Having lived in Japan that doesn't use DST, it really sucks. In the summer, it starts getting light just after 4am but then it's dark by 7:30pm. The daylight time is wasted.
Not having to change clocks is nice. Pressure companies / employers to have flex time to allow earlier starts and earlier leaves. Even though Japan culture tends to lag 10 to 15 years behind, it does change.
Now if the rest of the world (London / New York) would stop shifting clocks around on different dates, it would make global synch ups easier to handle.
Everytime the government changes the rules, people have to modify the firmware of basically any device with a clock, the people have to go around updating those (especially ones that don't have any auto update mechanism). Source: I'm a software engineer and I had too update hundreds of copy machines manually a few years ago.
I replaced all the wall clocks in my house with ones that set themselves from the NIST radio broadcast. My computers (and presumably phone) are all ntp based. None of those require firmware updates. It's quite nice to never mess with the clocks and have everything just be correct.
Your device from 2005 that hasn't received a firmware update will show the wrong time if you're in New York.
GPS does not contain your current timezone, like NTP it gives out UTC.
The reason your phone (that's set to use "New York" as a timezone) knows to change the UTC offset from -4 to 05 on the first Sunday of November is because it has received a firmware update at some point since 2006. A standalone device from before 2006 can not know that the spring forward/fall back dates in the US changed, unless it's updated.
Your statement "None of those require firmware updates. It's quite nice to never mess with the clocks and have everything just be correct" seems naive at best.
> The reason your phone (that's set to use "New York" as a timezone) knows to change the UTC offset from -4 to 05 on the first Sunday of November is because it has received a firmware update at some point since 2006. A standalone device from before 2006 can not know that the spring forward/fall back dates in the US changed, unless it's updated.
Fair enough, good point - I didn't think about that.
> Your statement "None of those require firmware updates. It's quite nice to never mess with the clocks and have everything just be correct" seems naive at best.
I never said that, possibly you're replying to a different person than intended.
Right. I'm not asking about changing rules. I'm asking about the burden of keeping the current daylight savings rules. The person I was responding to said "not having to change clocks is nice". I live in a daylight savings region and I already don't change any clocks.
Not having to change clocks is nice, but having a little offset over the sun time is good.
I lived in Japan as a student, and when you wake up at noon to get only 4 hours of daylight it's really depressing, and feels like you've wasted your whole day in bed.
Anyway, prepare to adjust your watch twice a year!
The daylight is only "wasted" because you are sleeping through it. Try waking up earlier in the summer months to take advantage of it. I find that I don't even need an alarm to wake up at 4:30 AM when the sun is already up. And early morning is the best time to get out for some exercise in the hot, humid Japanese summers.
Anyway - I don't really think it matters too much whether it gets light at 4:00 AM in the peak of summer or 5:00 AM. People can adapt their schedules to take advantage of the daylight at the beginning or end of their day as needed. What really sucks is having your schedule abruptly changed twice a year for DST - something which people aren't really adapted to handle.
Yes, except that everyone else doesn't shift their schedules to accommodate you. Many people still need to work 9-5. (Or 8-8 or something in Japan...) Also, generally social events around dinner happen at something like 7pm. After dinner events might be at 8 or 9. You're likely to miss out on a lot if you're going to bed at 8 so you can get up at 4.
I’ve gotten friends out early in the morning for outdoor social events like golf, hiking, camping, etc. I play on a softball team that has games at 6 am. Heck, even some of my first dates with my wife were early in the morning. So I disagree that social events need be limited to dinner and drinks in the evening. Oh and I still go out for dinner and drinks too... just not every day and when I do I usually sleep in a bit the next day.
I really don’t understand the resistance to waking up a bit earlier in summer. Btw I don’t even consider myself a morning person really, it’s just that when I moved to a place that gets light early in the morning I naturally started waking up earlier.
The problem is not so much the lack of DST, but the fact that solar noon is around 11:30am in Tokyo, compared to around 12pm in SF in winter time, and 1pm in summer time.
