> You'll probably leave your home at dark in the morning and will return again at dark.

That's what happened in my high school years in France, which still changes clocks twice a year. Wake up in complete night, take the bus and wait for classes to start under yellow lightbulbs, then go out in the sun for the first time in the day at noon.

I don't understand why people are afraid that this will bring what was already happening.

Americans might not realize that most of France is further North than the state of Maine.

Paris is further North than Seattle.

Scotland and Denmark are near the same latitude as Juneau Alaska.

edit; nifty visualization, https://www.bytemuse.com/post/interactive-equivalent-latitud...

> You'll probably leave your home at dark in the morning and will return again at dark.

i live in a country with daylight saving and that happens anyway for a quiet long time each year.

Are you leaving at dusk, or at complete darkness? I'm talking about the latter. Leaving at dusk/sunrise is nice and enjoyable. Complete darkness throws my whole body off metabolically.

For many years in Minnesota, I arrived at work in the dark, and left in the dark, from roughly mid-November to late January. And that was in Minnesota. Most of Europe is North of Minneapolis. When I worked in Paris, I walked to and from the office in the dark for many weeks of the winter.

I'm somewhere between Iowa and Missouri latitude wise. As I stated elsewhere, it's more about my metabolism, and the DST keeping me at the same side of the sunrise all year long.

Permanent DST throws me just before sunrise (aka the darkest hour) which wreaks havoc in my body. I'm aware not everybody is affected this adversely, but mine is affected since forever. It doesn't have a switch for that, sorry.

I’m not sure I follow… are you a plant?

Regardless +1 UTC or permanent anything… I believe I can adjust my schedule for my needs more easily than trying to fix everyone else’s.

In a sense, yes. I'm a plant. I need to have at least some light to function properly when I open my eye.. sorry stomata.

As a plant which is participating to many international meetings regularly (including a one which spans from USA to Japan with everything in between), I think I know a thing or two about scheduling.

However, thanks for sharing your valuable insight.

Hah thanks for taking that well…

I know dealing with international meetings is challenging. In a former life I managed trading Korean equities from an office in Cambridge, MA (in addition to US equities— those were long days!!)

But doesn’t the fact that the scheduling itself requires some form of attention/expertise (e.g. is that time in your timezone or mine? Does DST apply this week? Does that change anything?), reveal that we’ve perhaps made this unnecessarily complex?

If you and me or any group were tasked with scheduling a meeting, wouldn’t it at least hypothetically be simpler to offer availability in terms of UTC (assuming nobody cares where you live, or if you’re a plant, or vampire)?

> Hah thanks for taking that well…

No problem, I both have a thick skin pretty flexible sense of humor.

Working with international projects for 15 years have shown me that the process can be relatively simple. There are some pretty robust tools and conventions for that, too. So, without further ado, this is how we do it:

0. Agree that we need a meeting for discussing something.

1. Send a Doodle[0] link to everyone involved, knowing two ends of the timezone involved is enough. Take intersection of your logical hours and theirs. Forget DST and other stuff. +/- 1 hour doesn't mean anything. If you're really unsure, give both slots as an option. Send Doodle link to everyone. Doodle handles timezone conversion and availability.

2. Set the slot with the majority vote, create a calendar file (.ics) with that slot. Be sure to set the timezone and time itself right. Mail the .ics file with the meeting announcement. Use UTC in the announcement. Every responsible party knows their delta relative to UTC.

3. ???

4. ???

5. Profit (meeting).

This removes most of the burden, mental calculation and whatnot. Doodle is free for the most part, a good calendar is either provided by your company or your OS already, and rest is handled by the time libraries. This method makes our life much easier, and enjoyable in fact.

*: If the times are too absurd, a person will send an e-mail with a better availability nevertheless. I do it rarely (once a year). So it's not rude.

**: Also there's World Time Buddy [1] for seeing time differences at a glance.

[0]: https://www.doodle.com

[1]: https://www.worldtimebuddy.com

I am not unsympathetic. I am personally not unlike you, in that my natural rising time is around 7:00AM, and my body really, really wants to be asleep in the hours just before dawn. And, I spent years working an international job that had me in meetings as early as 5:00AM regularly; and then took a position in which my commute had to start at 5:00AM. I didn't like it, but unlike you (evidently) I wasn't actually dysfunctional in the pre-dawn hours, and the work was good and what I wanted to be doing, so I made it go.

But for all that, I don't think the fact there are some people in your situation due to their natural clocks and the latitude at which they live, is a good, or even relevant, reason, to not eliminate time switches and move to permanent DST. Some folks that are a couple of sigma from the mean are going to be inconvenienced by anything universal that is optimized for the mean. There aren't going to be airline seats that are comfortable for both 7 foot, 250lb men, and 4'11" 90lb women either.

I may have sounded as a whiny person at first, but in fact I'm not whining about the issue. It's unproductive, and make the focus drift, but I was a bit tired I presume and was unable to form a better argument.

I'm actually pretty dysfunctional if I wake up before the sun shows its light. I'm slow, clumsy, my brain literally doesn't work, etc. The moment it's past dawn and twilight, everything changes in 5 minutes or so. Also waking before dawn really makes my mood bitter, and my productivity during the day really takes a hit. I follow my tasks with personal planning software, and my daily throughput changes measurably. However, let's return to the main argument I want to make.

The thing which upsets me most is that these changes are made amid the growing body of research underlining the importance of sleep, circadian rhythm, and their effect on human development and long term health. Also there is research exploring the impact of these changes on the productivity, morale and health of the general population.

So, while the governments want to increase economic activity and whatnot, they're possibly undermining the overall health of their populations in the medium/long term. Also, I think that sensitive people are much more common and are not a minority, but they're not aware of their situation. Our lives are busy and we can't always have time to tend ourselves properly. I sometimes forget that winter affects me badly, and re-remember when we arrive to the middle of the March with considerable more sunlight and my mood and productivity jumps in a two day envelope. Meditation, being aware of myself and self care reduced the effects, but they're not nullified completely.

So, what I'm trying to say is, from my experience, the mean is not that well defined as you suggest, and governments make these changes without considering the overall advantages/disadvantages of such decisions. If the change is fitting to their agenda with some vague benefits, they do it. The effects of these changes on general population doesn't mean anything for them, unless it reflects to some important statistics badly.

This is why I don't support permanent time, but a DST system of some sort. All the humans have the right to at least wake in a decent mood, and despite all the work we do voluntarily or involuntarily, we deserve to be as healthy as we can be. Policies which undermine the happiness and health of people in the long term are especially bad in my book, because leaving people no choice and forcing them at the same time is a kind of cruelty which makes me very angry.

Both.

In e.g. Edinburgh in December, the sunrise is ~08:45 and sunset is ~15:40. And since the sun only really just peeks above the horizon, any kind of cloud cover and it feels like dusk the whole time. Before flex-time, for a few months of the year I would not see any daylight on most days.

Nowadays, I start work at 10am and live in London, so I get to cycle to work in the light, though usually it's already past sunset when I leave work from about mid-October until mid-April.

Where do you live that a one hour shift makes any material difference? Where I am the time of sunset shifts by more about 4 hours. DST is an annoying band aid half arsed effort of a non solution.

Turkey. Normal shift is around 2.5 - 3 hours, however where I live, changing clocks means you either wake up late sunrise/morning in the summer or just at sunrise in the winter.

Permanent DST throws you to 15 to 40 mins before sunrise in the winter, it's the hardest time frame for my body to wake up.

So, with changing clocks, I can always see my surroundings all year long, and with permanent DST, I have to use headlights for ~3 months to be able to drive.

It's drastic, and it affects my metabolism badly.

The question is not only “must I ever wake up before sunrise?” but also “for how long must I wake up before sunrise?”

I grew up in a permanent DST north of 60° and there is always gonna be a time when most people are up and about an hour or more before sunrise. However it doesn’t have to such a large part of the winter. This period could be shortened by a few weeks if the government decided to move back to standard (which incidentally most people support—along with most public health experts—but the government doesn’t).

People living closer to the poles support that. People closer to the equator want longer daylight savings. It's that simple. Honestly we should just understand that it's OK if not everyone is awake at the same time.

I want permanent standard. My friend who lives a kilometer north of me wants permanent daylight savings. This is at 53 degrees latitude.

Could I recommend a sunrise clock? It's like an alarm clock, but with a built in light it gradually turns on over the course of 30 minutes or so, simulating the rising of the sun.

Artificial light doesn't work for me, unfortunately. I immediately wake up when the sun shows its light, regardless of presence of artificial light.

I'm built like that, everyone to their own.

So I recognize that everyone's trying to give you advice and you didn't ask for it, so I'll just say this one thing and then I'll shut up.

They sell things called "full-spectrum" lightbulbs that actually do a pretty good job of standing in for the sun. They're expensive, and use a ton of electricity, but people who've struggled with seasonal affective disorder swear by them.

There were a few threads on HN recently along the lines of "you know, it's not 'full-spectrum' light that you need, it's 'enough' light."

And then a bunch of links to high power LED lighting.

I did buy some. They are bright.

> No, I'm not simply dreading waking up before sunrise. My body can't function until sunrise regardless of the number of hours I sleep. It's built like that.

Are you a plant?

Yes [0]. I do photosynthesis too. It's great. No need to eat, no need to take a break. The only problem is getting water, but my colleagues and family knows my schedule and pours some water & coffee while passing through.

On a serious note, human beings' metabolism is sensitive to light. It's part of how circadian rhythm works [1]. Some people are more sensitive, some people are less. I'm on the more sensitive side. Being forced to wake up before sunrise affects my mood and energy.

[0]: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYRuuP-WkAAJTzs.jpg

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm

It seems like your permanent DST doesn't do any daylight savings at all, since you aint seeing it.

I come from a permanent NON DST zone and love it.