons.
          Second best option is a jarring shift of one hour twice a year.
          Worst option is no change so the clocks are most out of sync with the sun

          • What benefit is there to DST? Name one single benefit. People are going to drive in the dark in the winter no matter what you do to the time on your clock. Either you drive in the dark in the morning, or in the evening. There are less than 8 hours of light in the beginning of winter, especially as you go further north or south toward the poles. Clearly the trend is to get rid of DST and I say good riddance.

            • What benefit is there to DST? Name one single benefit.

              More light time in the evening after work (during the months of DST time) to do outdoor jobs at home or do anything else outdoors. Sorry, that was two reasons; I'll stop there.

              • Get up earlier and stop messing with the clocks. Those are not reasons, those are poor excuses.

                • Get up earlier and stop messing with the clocks.

                  I'm getting the impression you're about 85 and there's some kids on your lawn...

                  Those are not reasons, those are poor excuses.

                  Riiighttt.......

            • What benefit is there to DST? Name one single benefit.

              I already did, it aligns the clock with the changes of daylight due to seasonal changes. It is crude and jarring, but it still closer to the natural cycle than not using DST. An improvement would be to gradually adjust the clock to the season rather than two big shifts each year.

              People are going to drive in the dark in the winter no matter what you do to the time on your clock. Either you drive in the dark in the morning, or in the evening.

              Some people do more with their lives than just drive around...

              • Closer to the natural cycle? You clearly have not thought this through. How is changing by 1 hour twice a year, in just two big jumps, anything like a natural cycle? Clock time is arbitrary, and making the time jump around is anything but a "natural cycle".

      • Re:SAVING (Score:4, Interesting)

        by skids ( 119237 ) on Saturday March 11, 2017 @10:16PM (#54020901) Homepage

        I just prefer to drive home from work in daylght. So I'd rather have DST all the time than never.

  • Rather than make everyone google it.

    I know Hawaii doesn't use Daylight Savings Time. When I was there, we had to remember that twice a year our contacts on the mainland had different office hours compared to ours.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )

      Arizona other than either the Navajo or Hopi reservation does not have DST.

      Last I recall, a few counties in SW Indiana also did not have DST, but I haven't exactly kept up to know if they're still that way or not.

      Honestly I'm not sure what DST is supposed to do besides screw with sleep schedules.

      • The Indiana exception isn't about DST but that some parts are on Central rather than Eastern time. As somebody who lives about 15 minutes from that border, it's pretty aggravating and causes way too many problems for us but we still forget and assume everyone is the same time we are.

        • IIRC there used to be a difference in observing DST as well so a few counties were always on central time, most were on Eastern time, but in the summer most of them did not observe DST so they were in sync with the central time zone counties that DID observe DST, effectively changing the timezone of the state from the perspective of those of us who do observe DST..

      • The counties in Indiana switched over to DST ten years or so ago. They provided a unique opportunity to study whether or not DST saves energy, because they were located in and amongst counties that already used DST. As a result, you could correlate energy usage before and after the switch in both areas. That study showed a slight rise in annual energy usage with the switch to DST.

      • Arizona does not do DST. The Navajo reservation, inside Arizona, does DST. The Hopi reservation, inside the Navajo reservation, does not do DST.

        There is a 100 mile stretch in Arizona which, depending on when you traverse it, may require 7 clock changes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      I know Hawaii doesn't use Daylight Savings Time.

      Being tropical, it would be ridiculous.

      Why can't other states just legislate to change standard business hours so people work earlier in summer? That would make a lot more sense.

  • And time says it is time to kill DST.

  • More Useful Daylight in Summer (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lawrence_Bird ( 67278 ) on Saturday March 11, 2017 @07:48PM (#54020351) Homepage

    All that matters is we get some extra daylight after work during the warm time of year so we can enjoy it. Is it a little darker in the morning that first month? Small price to pay. To alleviate the supposed "stress" of the one hour change, do it on Sat. instead of Sun. But honestly, are people dropping dead flying across a one hour time zone change?

    • Re:More Useful Daylight in Summer (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday March 11, 2017 @07:57PM (#54020395)

      I like daylight saving for this exact reason - more daylight after work (and no, I can't just change my work schedule to give myself more daylight time in the evenings).

      I'd be fine with just settling on daylight savings time year round... no more "spring forward, fall back". I live in Washington state, so during winter it's going to be dark when I'm going to work and when I'm coming home anyway...

      Heck, what I'd really like is the idea the Car Talk guys threw out there many years ago - "Double Dutch Daylight Savings", meaning the clocks would be adjusted by two hours. Do that, and do it year round.

      • If you can't adjust your schedule now, and they moved the clocks year round (one or two, doesn't matter) your schedule would just get moved by the same amount of time, for whatever reasons they have it set where it is now. It only works now because of the difference, because people want to have the numbers on their schedule be the same year round. It would just get lowest-common-denominatored into what it is right now without daylight saving time.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ls671 ( 1122017 )

        I like daylight saving for this exact reason - more daylight after work (and no, I can't just change my work schedule to give myself more daylight time in the evenings).

        I'd be fine with just settling on daylight savings time year round... no more "spring forward, fall back". I live in Washington state, so during winter it's going to be dark when I'm going to work and when I'm coming home anyway...

        But... but... think of the children! They usually get young kids home from school before dark...

        • I assume you're being sarcastic, but just to clarify if you live in a norther latitude you get over this idea pretty quickly. No matter how much the clock gets adjusted it's going to either be dark when the children leave or when the get home (maybe both!) and there's nothing you can do about it. You may as well try to get as much evening daylight as possible, which is why I like DST.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tomhath ( 637240 )
      If that was the reason, we would change the clocks in May and September. The real reason is because merchants want people to go shopping after work.

    • Well, the various studies in TFA and elsewhere have always managed to show a weak association with DST and various ills (death, dismemberment, hemorrhoids). The values are typically small which makes me discount much of a causal association. Having the entire country do 10 jumping jacks on some random Saturday would probably cause similar mayhem.

      It's just a pain in the ass for no good reason (like hemorrhoids).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      are people dropping dead

      Yes [darwinawards.com] they are.

    • It's one of those things that brings out the nutters, along with vaccination and water fluoridation. It's mostly the same nutters in all cases.

      As to your last point, I wouldn't be surprised if the F-22's avionics have a problem.

    • If it is actually true that these Montana farmers work by the clock of the Sun, instead of the wall clock, then they still have the exact same number of daylight hours after work either way and having daylight saving time or not doesn't even affect them.

      Maybe people should just stop being afraid of the dark?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Imrik ( 148191 )

        The farmers work by the sun, their machines work by the clock. For some farmers it may take most of the day to adjust the scheduling on all the machines they use.

    • Darker mornings mean kids are on the streets in the dark. That's the reality of today.

      Now, there is some push to move the school day later so if that happens then there really is no downside.
  • We should ask VP Pence if it was a mistake. https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com] I seriously doubt it's saving anything.
    • Actually we should ask VP Pence why he thinks there should be gay conversion therapy. The world wonders.
  • People are going to be upset when they realize that they will lose an hour of sun in the summer evenings, instead of gaining an hour of sun in the winter evenings.

  • This twice annual ritual of suggesting we get rid of Daylight Saving Time is more annoying that actually changing the clocks.

  • abandon daylight savings time, i propose this one last time set the clocks forward 30 minutes, and then leave it right there in the autumn, it splits the difference between and hour forward in the spring and an hour back in the autumn, by splitting the difference at 30 minutes it is a good balance between the two

  • CREATION IS CUBIC, but
    you are educated singularity
    stupid by academic bastards.
    Greenwich 1 day time is evil.
    I know that you possess the
    mind to think that there are 4
    simultaneous 24 hour days
    within a single Earth rotation,
    I think that you are just evil.
    Can you explain the 4 days
    rather than the 1 day taught?
    If not, you are truely stupid.
    To ignore the 4 days, is evil.

  • Everyone keeps geting it backwards (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Narcocide ( 102829 ) on Saturday March 11, 2017 @08:34PM (#54020569) Homepage

    Daylight Savings Time is good. We need to stop turning it off in the winter.

    • Daylight Savings Time is good. We need to stop turning it off in the winter.

      But then you will have noon at 1pm every day, and midnight at 1 am. That's the silly bit about trying to redefine time, which used to have some connection to natural cycles. If you throw away that connection, you might as well rename things from A o'clock to Z o'clock.

      I agree we should keep the same time all year, just like we should keep the same definitions for other physical measurements (think of making the meter shorter in the winter). But if you want DST all year, then what you really want is a shi

      • But then you will have noon at 1pm every day, and midnight at 1 am.

        We already have noon at 1pm and midnight at 1 am for 8 months of the year.

        But if you want DST all year, then what you really want is a shift in work hours etc. in relation to natural cycles. That is something you can fix without ruining time itself.

        That sounds easier said than done. Do we tie schedules to sunrise? "I work for 8 hours, 90 minutes after sunrise." "Do you want to catch a movie at 10 hours after sunrise?"
        Variable work schedule? "I work 8 hours a day on the equinox, 6 hours on the winter solstice, and 11 hours on the summer solstice."

    • Just get up earlier. You don't need the state to tell you to do so.

    • I don't think the timing itself is what everyone complains about. I think it's the constant switching of the timing that pisses people off. Most of the complainers (including me) want to just pick a time and stick with it.

  • We know that Daylight Savings wastes energy (Score:3)

    by jader3rd ( 2222716 ) on Saturday March 11, 2017 @08:34PM (#54020571)
    We know that Daylight Savings wastes energy. Daylight Savings exists, because US Senators took note of how they were able to play more golf when Daylight Savings existed, and so re-established it to avoid spending time with their wives.

  • All I can say is the future looks bright no matter what my clock says. It's 6:30pm and nearly dark outside, there is snow on the ground, and later tonight it's time to set the clocks forward. Is it Spring already? Just another reminder of the years going by! I'm still working on my Web Shell Java/XML Framework [iovar.win]; any help on IOVAR is appreciated.

    As to the local time: my first instinct is to say I hope we don't change the law at this point. Best to continue to practice Daylight Savings Time like our neighborin

  • I live in Indiana. We started doing this madness only recently. There's no good reason.

  • A local newscast reported earlier this week that a measure to place a ballot issue for the Colorado voters to do away with daylight saving time is shortly to be introduced (or has been by now) to the Colorado Legislature.
  • I think what is now DST should be the standard all year round. It gives better daylight time all year and we wouldn't have to deal with complete darkness at 5PM in winter. So what if the sun is over our heads at 1PM instead of 12PM. I don'e know about you but 12PM is not the halfway point in my day. Most people get up way after the sun's been up but stay up many hours after the sun's gone down. Adopting what is DST now as the standard all year would be perfect.

    • The sun being over our heads is the definition of noon.

      Large pizzas are often 14 inches. People like lots of pizza. So let's make inches slightly larger so that we get more pizza.

      Yeah, it's that stupid.

  • I live in Arizona, which doesn't observe DST, which eliminates me having to wander through the house and reset all the clocks, right?
    Wrong.
    You see, I like to have my clocks all reading the same time, so almost all the clocks in my house are atomic clocks and keep themselves sync'ed with WWV. And every spring and fall, they dutifully jump forward or backward an hour, so I still end up wandering through the house resetting clocks. Ugh.

    • > You see, I like to have my clocks all reading the same time, so almost all the clocks in my house are atomic clocks and keep themselves sync'ed with WWV.

      Your radio synchronized clocks* are accurate to within a about 200ms or so. Using NTP, your clocks can all read the same time to within about 1ms. Any computer or computing device (such as even a consumer grade wireless router) includes a NTP client. You set one device as the master for your house. It syncs to a couple of nearby tier 2 servers, th

  • A fun fact (Score:2, Insightful)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 )
    Did you know that daylight savings time single handedly kills more people from cardiac problems than terrorism per year.

    • Did you know that daylight savings time single handedly kills more people from cardiac problems than terrorism per year.

      As do people being shot by toddlers, but here we are. OMG Terrorism!!!

    • Did you know that daylight savings time single handedly kills more people from cardiac problems than terrorism per year.

      No I didn't. Is that what they put on the death certificate - "Killed by DST" ?

  • There is a bill in the lower intestine of the government to no longer switch to DST, with luck it will be on the ballot in November. From what I've heard not only in forums but talking to people, everybody hates it. The older I get the longer it takes me to adjust. In my 30s I was WTF is the big deal. In my late 50's it's "oh god, not this shit again".
  • So for something completely non-nerdy: I like to sit in the sun and relax for a bit (cold beer optional). So when you come home after work (say at the fixed time of 5:00pm), you can still enjoy the warmth of the sun as it's actually "just" 4:00pm. So do I care about the very end of the day? No, not really. The morning? Nope. But the extra hour in the afternoon, before supper? Absolutely.
  • My understanding is that Daylight Savings Time makes the sunrise time have a smaller range over the course of a year, at the expense of a more variable sunset.

    Here is a chart. [imgur.com]

  • Having islands of DST and non-DST time can be a pain in the neck for sysadmins. It's not just the USA that's dicking around with the DST rules. It seems like every continent has their own start and end dates, not to mention various countries moving the time zones around.

    It was a moderate pain when the DST rules changed in 2007. We were using both virtual machines and standalone servers with Ardence/Citrix Provisioning Server type technology, and not everything went smoothly.

    • Having islands of DST and non-DST time can be a pain in the neck for sysadmins.

      What is this 1999? Since Y2K, Machines should all be set to UTC, and the app should know how to deal with local conversion.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by clovis ( 4684 )

        Having islands of DST and non-DST time can be a pain in the neck for sysadmins.

        What is this 1999? Since Y2K, Machines should all be set to UTC, and the app should know how to deal with local conversion.

        /quote

        Ohhh, please no, do not let the apps do that. The bad stuff that happened during the 2007 DST change were mostly apps that did their own conversion.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by clovis ( 4684 )

          Having islands of DST and non-DST time can be a pain in the neck for sysadmins.

          What is this 1999? Since Y2K, Machines should all be set to UTC, and the app should know how to deal with local conversion.

          Ohhh, please no, do not let the apps do that. The bad stuff that happened during the 2007 DST change were mostly apps that did their own conversion.

          Never mind.
          It just occurred to me that you did not mean let the apps maintain the timezone/DST etc tables, but rather use the OS tables to inform the apps to do the local time conversions, like Outlook does for mails sent/received in different timezones, (when it's working correctly).

  • DST is not the issue (Score:5, Insightful)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Saturday March 11, 2017 @11:12PM (#54021073)

    >"Okay...twice every year Slashdot disses Daylight savings time,

    Most people on Slashdot are not dissing Daylight Savings Time. That isn't the issue. The issue is CHANGING TIME TWICE A YEAR. Just put it on DST and leave it there permanently!

  • Time zones are ridiculous. If it is 1500 hours in Vancouver, it should be 1500 hours anywhere and everywhere else on the planet. It's not like this would be difficult to adapt to. After all, you don't hear of anyone trying to get everyone to convert to date zones by latitude, so that January in Australia is winter, too.

    DudeA: Happy Birthday!

    DudeB: It's not my birthday.

    DudeA: What? It's July 17th today. I could swear your birthday was July 17th!

    DudeB: It is. But I'm not from this date zone. So it isn't

    • Only 12% of us live in the Southern Hemisphere.

      Is it that confusing for those of you who live north of the equator? Or are you just jealous of us spending Christmas at the beach instead of under a metre of snow? :)

      • I'm pretty sure my argument was that it is not confusing at all, nor should it be if we all converted to one single time.

  • DST is absurd. I see no valid reason to change twice a year. Maybe in northern latitudes, the sun changes more drastically. I live in the south. I recall the old argument to switch off - that kids would be going to school in the dark - and thinking, "why don't they adjust the start time of school to something more reasonable than 8:00?"

    Not looking forward to tomorrow.
  • I love the complaints in here over DST, I especially like the suggestions that "schools should adjust schedules so that kids should not go to school in the dark."

    And therein lies the problem. So instead of adjusting the clocks, we'll now adjust everybody's schedule. In the winter time, you work from 9A-6P. In the summertime, you work from 10A-7P. Bam!

    You now sleep until 8A instead of 7A, or in the winter time you sleep until 7A instead of 8A!

    And....you're doing exactly what you would have fucking done with

  • Daylight savings time has been opposed by a grassroots group of Montana farmers and ranchers, who have to sync their work schedule to the sun rather than the time on the clock.

    Take the argument to its logical conclusion and these farmers should be reverting to the pre-railroad days of setting their clocks based on local solar time. Be sure to re-set your watch every 25 miles or so as you move east or west.

  • to change time on multiple devices. Please, cancel it.

  • FTFA

    Daylight savings time has been opposed by a grassroots group of Montana farmers and ranchers, who have to sync their work schedule to the sun rather than the time on the clock

    So why TF does it matter to a farmer what the clock says? They of all people can entirely ignore what the clock says, including DST, and just get up when the cock crows or use whatever other criterion they want to. DST only matters if you have an employer to report to.

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