The World Is Sick of Switching Clocks

[Poppyhome]

Originally Posted by W9TR

Let’s just copy China, a country that is about the same size as the continental US.

They have one time zone - Beijing Standard Time. This means that when it's 6 o’clock in the nation's capital, it’s 6 o’clock 3,000 miles further west in Urumqi. So if you live in Urumqi you would enjoy a beautiful summer sunset ... at midnight. In winter, the sunrise would be around 10 AM.

I don’t see a problem with this - it would just mean opening and closing times for schools, stores, banks, etc would be different. 10:00A would always be 10:00A.

Tom

Looking at a communist country to replicate.

No way.

Ron

[clpetersen]

Originally Posted by W9TR

Let’s just copy China, a country that is about the same size as the continental US.

They have one time zone - Beijing Standard Time. This means that when it's 6 o’clock in the nation's capital, it’s 6 o’clock 3,000 miles further west in Urumqi. So if you live in Urumqi you would enjoy a beautiful summer sunset ... at midnight. In winter, the sunrise would be around 10 AM.

I don’t see a problem with this - it would just mean opening and closing times for schools, stores, banks, etc would be different. 10:00A would always be 10:00A.

Tom

Hey Tom - not sure I see the difference between this and time zones. So if banks in the east opened at 9 am BST, and banks in the west opened at noon BST, implicitly, folks still use the sun as the primary timepiece and adjust accordingly.

[Still-One]

If you want to disregard when the sun comes up and goes down in your region (I don't) then advocating for just two time zones across the continental US makes sense for business. Put the east cost on Central Time and the West Coast on Mountain time. We then have only two times zones and the stock markets won't be opening three hours earlier on the West Coat nor closing a 1PM. When flying from NY to LA for a meeting your jet lag will be negligible with only a one hour time change. We would eliminate the unproductive time waiting to communicate with "closed" operations.

[Wised]

It ludicrous that we continue with a strategy meant to save candles 400 years ago....... leave it one way or the other.

[W9TR]

Originally Posted by clpetersen

Hey Tom - not sure I see the difference between this and time zones. So if banks in the east opened at 9 am BST, and banks in the west opened at noon BST, implicitly, folks still use the sun as the primary timepiece and adjust accordingly.

The advantage is that having a meeting at 10:00A means that you don’t have to figure out what that means for you personally. It’s 10:00A. Easy.

Our body clocks are built around sunrise and sunset and that won’t change no matter what time scheme ends up being used.

We already experience large seasonal swings in sunrise and sunset times the current time zone scheme does not address, apart from daylight savings time which is proving to be more of problem than a solution.

[Cohibaman]

IMO...Time zones are absolutely necessary; DST isn’t.

[crwilli]

Originally Posted by Cohibaman

IMO...Time zones are absolutely necessary; DST isn’t.

YES! What HE said!

Having one time zone across China is stupid. Having one across any large distance such as that would be stupid.

[W9TR]

Originally Posted by crwilli

YES! What HE said!

Having one time zone across China is stupid. Having one across any large distance such as that would be stupid.

1.3 billion people might agree with you.
We are so conditioned to time zones anything different just seems, well, stupid.

[crwilli]

I should add it might also be arrogant. In China, life revolves around the Party and the Party is in Beijing.

I have been to Urumqi for a conference. The conference started at 1100 every day. In local or sunshine terms that was about 0800.

It just felt silly.

[clpetersen]

Originally Posted by Still-One

... Put the east cost on Central Time and the West Coast on Mountain time. We then have only two times zones and the stock markets won't be opening three hours earlier on the West Coat nor closing a 1PM. When flying from NY to LA for a meeting your jet lag will be negligible with only a one hour time change....

The advantage would come flying the opposite direction LA to NY. Just sayin'

Recently I flew non-stop, Tokyo to Boston. Took off at 6:00 PM Tokyo time, 13 airs in the air (JAL, very nice flight), landed 6:01 PM same day in Boston. A one minute flight, by the clock. For some strange reason I was sleepy a bit early that night.