retarded idea. all the studies showing reduced energy consumption were contrived and the impact of daylight savings time on psychological health is more important than any invented energy savings.

to be honest i dont even know how the government is able to convince the population to follow this time schedule or that time schedule depending on what they vote in. i guess people and institutions are like sheep and just follow what is *correct* and it is the government to decide that, of course.

We trialled daylight savings once in Queensland. It was a hot topic on talkback radio. I never forget one caller: "The women of this state will not be safe"

"why not" replied the host

"because my husband wakes up at 6 every morning with an erection. Now if daylight savings is introduced, he will have his erection on the train on his way to work. How can women be safe if all the men on public transport in the morning have an erection?"

Wow.

@red - it wouldn't work because each town would be on a slightly different time schedule. Within time zones there's considerable variation in when the sun comes up and goes down. This would be like a trip back to the middle ages.

@goldfinger,
Actually I live in a country that spans maybe 10% of a timezone, we could set sunrise to Utrecht time and we'd probably all be fine...
How is it a trip back to the middle ages?

I'm a tad confused. I don't recall ever being taught in the dark, and the Netherlands aren't far from the UK. What sort of hours do school children work over there?

(What I do recall from school is that no one was really awake until well after nine. A 7:30 start would be an exercise in futility over here)

For larger countries, such as France, you would have times that are 20-40 minutes apart though. You want time to be set at sunrise, but aren't taking into account the fact that the sun will rise earlier in Nice than it will in Cherbourg. There is considerable north-south and east-west variation.

And its back to the middle ages in the sense that time would be a local phenomenon, set independently in each city.

@Oct
I think we started around 8 and it was dark outside in winter.
In a country like France they could organize themselves by "region", these are largely homogeneous, or by department even.

@red

Would it not be an easier solution just to start at 9 all year round? The children are more awake, and the light is never an issue.

9.15, in my plan. Actually I've heard once that in winter, people require more sleep than in summer. One reason is that because it's winter time and the trees lost their leaves, the oxygen concentration is slightly lower in winter, making the brain require more sleep. Also, it's good that young people learn also to wake up early, better for discipline and what not. As a conservative, surely these arguments appeal to you, good sir? ;-)

ok i actually read your first post. so you are not suggesting changing the clock just going to school when it is sunny? that would be ok except that parents may have to drive their kids to school and companies are not following this sunlight schedule. the school times are more to benefit the parents than anything else.

the other thing you have to consider is when people go to bed. i dont know how far north holland is but people generally dont go to bed when it is still sunny out, so for northern countries waking up at sunrise would mean they are not getting much sleep at all.

and on the energy use, bicycle lights are negligible. basically people are either at home or at work/school. there is less energy use per person at work/school than at home (because more people are packed into a smaller space), so it makes sense to have people go to school/work when the energy use is highest. which is actually night/morning in winter...

i think we all agree that people should go to school/work in daylight and come home in daylight. the only difference is without dst you have a couple extra hours of daylight before and a couple hours after in summer. but if you shift things around you can make all the extra hours be before or all them be after.

but having the clock calibrated to sunrise is perfectly legitimate. right now we have our clocks calibrated to noon. but there is nothing magical about calibrating it to either sunrise or sunset. the only thing is that days will not be exactly 24 hours, the day length will vary slightly from 24hrs, but over the year it will average to 24. and there are no issues with different cities/whatever, just do what we do now, have timezones. you could have the same timezones.

Also... it would be some trick to set your alarm to "Sunrise minus 30 minutes" in order to get to school by "Sunrise plus 27." lol

As a man who well remembers being a young person, they most certainly do not, sir! Besides, my conservative instincts are screaming that having teachers being paid to shout at half asleep young people is a shocking waste of time and money

Not sure about the oxygen argument. It would imply that city folk are dead on their feet all year round, and yet as far as I can tell they never actually sleep at all. Have they measured oxygen content wrt the time of year? I'd be surprised if it was significant compared to the differences you'd find day to day between, say, a home, and office, and the walk to work.

actually what is wrong with times set independently by each city?
it would be the most accurate.
how often do you communicate with people from other parts of the world?
you cant do a web search to find out the time over there?
i am too lazy to remember timezones anyway.
in fact i know people in other parts of the world
but still do a search for the current time in all those cities
because even if i did remember the difference
i am far to lazy to calculate.

it all depends on what other people are doing.
if you are calling someone in another part of the world
and he is getting up at sunrise,
so he has been up for 18 hours, then you dont want to call him.
but if he is on standard time and
getting up 4 hours before noon everyday and has only
been up 12 hours then you can call him.
the reason why we cant use an alternate system
is just that everyone is on the current system.
but if a city did decide to all wake up at sunrise
then you would have to use it when calculating the
time difference.

@blankflag
I agree with you and believe that such a system would in fact be better. With modern computers, it is also easy to implement.
@Mujus
Also, easy to implement. Just have every school print a yearly roster with the starting times and put it above your bed. Adjust cell phone accordingly.
@Oct
Shouting at half asleep young people is often the best favor you can provide to them, something they'll become grateful for in the period from say 20-40 years.
As for O2 levels, it's not so much a winter summer thing (I quickly checked the web for it) but more of a day-night thing. Apparently there is more O2 in the air during the day, then during the night, although summer and winter don't change much. (Although obviously, my rhythm still goes as it is based on day/night as much as winter/summer)

Walk to work? Ack! Even if walking 8 miles each way didn't get me all sweaty and make me unacceptable for the office, I can't imagine walking to work in 8-12 inches of snow, pouring rain, or extreme heat or cold (Cinci varies from from -10C/14F in winter to 35C/95F in summer). And doing that to my kid if I had one? "Sorry 6 year old daughter, but you've got to ride your bike to school today. A little hail won't hurt you."

@red

Would you have been grateful for being lectured at when you were too sleepy to take it in? It is hard to motivate a child for a lesson when their main focus is staying awake. Also, consider that such an early start puts even more pressure on children to skip breakfast resulting in a drop in concentration levels. We need an effective learning environment, and my concern is that you will make it harder to achieve with these ideas.

@ Draug

As my Gran used to say before sending me out into said hail/rain/snow storms...

"You're neither salt, nor sugar. You won't dissolve"

Weather is character building ;)

@Draug
It's not so much about how to get there, although Dutch kids will mostly get there by bike (the other big group arriving by public transportation, and a tiny group using other means than either of these).
@Oct
Point taken, but there's no need to go down to 7.30 (so 9.15 when sun rises at 8.48 starting in wintertime, then 27 minutes after sunrise until the point that the sun rises at 7.48, at which point you remain steady at 8.15 all year long until once again the sun rises at 7.48 in autumn and you push back another hour gradually).

I think this would save both electricity and brain cells.

"actually what is wrong with times set independently by each city?
it would be the most accurate."

New York City, Los Angleles, hell even Cincinnati, are all big enough that sunrise and sunset are distinctly different times in different parts of the city. NYC due to East West size and LA due to North South size. Cincinnati only varies by a few minutes between the Lawrenceburg, IN area and Mason or Eastgate, but the vriance is still there.

"how often do you communicate with people from other parts of the world?"

All the time. I have customers in NYC, LA, SF, Boston, Chicago, WI, SC, NC, FL, TX, hell even in Stuttgart, the UK, Paris, Taiwan, Sydney... I have customers all over the US and the world. And I hardly doubt I am in some rare group that does business outside their own time zone. But eve if I were, NYC is in my time zone now. You know, the financial capital of the US and home of the NY Stock Exchange.

"because even if i did remember the difference
i am far to lazy to calculate."

That speaks volumes about you.

And the reason we do it this way is so *business* can operate. IF you want to live in your own little dream world where everything happens within your little town and you have no need for standradized times to know when to call someone, be my guest. But the real world needs to conduct business.

As far as schools go, I remember walking to the bus stop in the dark with the streetlight burning brightly once I got there and the bus getting us to school just as the sun was breaking over the horizon (sunrise) and that was in grade school. In high school, I drove to school in the dark and watched the sunrise sometime late in first period all winter long.