<story><title>Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/us/daylight-saving-time-florida.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Ajedi32</author><text>So you want to abolish time zones: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;qntm.org&amp;#x2F;abolish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;qntm.org&amp;#x2F;abolish&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>fold</author><text>I wouldn&amp;#x27;t mind everyone moving to UTC.  Sure, only people in Greenwich would be able to eat lunch at 12 noon.  But at least it would simplify my life as a programmer.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zanny</author><text>Except if we did abolish time zones rather than asking Google &amp;quot;what time is it in Melbourne&amp;quot; you ask it &amp;quot;is it the waking hours in Melbourne&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;In either case you &lt;i&gt;don&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; know what time to call Melbourne. You either need to know a complicated and inconsistent system of time zones, or you just ask the same question in terms of when the sun rises and sets. You don&amp;#x27;t get out of asking a question, you don&amp;#x27;t lose any information (there is a 1 to 1 equivalence between what time it is somewhere and when its noon there, you could ask either question and have the exact same thought process comparing a time to &amp;quot;safe&amp;quot; hours to call someone).&lt;p&gt;That article argues that the current system is some miraculous saver of sanity by solving all the problems associated with telling if someone is &amp;quot;awake&amp;quot; or not in a certain time zone. Except I have two cousins, both living in the same time zone, one of which wakes up at 6am and the other wakes up at 4pm.&lt;p&gt;Also, from personal experience calling people both without and with substantial time zone difference, you &lt;i&gt;never&lt;/i&gt; know when its a good time to call someone else. They might have had a long day and took a nap. They might not be home when you think they would be. They might be engaged in an activity they don&amp;#x27;t want to be distracted from. For practical uses of synchronous communication you need to have agreements on when to call in the first place.&lt;p&gt;If I&amp;#x27;m calling someone I know, its because I &lt;i&gt;know&lt;/i&gt; from &lt;i&gt;experience&lt;/i&gt; when they are available, relative to my time. It does not matter if they are in Munich or Tokyo or down the street, I need to know in advance their availability for that call regardless of silly contrivances like the culturally normative sleep cycles of the region I&amp;#x27;m calling into.&lt;p&gt;Because at the end of the day, there are still tens of thousands of people in Melbourne working the night shift.</text></comment>
<story><title>Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It’s Not So Simple</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/us/daylight-saving-time-florida.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Ajedi32</author><text>So you want to abolish time zones: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;qntm.org&amp;#x2F;abolish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;qntm.org&amp;#x2F;abolish&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>fold</author><text>I wouldn&amp;#x27;t mind everyone moving to UTC.  Sure, only people in Greenwich would be able to eat lunch at 12 noon.  But at least it would simplify my life as a programmer.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>drb91</author><text>Seems like a long winded way of saying &amp;quot;We use time to figure out where the sun is&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, there are many other non-sun-oriented uses of time, most of which are immensely complicated by timezones.</text></comment>