Standard should be the standard. DST needs to take a walk and whoever put forward making DST permanent needs to take a long, hard look at their life.

 

Prior to the spread of rail traffic, each town would have a unique local time.
once rail arrived it became important to have centralized time.
When the telegraph came online, instant communications allowed time centralization.

 

One of my favorite maps shows the time zones 110 years ago. Several changes since then. Haven't looked hard for an earlier "railroad time" map but guess it looked somewhat like this.

I don't find the time changes particularly annoying and many of my clocks do it automatically but I prefer "daylight" time with it being light later during the warm months allowing more time after work for outdoor activities for those on traditional "first shift" work schedules. Still a big variation in sunrise and sunset within each time zone and depending on the season.



-- Chuck

 

I would be thrilled with a permanent change to DST. I love having light later in the evening to be outdoors.

 

I want to see the sun during the winter. Leaving for work in the dark and getting home from work in the dark is miserable.

I am fairly confident I speak for millions of Americans who have to deal with that. If you don’t like waking up in the dark, there are neat alarm clocks that simulate the sun rise.

 

I’m with Fokker. Give me standard time permanently. I like the late evenings when it’s light, but 8 is fine, doesn’t have to be 9. Better to have it get light earlier. Of course I’m a morning person and even my +1 disagrees.

 

There has been a lot of studies and research (from a variety of records) that the advent of widespread artificial light (industrial revolution) has changed the way humans sleep. Back in "the day" when we went to sleep at nightfall and rose with the sun, we apparently had a middle of the night awake spell. Many conceived children, religious read scriptures and prayed, others still performed chores such as food preparation. The latter sleep was called the "second sleep" and was taken for granted. A few cultures without access to modern illumination still sleep this way.

No more.

 

As crazy as it sounds I wouldn't be opposed to 48 times zones of a half hour each.
When we lost local time, we wound up either early in a time, earlier sunrise but also early darkness, or late in the time zone, later sunrise, later sunset.
Being in Mass, means we get an early sunrise but a the crappy early sunset.

I suspect that a lot of opinions are formed by where they live within their respective timezone.

 

Agreed. I have a hard time with Michigan being eastern. Indiana doesn't observe DST which can be interesting when driving west. The old map with MI being central makes sense to me, we're definitely more central than we are east coast.

 

They will just talk and argue about it and absolutely nothing will get done and then again in the fall they will talk/argue about it again and do absolutely nothing.