> ... arguments in the discussion (children coming home in the dark v.s. during > daylight) ...
I missed this earlier in the discussion, however, I've always thought this was a bit of a red herring. Children coming and going in the dark is a consequence of the winter months, a period when DST is not in effect. As Kees said, the purpose of DST is to avoid wasting daylight during the traditional sleeping hours. FWIW, I think DST is a waste of time (pun intended); people are quite capable of adjusting their sleep patterns without having to be fooled into thinking that it's later than it really is. Furthermore, in a world that has become a global village, what's the point of local time anyway? We already have different work-days within each location: Office hours tend to be 9 ~ 5; Construction workers tend to work 7 ~ 3; Cable guys ... OK, noone knows when they're coming. I say, let's do away with local time and go with UTC (with or without leap seconds) wherever in the world Carmen Sandiego may be. I'm sure everyone would soon figure out what time to wake up and when to go to sleep. ============================================= > Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2011 09:31:04 +0100 > From: [email protected] > Subject: Re: DST option ? > To: [email protected] > > "Ed Gould" <[email protected]> wrote in message > news:<[email protected]>... > > After listening to all the controversy about DST how about just > adding 30 minutes and stay at the that time year around? That would make > everybody happy, no? > > > > Ed > > > > What I missed in the DST discussion until now is why countries decided > to go to DST (or summer time as we call it here). > From the term (save daylight) and several arguments in the discussion > (children coming home in the dark v.s. during daylight), I think the > reason in the US might have been ot have more hours of daylight during > the period most people don't sleep. > > In Europe the reason was energy saving. It you have one more hour of > light during the evening, you will use one hour less of electricity for > light, plus other related savings. > > The net energy savings are regular subject of discussions, but if this > is the reason, you can't get everybody happy with 30 minutes all year, > probably get half of the savings in the summer, giving them away again > in the winter. > > So you cannot negotiate the DST duration, suppose the optimum would be > calculated to 42 (to take an arbitrary number) minutes , or 42 plus the > local longitude, would anybody be happier than? I suppose there are only > 2 possibilities: have it and take the pros and cons or abandon it. > > Kees. > ******************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
