Help end the evil practice known as DST

Ekaros

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Quote from: Slab Squathrust on March 17, 2013, 03:36:19 AM

Quote from: Ekaros on March 13, 2013, 04:42:33 AM

New second might be interesting idea at somepoint.

The SI unit of time is the second. The value of this, used to be 1/86,400 of a day. Now we use a single atom of an isotope of cesium to provide a more precise, and universal value of a second. We do this because the rotation speed of earth (1 day) is actually slowing. Arbitrarily defining a new unit of time would cause serious problems with our system of measurements. Many SI units have a time component. If the new second, was 110% the value of the old second, constants would have to be added to all kinds of equations, especially if you wanted to compare measurements with those taken before the change. Velocity in M/s would be M/1.1s. Formulas where the second value appears more than once would become increasingly complex. For example acceleration is denominated in m/(1s*1s) or m/s². Now if you had your new second the formula, the equation would become m/(1.21*s²). Sure, people could easily learn to incorporate these new constants into equations, but it would add unnecessary complexity with no offsetting benefit.

True, but at same time we could rescale all the units to something else. And get rid of freaking kilogram too. It annoys me in someways on having a single unit with prefix in it, a unit which affects many other units...

Slab Squathrust

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Quote from: Ekaros on March 13, 2013, 04:42:33 AM

New second might be interesting idea at somepoint.

The SI unit of time is the second. The value of this, used to be 1/86,400 of a day. Now we use a single atom of an isotope of cesium to provide a more precise, and universal value of a second. We do this because the rotation speed of earth (1 day) is actually slowing. Arbitrarily defining a new unit of time would cause serious problems with our system of measurements. Many SI units have a time component. If the new second, was 110% the value of the old second, constants would have to be added to all kinds of equations, especially if you wanted to compare measurements with those taken before the change. Velocity in M/s would be M/1.1s. Formulas where the second value appears more than once would become increasingly complex. For example acceleration is denominated in m/(1s*1s) or m/s². Now if you had your new second the formula, the equation would become m/(1.21*s²). Sure, people could easily learn to incorporate these new constants into equations, but it would add unnecessary complexity with no offsetting benefit.

Richy_T

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The suggestion means that you'll be sitting there, sometime in the afternoon and it'll be year 3124, you'll go to make a cup of coffee and it will be 3125. It would never fly. It makes sense to align significant events just like it does to align 64 bit integers on a 4 byte boundary. It also makes sense to arrange for them to happen during what is generally downtime which is why these things happen at night and not (say) noon.

myrkul

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Quote from: asdf on March 13, 2013, 06:54:50 PM

Quote from: myrkul on March 11, 2013, 08:24:28 PM

Quote from: asdf on March 11, 2013, 07:08:00 PM

also: leap years. The rotation of the earth on it's axis does NOT line up with the rotation around the sun! Stop pretending that it does. Days are days and years are years.

Tell you what, when you come up with a useable calendar that is exactly 365.242 days long, we'll get rid of leap years. In the meantime, it's a useful abstraction that keeps spring in March, instead of August.

I'm saying that we shouldn't conflate days and years at all. If you want to measure seasons, divide the year into 4 quarters. Why do we need March and August?

We can have a "days" calendar: no. days since Jan 01 0000.

A "years" calendar: no. years since Jan 01 0000.

A "months" calendar: no of moon-rotations since Jan 01 0000.

Weeks don't line up with years and society still functions.

And precisely how would you calculate the date, Jan. 01, 0000? And which date would you use for this date? January 1st in the year that has been arbitrarily assigned as the birth of Jesus? January 1, 1970?

And how would these calendars interact? Would they at all? How would you write a specific date?

I know you're a programmer. I get that you probably think in Unix time. Most people don't. Most people think in Gregorian time. Rule 1 of changing things is, "Is this a necessary change?" Rule 2 is "Is this worth the trouble it will cause?"

Trying to switch everyone over to some variation on Epoch time will cause a lot of confusion, particularly in communication. And to what end? It's not like it will make things more efficient, nor will it make it easier to time planting of crops (Yes, this is still important.) or help in any way except make you feel better about not having that extra day in February every few years.

When we go into space, we will have less need of linking our activities to the orbital period of our home planet. We'll probably get a new calendar along the way somewhere, and that would be the time to introduce a new dating system.

Richy_T

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My birthday's in August Sad

asdf

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Quote from: myrkul on March 11, 2013, 08:24:28 PM

Quote from: asdf on March 11, 2013, 07:08:00 PM

also: leap years. The rotation of the earth on it's axis does NOT line up with the rotation around the sun! Stop pretending that it does. Days are days and years are years.

Tell you what, when you come up with a useable calendar that is exactly 365.242 days long, we'll get rid of leap years. In the meantime, it's a useful abstraction that keeps spring in March, instead of August.

I'm saying that we shouldn't conflate days and years at all. If you want to measure seasons, divide the year into 4 quarters. Why do we need March and August?

We can have a "days" calendar: no. days since Jan 01 0000.

A "years" calendar: no. years since Jan 01 0000.

A "months" calendar: no of moon-rotations since Jan 01 0000.

Weeks don't line up with years and society still functions.

Richy_T

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Quote from: Lethn on March 12, 2013, 10:55:56 PM

Quote

If you want to experience more daylight, GET UP EARLIER (or later)! Don't shift the metric, that's fucking ridiculous!

I'll let you in on something I don't mention very often, I get up really well when I go to bed at around 7:00pm - 8:00pm, while it means I get up at 4:00am to 5:00am ( sometimes earilier ) it means I can get up for just about anything and I'd say I have a much more relaxed morning because of it. Since I'm up that early I can get proper sleep, wake up and experience a full day without all the usual morning grumpiness, not only that, because I'm up so early, I can ( when the fucking parents don't make a big deal about it >_< Lol need to move out ) play games, get a coffee, do all my usual work before I have to go to any lessons or anything like that.

You lot just need to stop being such lazy wankers because in my country I can't even do anything at 7:00am anymore because everyone makes it out to be an outrage to get up that early so they set opening times for everything at 9:00am instead! I thought it was just me but I actually talked to the owner of a newsagents ( Convenience Store for Americans ) I go to regularly once and discovered he couldn't even call a company he needed to get into contact with until around 10:00am! Utterly fucking ridiculous.

Great, you're a morning person. Good for you. Not all of us are. Personally, my rhythms would have me in bed at around 4am and waking somewhere around noon. Night time is a perfect time for doing what I like to do. Everything is quiet and concentration and flow comes easy. Unfortunately, I can't find a job which works to my schedule so I'm forced to drag myself out of bed well before time and perform inefficiently all morning until my rhythms catch up. This DST thing has been particularly bad this year. I was useless all day yesterday and had a ****ing headache all evening. A day wasted.

kokojie

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Quote from: Ekaros on March 12, 2013, 10:24:25 PM

I would like to take step further and move to one time zone. Would make global life so much easier in everyway...

Yes one time zone for the entire US would make sense, but one victory at a time.

Ekaros

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Does it really matter what the time you wake up is called?

7:00 or 12:00?

I'm not saying we change our local rhythms just that we use one time system for it. And the details of that system are arbitary. New second might be interesting idea at somepoint.

cbeast

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Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.

Quote from: Ekaros on March 12, 2013, 10:24:25 PM

I would like to take step further and move to one time zone. Would make global life so much easier in everyway...

Let's just get rid of clocks altogether. They are simply tools of enslavement.

myrkul

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Quote from: Lethn on March 12, 2013, 10:57:56 PM

Quote from: myrkul on March 12, 2013, 10:57:14 PM

Quote from: Ekaros on March 12, 2013, 10:24:25 PM

I would like to take step further and move to one time zone. Would make global life so much easier in everyway...

While we're at it, why not standardize on a metric time system? End Egyptian tyranny once and for all!

Let's get rid of negative numbers while we're at it! That will solve all the debt problems we've been having! Tongue

I was actually semi-serious. 60-60-24 is unnecessarily complex. 100-100-10 doesn't match up with the rotational period of the Earth (86 400 seconds vs. 100 000 seconds), but if we're doing one time zone, that doesn't matter as much any more, does it? Especially once we're no longer actually on the planet.

Lethn

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Quote from: myrkul on March 12, 2013, 10:57:14 PM

Quote from: Ekaros on March 12, 2013, 10:24:25 PM

I would like to take step further and move to one time zone. Would make global life so much easier in everyway...

While we're at it, why not standardize on a metric time system? End Egyptian tyranny once and for all!

Let's get rid of negative numbers while we're at it! That will solve all the debt problems we've been having! Tongue

myrkul

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Quote from: Ekaros on March 12, 2013, 10:24:25 PM

I would like to take step further and move to one time zone. Would make global life so much easier in everyway...

While we're at it, why not standardize on a metric time system? End Egyptian tyranny once and for all!

Lethn

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Quote

If you want to experience more daylight, GET UP EARLIER (or later)! Don't shift the metric, that's fucking ridiculous!

I'll let you in on something I don't mention very often, I get up really well when I go to bed at around 7:00pm - 8:00pm, while it means I get up at 4:00am to 5:00am ( sometimes earilier ) it means I can get up for just about anything and I'd say I have a much more relaxed morning because of it. Since I'm up that early I can get proper sleep, wake up and experience a full day without all the usual morning grumpiness, not only that, because I'm up so early, I can ( when the fucking parents don't make a big deal about it >_< Lol need to move out ) play games, get a coffee, do all my usual work before I have to go to any lessons or anything like that.

You lot just need to stop being such lazy wankers because in my country I can't even do anything at 7:00am anymore because everyone makes it out to be an outrage to get up that early so they set opening times for everything at 9:00am instead! I thought it was just me but I actually talked to the owner of a newsagents ( Convenience Store for Americans ) I go to regularly once and discovered he couldn't even call a company he needed to get into contact with until around 10:00am! Utterly fucking ridiculous.

Ekaros

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I would like to take step further and move to one time zone. Would make global life so much easier in everyway...

Richy_T

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Quote from: Nancarrow on March 12, 2013, 04:23:04 AM

Quote from: kokojie on March 10, 2013, 01:05:26 PM

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/eliminate-bi-annual-time-change-caused-daylight-savings-time/ShChxpKh

Fight and you may fail. Run and you will live at least awhile. And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance,
to come back here as young men and tell the DST retards that they may force their DST upon us but they will never take our will to end it!!!

Fucking idiot. But thanks for reminding me why I spend all my BitTime in the Mining, Newbie, Marketplace sections... ANYWHERE but Politics&Society.

Sympathizer

Nancarrow

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Quote from: kokojie on March 10, 2013, 01:05:26 PM

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/eliminate-bi-annual-time-change-caused-daylight-savings-time/ShChxpKh

Fight and you may fail. Run and you will live at least awhile. And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance,
to come back here as young men and tell the DST retards that they may force their DST upon us but they will never take our will to end it!!!

Fucking idiot. But thanks for reminding me why I spend all my BitTime in the Mining, Newbie, Marketplace sections... ANYWHERE but Politics&Society.

myrkul

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Quote from: asdf on March 11, 2013, 07:08:00 PM

If you want to experience more daylight, GET UP EARLIER (or later)! Don't shift the metric, that's fucking ridiculous!

This I agree with, DST is an outdated concept, that attempted to line up the business day with the actual day. Given how much artificial lighting is used nowadays, it really has no purpose other than to fuck with our circadian rhythms.

Quote from: asdf on March 11, 2013, 07:08:00 PM

also: leap years. The rotation of the earth on it's axis does NOT line up with the rotation around the sun! Stop pretending that it does. Days are days and years are years.

Tell you what, when you come up with a useable calendar that is exactly 365.242 days long, we'll get rid of leap years. In the meantime, it's a useful abstraction that keeps spring in March, instead of August.

asdf

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oh man do I hate this concept! it really makes various computer systems way more complicated than they need to be. As a software engineer, it offends me.

If you want to experience more daylight, GET UP EARLIER (or later)! Don't shift the metric, that's fucking ridiculous!

It's like measuring your living room for a new couch and realising it doesn't fit by an inch. So what you do is just start measuring an inch past the wall, yay fits now!

also: leap years. The rotation of the earth on it's axis does NOT line up with the rotation around the sun! Stop pretending that it does. Days are days and years are years.

Elwar

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Viva Ut Vivas

No daylight is saved from daylight savings time no matter what they say.

Topic: Help end the evil practice known as DST (Read 1730 times)