DST – RAnt(hony)-ings

Why Not UTC?

This is a serious question for the World of Warcraft developers. Why does the calendar in the game stay on server time when the player sets their clock to follow local time? For that matter, why are the servers set to times in particular time zones?

Computerphile – The Problem with Time & Timezones – Dec 30, 2013

Yes, yes, I know, that’s where the server is or that is time zone that Blizzard wants the player base to identify with or to play from in that region, but why should the players know or care what that time is? Why isn’t all server time set to UTC and if the players don’t want to fuck around with UTC they can set their clocks to local time and the calendar will just update to show those times?

Seems to me the platform can do the math faster and more reliably when it comes to fixing calendar times to UTC rather than having to make each player in a raid group do math each time they want to show up for a raid on time. Or have to remember that their server is in a different time zone than they are every time they look at the calendar to check raid times.

It just seems… stupid.

I’ve never understood why calendaring is treated almost like an afterthought in computers. This has been true in every OS I’ve worked with. The entire Y2K problem came about because of not thinking about the importance of time moving from the future to now to yesterday in a constant stream of increasing numbers.

It is always now on the internet, I guess. Can the calendars at least take what time it is on the player’s screen into account, please?

Apparently not.

Because a Wisconsinite telling a Virginian to meet for raid at 8 pm means two different things.

You do realize that your example completely misses the point, right? Completely, utterly exposes your abject cluelessness on the subject of calendaring and why it’s done, never mind that it skips over the fact that the two people on opposite sides of the country will see the exact same calendar with a time on an event that may or may not correspond with either players time zone and so thusly has no meaning for either of them except to cause them to show up at different times for an event that is probably at another time entirely since server times all changed when the servers were piled together.

UTC on the other hand is exactly what it says it is. Universal Time Code. That is the time everywhere that uses time as we humans have spelled it all out to be. Far from being meaningless it is the time that every clock on every server everywhere uses to extrapolate all the times for all the people who access it, even the sysadmins that dictate what the server times will be.

So again I ask, why are there server times at all in a game that is played worldwide continuously? Why isn’t there just UTC? It’s much simpler and the two players in your example will both know that the server time is incorrect for their local time (unless they live along the prime meridian) and will either change it, which the server software will then correct on the calendar times to match the set local time, or happily do the math every time they want to be on time for raid.

In either case it will be less trouble for everyone involved than the current setup which has the calendar lying about what time your events are if you change your displayed time off of server time. Again, that is almost as dumb as defending its dumbness with an example that is even dumber still. I hope I have rebutted your dumb reply. I await a blue post apologizing for the dumb and promising to fix it forthwith. Either that or the mods will consign this thread to oblivion just as they have done pretty much every other post I’ve ever written here.

Feedback on forums.blizzard.com – January 22, 2022

Step one: use UTC. Okay I’m not going to suddenly say all this advice we’ve been giving for years and years is wrong. UTC is a fine standard to base all your times off of. So use it. Don’t do something silly and change your servers’ timezones from UTC.
zachholman.com

Time Zones

In what is the most bourgeoisie example of the most bourgeoisie era, a bunch of rich, white railroad tycoons met at a fancy Chicago hotel to agree on a standard timezone so their trains would work better together. They used the new-fangled telegraph to synchronize time signals between cities.
zachholman.com

Why are there time zones? Because railroad barons told us there would be time zones and we agreed to their constraints; when what we really wanted was for work to start about two hours after we woke up, and none of us woke up before the sun back then unless someone who couldn’t sleep woke us up with their pacing back and forth.

This is a lot like asking why there is Daylight Saving Time. There is DST because there was this crazy idea about giving us more sunlight in the evenings in the Summer. We change the time back to Standard time in order to make it safer for children to get to school in the morning in the Winter, otherwise most of us have to get up before the sun and go to work and school in the dark.

Short Wave – To Be DST, Or Not To Be. That Is The Question – March 29, 2022

Resulting in a 6% rise in fatal car crashes after the time change in the Spring. Yes, you really are more groggy that first Monday morning. Go easy in traffic. It is entirely possible that the Senate got the time wrong because of dollars. Dollars given to them by lobbyists who wanted there to be more afternoon sunlight for shoppers to spend money in. This was also discussed in SGU #872. They immediately set to arguing about what time the sun comes up and why we can’t just have the sun come up at about whatever time we need to be getting up in the morning.

Now I’m even more convinced that most people really don’t understand time or how it works. I’m for just going UTC everywhere. If cities want to have city times they can do a UTC offset for their cities. That way Austin can have the sun come up bright and early at 10:00 am every morning and those crazy fucks on Wall Street can have it come up at 6:00 am as they are running to work. It’s really still just UTC and no one will care except the people who are deluded enough to think they can control what time it is. Besides, when it gets to be time not found time again (4:04) it means that I really should be asleep.

This rant is still not finished.

Daylight Swearing Time

It’s that time of year again. That time of year where you exclaim “Fuck! How did it get to be 4:30 am already?” It isn’t. Except it is now.

DST? Why?

…And it will go on being 4:30 am at this time of night until after 2:00 AM on Sunday, November 1, 2020. Then it will be 3:30 AM again. At least I have that to look forward to in November.

Imagine just for a few minutes, what it would be like for your GPS to calculate time variance based on degrees of longitude rather than twenty-four one hour time zones. In the same way your phone can change times for daylight savings, it can change time to keep up with your actual position on the globe. The device that you already rely on to tell you what time it is could just do the time calculation for your location and actually tell you what the local time is. The satellites that control GPS already perform these calculations just to be able to talk to each other and establish UTC for themselves.

I’m just not going to comply with Daylight Savings Time until somebody in authority can explain to me what we’ve been doing with all the daylight we’ve saved for the last 200 years.
I mean the interest alone on all those photons should be enough to power every solar panel in the country for the next decade.
I’m just saying, somebody owes me some sunlight here.
Stonekettle Station

DST-CST? Why?

“I don’t really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.”
Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

Every time I have to change my clocks (whether it’s to fall back or spring forward) the blood pressure goes up a few points just contemplating Daylight Saving Time.

I’ve tried just ignoring it in the past, and that didn’t work out too well. Missed appointments, extremely early arrivals, whatever. Not really a solution. I’ve tried going to bed earlier in advance of the change, setting the clocks ahead early, also not very effective. You name it, I’ll bet you I’ve tried it. No matter what, this time change thing always turns into a nightmare.

Daylight Saving Time – How Is This Still A Thing?: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) Published on Mar 8, 2015

Thanks Kaiser Wilhelm! Well, truthfully it was our buddies in New Zealand who first suggested it,

Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him leisure time to collect insects and led him to value after-hours daylight. In 1895 he presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society proposing a two-hour daylight-saving shift, and after considerable interest was expressed in Christchurch, he followed up in an 1898 paper.

They were apparently smart enough to realize that this really didn’t change anything about when the sun comes up. Leave it to the ever efficient Germans to think that they can control the sun’s motion in the skies through legislation. They were the first ones to pass DST into law, so that much of the Last Week Tonight segment is true. The Germans were hoping to conserve coal for the war effort during World War One, but current studies show that there is no energy benefit for instituting DST,

The result of the study showed that electricity use went up in the counties adopting daylight saving time in 2006, costing $8.6 million more in household electricity bills. The conclusion reached by Kotchen and Grant was that while the lighting costs were reduced in the afternoons by daylight saving, the greater heating costs in the mornings, and more use of air-conditioners on hot afternoons more than offset these savings. Kotchen said the results were more “clear and unambiguous” than results in any other paper he had presented.
Kotchen and Grant’s work reinforces the findings of an Australian study in 2007 by economists Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff, who studied the extension of daylight saving time for two months in New South Wales and Victoria for the 2000 Summer Olympics. They also found an increase in energy use.
Study: Daylight saving time a waste of energy

I can clearly see why DST is cherished and loved by authoritarians everywhere. I’m sure the #MAGA are foursquare in favor of it. I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate the power and authority of government, that even the sun can be commanded by His Electoral Highness. Now that is a showcase of control on a grand scale (in China they only have Beijing time. Talk about authority) Trump can dictate what time the sun comes up and the sun will listen. Maybe he should tackle that Pi thing, try dictating that it will be 3.2 or something. I’m sure that will work just as well.

I can hear you laughing, dear reader, but I’ve had this argument several times with many different people. Inevitably the person who thinks DST is a good idea will exclaim,

Do you really want the sun to come up at 5:30 in the morning in the summer?

It still does come up at 5:30 in the morning, we just call it 6:30.

I’m coming to the conclusion that there should just be UTC and local time. Local time can then be set according to the city authority or whatever the farmer in the field wants it to be. UTC is really the only relevant time anyway. The only time relevant aside from where the sun is in the sky on a given day. Local sunrise or sunset is the only metric that matters in the end. Timezones themselves have been rendered pointless by modern mechanisms. Not even trains rely on timezones anymore.

Imagine just for a few minutes, what it would be like for your GPS to calculate time variance based on degrees of longitude rather than twenty-four one hour timezones. In the same way your phone can change times for daylight savings, it can change time to keep up with your actual position on the globe. The device that you already rely on to tell you what time it is could just do the time calculation for your location and actually tell you what the local time is. The satellites that control GPS already perform these calculations just to be able to talk to each other and establish UTC for themselves.

Cities could assert their own authority and set time for the regions they control. That measure of standardization for a specific local area is understandable, but why would a farmer care what time it is in the city unless he is going there? Why does someone in Austin need to care what the time is in Denver, Washington D.C. or Los Angeles? If you need to know, ask your phone like you do for every other thing you need during the day already.

Why is this so hard to figure out?

It is entirely possible that my hostility to time and time change hinges on my long struggle with dysgraphia and sleep apnea. With Meniere’s. Even with the CPAP machine and amitriptyline (for migraines) I can still find myself staring at the ceiling at two AM wondering what did I do in a previous life to deserve this torment? Repent, Harlequin! I have always hated punching a clock. Getting up in the morning. I am a night owl. I can be more productive from midnight to two AM than most people are at any other point in the day. What I have always hated the most though was the silly notion that eight AM was starting time. There is absolutely nothing I hate more than sitting in traffic trying to get to the office in the morning, trying to get anywhere in the morning.

“he walks unhindered through the picket lines today, he doesn’t think to wonder why”

The Police – Synchronicity II (1983) from MTV The First Wave 1981 -1983 on Vimeo.

“packed like lemmings into tiny metal boxes, contestants in a suicidal race”

It is a stupid energy-wasting exercise, to be sitting idling on the freeway adding to the toxic funk that hangs over the city. It amuses me now, sitting in traffic in the EV. Finally I don’t have to worry about the pollution from sitting in traffic since I’m not adding any. But why eight AM? Why not 6:30? Why not 9:30? If you are working in a downtown office like I did for many years (100 Congress, top floor of the building at one point. Fireworks were a blast to watch from up there) any time other than eight AM was a good time to start. Any time other than five PM was a good time to quit.

This topic is a frequent flyer around here because WE’RE STILL FUCKING DOING THIS STUPID SHIT. Posted here and here previously. Oh yeah and also in the Spring when we took the hour away that we now give back.

DST? Why?

“I don’t really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.”
Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

Every time I have to change my clocks (whether it’s to fall back or spring forward) the blood pressure goes up a few points just contemplating Daylight Saving Time.

Daylight Saving Time – How Is This Still A Thing?: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) Published on Mar 8, 2015

Thanks Kaiser Wilhelm! Well, truthfully it was our buddies in New Zealand who first suggested it,

Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him leisure time to collect insects and led him to value after-hours daylight. In 1895 he presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society proposing a two-hour daylight-saving shift, and after considerable interest was expressed in Christchurch, he followed up in an 1898 paper.

The result of the study showed that electricity use went up in the counties adopting daylight saving time in 2006, costing $8.6 million more in household electricity bills. The conclusion reached by Kotchen and Grant was that while the lighting costs were reduced in the afternoons by daylight saving, the greater heating costs in the mornings, and more use of air-conditioners on hot afternoons more than offset these savings. Kotchen said the results were more “clear and unambiguous” than results in any other paper he had presented.
Kotchen and Grant’s work reinforces the findings of an Australian study in 2007 by economists Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff, who studied the extension of daylight saving time for two months in New South Wales and Victoria for the 2000 Summer Olympics. They also found an increase in energy use.
Study: Daylight saving time a waste of energy

I just can’t wrap my head around how this ‘saves’ anything, and why this is a benefit.

Let’s Quit Daylight Saving Time! Rebecca Watson Published on Mar 13, 2016

I can hear you laughing, dear reader. I’ve had this argument several times with many different people. Inevitably the person who thinks DST is a good idea will exclaim,

Do you really want the sun to come up at 5:30 in the morning in the summer?

It still does come up at 5:30 in the morning, we just call it 6:30.

Stitcher – The Economics of Sleep, Part 1 (Ep. 211) July 6, 2015 by Stephen J. Dubner

Stitcher – The Economics of Sleep, Part 2 (Ep. 212) July 16, 2015 by Freakonomics

Radiolab Time May 28, 2007

Imagine just for a few minutes, what it would be like for your GPS to calculate time variance based on degrees of longitude rather than twenty-four one hour timezones. In the same way your phone can change times for daylight savings, it can change time to keep up with your actual position on the globe. The device that you already rely on to tell you what time it is could just do the time calculation for your location and actually tell you what the local time is. The satellites that control GPS already perform these calculations just to be able to talk to each other and establish UTC for themselves.

Why is this so hard to figure out?

This topic is a frequent flyer around here because WE’RE STILL FUCKING DOING THIS STUPID SHIT.

Spring Forward? Bugger off!

It’s That Time of Year again. It’s a Conspiracy. But we have Little Choice, because it’s Good For Us;

“I don’t really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.”
Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

So, don’t forget that you’ll wake up still drunk Sunday morning because you will have had an hour’s less sleep. And don’t forget to thank Benjamin Franklin for joking about the idea with people who thought he was serious…

Here’s some proof that DST is a bad idea.

The result of the study showed that electricity use went up in the counties adopting daylight saving time in 2006, costing $8.6 million more in household electricity bills. The conclusion reached by Kotchen and Grant was that while the lighting costs were reduced in the afternoons by daylight saving, the greater heating costs in the mornings, and more use of air-conditioners on hot afternoons more than offset these savings. Kotchen said the results were more “clear and unambiguous” than results in any other paper he had presented.
Kotchen and Grant’s work reinforces the findings of an Australian study in 2007 by economists Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff, who studied the extension of daylight saving time for two months in New South Wales and Victoria for the 2000 Summer Olympics. They also found an increase in energy use.
Study: Daylight saving time a waste of energy

Since it doesn’t save any energy, the only reason left for DST is the conclusion I came to before.

What glorious power is given to congress. They can dictate what time the sun comes up, and the sun will listen. Maybe they should tackle that Pi thing, try dictating that it will be 3.2 or something.

Daylight Saving Time

An oldie that never gets old, Because it happens again every year. The hour that never occurs. Can we stop the insanity, please?

Every time I have to change my clocks (whether it’s to fall back or spring forward) the blood pressure goes up a few points just contemplating Daylight Saving Time.

I just can’t wrap my head around how this ‘saves’ anything, and why this is a benefit. Farmers hate it. Merchants supposedly benefit, and traffic fatalities are said to be reduced. But these benefits argue more for just changing the hour permanently, rather than a seasonal change.

I can clearly see how DST is a benefit to government worshipers everywhere. I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate the power and authority of government; that even the sun can be commanded by congress. Now that is a showcase of control on a grand scale.

Don’t laugh. I’ve had this argument several times. Inevitably the person who thinks DST is a good idea will exclaim “Do you really want the sun to come up at 5:30 in the morning in the summer?” I’ve got news for you people, it still does come up at 5:30 in the morning, we just call it 6:30.

I have a compromise to offer. Let’s split the difference and call it 6:00; give up this whole notion that we can somehow save daylight by passing laws and changing clocks. My biorhythms (or circadian rhythm) will thank you for it.

What glorious power is given to congress. They can dictate what time the sun comes up, and the sun will listen. Maybe they should tackle that Pi thing, try dictating that it will be 3.2 or something…

Daylight Stressing Time

Every time I have to change the clocks I just fume over the whole subject of Daylight Savings Time. I’ve tried just ignoring it in the past, making a point to show up for things an hour earlier than the time stated, etc., didn’t work out well enough. I’ve tried going to bed earlier in advance of the change, setting the clocks ahead early, you name it. No matter what I try to get past this gov’t mandated time change, it always turns into a nightmare of insomnia and late wake-ups.

I just can’t wrap my head around how this ‘saves’ anything, and why this is a benefit. To anybody. Well, I take that last part back. I can clearly see how this is a benefit to statist types everywhere. I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate the power and authority of gov’t, that even the sun can be commanded by congress. Now that is a showcase of control on a grand scale.

Don’t laugh. I’ve had this argument several times. Inevitably the person who thinks DST is a good idea will exclaim “Do you really want the sun to come up at 5:30 in the morning?” I’ve got news for you people, it still does come up at 5:30 in the morning, we just call it 6:30.

How about we compromise, halve the difference and call it 6:00; give up this whole notion that we can somehow save daylight by passing laws and changing clocks. My biorhythms (or circadian rhythm) will thank you for it.

What glorious power is given to congress. They can dictate what time the sun comes up, and the sun will listen. Maybe they should tackle that Pi thing, try dictating that it will be 3.2 or something.