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by justinlink 1921 days ago
What makes them incorrect? Because they do not match solar time? If you wanted to make them correct, you'd need to do away with time zones entirely and go back to each local area having their own time.

Sunrise today in Knoxville TN was at 6:53. 180 miles to the west, in Nashville, TN it was at 6:03.

We can make time whatever we want it to be, let's make it where it has the most benefit to the population, and the research has shown that is daylight savings time.
3 comments
ppf 1921 days ago
>Because they do not match solar time?

Precisely that. If we want to re-define things to make the most of the daylight, when why don't we just start everything one hour earlier? It would achieve exactly the same outcome, and twelve noon would line up with solar noon (give or take, but you can't have everything).

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benchaney 1920 days ago
> why don't we just start everything one hour earlier?

Because that is an impossible coordination problem, while moving to permanent DST could be done easily.

I don’t see why being close to solar time matters, when it is such a moving target. Time systems are tools. They aren’t propositions about the natural world. It is only important for them to be accurate representations of some underlying natural phenomena when that makes them more useful as tools. I don’t see how nearness to Solar time does that on the scale we are talking about.

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lainga 1921 days ago
Well, for one, I think a lot of existing systems have the assumption that "this place is UTC-8 except for in this special case" and not the other way around. Also, the UTC-5 zone in North America (for instance) aligns geographically with the band of the Earth you'd get if you split it into 24 equal zones and went 5 back from Greenwich. If you went to permanent DST the bounds would all be shifted by 15 degrees of longitude.
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kadoban 1921 days ago
Do they really? I can never even remember which one is the "normal" time and which is offset. They're just two arbitrary adjacent offsets from UTC for me. (or really only one these days, I now live a place that skips the switch).

I'd think any technical systems also work pretty arbitrarily between the two.

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N1H1L 1920 days ago
Weird to see Knoxville suddenly pop up all of a sudden
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