The problem is not as much the times zones, as it is the way we work.
Time zones are (mostly) tied to Solar Time, which is another way to say
"the sun is directly overhead at noon". While our jobs revolve around
noon, our lives do not.
For example, then '8 to 5' job has 4 hours before noon and 5 hours after
noon. But, if there are 12 hours of daylight, we have 3 of those hours
before work and 4 after work. The problem then is that we spend those
early 3 hours getting ready for work in our homes where it does not
matter that it is daylight out. After work, it's a different story. We
come home, though some work clothes on and want to work (or play)
outside until dark. Then we come inside, turn our lights on, and do
whatever until it's time for bed.
Farmers have always been light centered. They got up at daybreak and
worked sometimes several hours before then had breakfast.
We really need to get out of the '8-5' work times. While outside work
needs to be daylight centered, we could make our standard workday '6-3'
and a lot more people would be happy with the available daylight after work.
Tony Thigpen
Mike Schwab wrote on 09/18/2018 11:19 AM:
Well, there are problems in China since they use Bejing time across
the country and have a 3 hour difference at the Afghanistan border.
But essentially, the U.S. Eastern, Central, and Mountain times are one
time zone as far as TVs are concerned.
On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 9:43 AM Paul Gilmartin
<[email protected]> wrote:
On Tue, 18 Sep 2018 08:48:17 -0400, Steve Smith wrote:
One thing blew my mind: "The plan also raises the prospect of neighboring
countries ending up an hour apart". Really? Did someone seriously say
that out loud?
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-to-stop-changing-the-clocks-in-2019/a-45495680
In 1883, when the U.S. adopted Standard Time, a timezone was about a day's
travel. A passenger or operator might to reset a watch no more tnan once
during a shift.
Technology has shrunk the world. Nowadays, by similar reasoning, a single
timezone
would be reasonable. GMT. Or perhaps two, one for the Eastern Hemisphere, one
for
the Western.
OTOH, nowadays almost everyone's personal timekeeping device resets
automatically
for both geographic and seasonal boundaries. No need even to press a button.
Why is this a matter of such intense contention?
Late one morning circa 1972 from Boulder, CO, I attempted to phone a customer
in Benton Harbor, MI.
"He's out to lunch. When can he call you back?"
"I'm about to leave for lunch. Two hours from now?"
[I didn't know whether MI had one timezone or two, and wasn't
sure they knew that CO was not observing DST, so I had shortcut
the computation.]
[Long pause while I envisioned mental arithmetic operating, but
failing.]
"What timezone are you in?"
(Irrelevant. Would the result of the computation have been any different
if I had been in Pyongyang?)
-- gil
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