# EU to have summertime all year round.



## PMU (31 Aug 2018)

Was anyone aware of this?  https://ec.europa.eu/info/consultations/2018-summertime-arrangements_en  and https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2018/0831/990719-daylight-saving-time/.
The EU press office reports on the results of the survey as “84% want Europe to stop changing the clock” http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-5302_en.htm, but it's not 84% of Europeans, it's 84% of the 4.6 million who responded to the survey, i.e. 3.86 million of the EU's population of 840 million, i.e. 0.43% of Europeans, i.e. toss all.
Apart from the questionable use of relative probabilities by the Commission to give the impression that a significant number of Europeans want to end daylight saving time it does seem to be an excessive level of standardization. In any event, it's unlikely the UK would change if the EU does; if only to show they're different; so we could have a 'temporal border' on the island of Ireland with an hour difference in time in daylight saving time between the two jurisdictions.


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## cremeegg (31 Aug 2018)

The RTE article is completely confused, if it is being suggested that Summer Time should be used all year round then Summer Time is not being abolished but extended to cover the full 12 months. 

If that is what is intended I think its a great idea.


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## odyssey06 (31 Aug 2018)

What would this mean in winter? Dark mornings and longer evenings?

If the UK doesn't follow suit going to be tricky for us.


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## TheBigShort (31 Aug 2018)

I would be neither for nor against. Im just fed up that for all of my living memory the issue of daylight saving hours crops up as a topical subject at least once, if not twice a year. 
It makes no difference. 

If traders are concerned about time differentials between different countries, they should do what other traders do who deal internationally - get used to it!

If people are worried about dark mornings and kids going to school, start shool and working hours one hour later and finish one hour later. 

In the end, it appears to be a 'recommendation' to end it. So ultimately it will be for ourselves to decide.


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## dub_nerd (31 Aug 2018)

The suggestion seems to be that the changing of the clocks could be abolished. Countries could decide to stay on either permanent summer time or permanent winter time, effectively by moving into the next adjacent time zone if necessary. But all countries would agree to the same arrangement, i.e. change clocks on the same date or don't change at all. Personally I'd be a fan of permanent summer time. I love the long summer evenings, hate the short winter ones, and never get up before sunrise even in winter, so don't care if it rises at 10am.

I didn't see any specific mention of Spain on the EU consultation page. I presume they would take the opportunity to move back to GMT. It's kind of crazy that the country is almost entirely west of Greenwich, yet they are on CET. As far as I know it was a political decision by Franco in the WWII era to align Spain more closely with Hitler's Germany.


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## Jim2007 (31 Aug 2018)

odyssey06 said:


> If the UK doesn't follow suit going to be tricky for us.



It does not make it anymore difficult that having to deal with any other country that has a different timezone or a boarder with a country that has another timezone.


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## Zenith63 (31 Aug 2018)

PMU said:


> but it's not 84% of Europeans, it's 84% of the 4.6 million who responded to the survey, i.e. 3.86 million of the EU's population of 840 million, i.e. 0.43% of Europeans, i.e. toss all.


While it might have been a bit better if they'd gone out and asked random people to respond, it's not that flawed a survey surely?  Lots of people don't turn out to vote in much more important referenda, you never get everybody represented and for a trivial issue like this I'd imagine the turnout to a full referendum on it would be hilariously small.  I'd say the people who felt strongly about this (4 million is pretty impressive I think) took the opportunity to vote in both directions and the result is pretty conclusive.

Daylight saving is just an inconvenience at this point so I'd be delighted to see the back of it.  Plenty of countries have multiple time-zones within their borders, so I don't think the outside possibility the North ended up on a different schedule would be a problem.


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## odyssey06 (31 Aug 2018)

Jim2007 said:


> It does not make it anymore difficult that having to deal with any other country that has a different timezone or a boarder with a country that has another timezone.



There's simply no comparison between the UK and any other country in this regard - the level of interactions between Uk and Ireland that would be impacted is huge.
We don't have listings in the newspaper for Spanish TV, for example. 
We don't have trains running between Dublin and Madrid.


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## PGF2016 (31 Aug 2018)

TheBigShort said:


> I would be neither for nor against. Im just fed up that for all of my living memory the issue of daylight saving hours crops up as a topical subject at least once, if not twice a year.
> It makes no difference.


It makes a lot of difference for those people working on IT systems that struggle with the changing timezones. Twice yearly projects to coax systems through the change over. 

Get rid of it and good riddance I say.


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## TheBigShort (31 Aug 2018)

PGF2016 said:


> It makes a lot of difference for those people working on IT systems that struggle with the changing timezones. Twice yearly projects to coax systems through the change over.



Im no expert. But I cant imagine how people working in IT could 'struggle' with this? 
How do they cope in a leap year?


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## odyssey06 (31 Aug 2018)

TheBigShort said:


> Im no expert. But I cant imagine how people working in IT could 'struggle' with this? How do they cope in a leap year?



Every timezone change and leap year is like the system catching a cold... so many different platforms, databases etc all needing to be re-aligned. Business days versus Calendar days.... *achoo*


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## PMU (31 Aug 2018)

The issue here really isn't daylight saving time but the questionable presentation of statistics to support particular public policy aims.

According to today's UK Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ries-clocks-back-forward-summer-a8516426.html, “_Commission President __Jean-Claude Juncker__ said the continent-wide __survey__ to which 4.6 million people responded, revealed 84 per cent of Europeans want to stop moving the clocks back and forward by an hour under __daylight saving time__. Millions “think that in the future we should have summertime all year round_”_, he said. ”So that’s what will happen.” _

Now there is no basis to say that 84% of Europeans want to stop moving the clocks back and forward; only those that responded to the survey, i.e. (a self-selected group of) 3.86 million of Europeans, less than half of one percent of the population, have expressed this wish.  Not 84%.  It's doubtful if this by any reasonable standard could be regarded as providing a sound basis for public policy.


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## PGF2016 (31 Aug 2018)

TheBigShort said:


> Im no expert. But I cant imagine how people working in IT could 'struggle' with this?
> How do they cope in a leap year?


Many complex systems on different platforms. Some can deal with a time change automatically, some can't. Constantly changing environment. 

Doubt it all you want but I've experienced it.


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## TheBigShort (31 Aug 2018)

PGF2016 said:


> Many complex systems on different platforms. Some can deal with a time change automatically, some can't. Constantly changing environment.
> 
> Doubt it all you want but I've experienced it.



Well on that basis, being neither for or against, you have swayed me to think we should get rid of it.


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## losttheplot (31 Aug 2018)

odyssey06 said:


> There's simply no comparison between the UK and any other country in this regard - the level of interactions between Uk and Ireland that would be impacted is huge.
> We don't have listings in the newspaper for Spanish TV, for example.
> We don't have trains running between Dublin and Madrid.


We have flights between Dublin and Madrid. If I remember long ago when SkyTv was a European station, all it's programming was listed as CET. We managed, just like with the Euro. Happens in US states too. I think it would be ok. 
A bit misleading saying Summer time all year round though, some people will expect the weather too.


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## dub_nerd (31 Aug 2018)

PGF2016 said:


> Many complex systems on different platforms. Some can deal with a time change automatically, some can't. Constantly changing environment.
> 
> Doubt it all you want but I've experienced it.


Ditto. One of the more painful was a source code management system that got confused when a code check-in occurred that appeared to be earlier than one that was actually later because of the clock change ... causing all hell to break loose with corrupted code syncs.


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## dub_nerd (31 Aug 2018)

losttheplot said:


> A bit misleading saying Summer time all year round though, some people will expect the weather too.


Good point 
I doubt we would call it summer time ... we'd simply be on GMT+1. I guess we couldn't call it CET either as presumably plenty of folks in CET would move to GMT+2. As the EU web page says, this is much more of an issue for us folk above the 50th parallel with our 17 hour days in summer and 7 hour days in winter. With that degree of variance there's no good choice of a single timezone that will suit everyone.


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## losttheplot (31 Aug 2018)

Time is just an arbitrary label. Just let everyone use UTC timezone. We'd eventually get used to it.


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## dub_nerd (31 Aug 2018)

losttheplot said:


> Time is just an arbitrary label. Just let everyone use UTC timezone. We'd eventually get used to it.


Not _entirely_ arbitrary -- it's still synchronised with local solar midday and midnight, nowadays rounded by timezone. I suppose there are still a few applications tied to meridional crossings of celestial objects, though I'd admit they're obscure and probably few and far between. Navigation was the major one but that got solved by being able to synchronise time by telegraph in the 19th century and GPS today. Hobby astronomy and solar panel efficiency spring to mind, where you would be constantly needing to know the UTC offset from local solar time, even today.


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## RichInSpirit (31 Aug 2018)

I'm all for eternal summer time


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## Zenith63 (31 Aug 2018)

PMU said:


> Now there is no basis to say that 84% of Europeans want to stop moving the clocks back and forward; only those that responded to the survey, i.e. (a self-selected group of) 3.86 million of Europeans, less than half of one percent of the population, have expressed this wish.  Not 84%.  It's doubtful if this by any reasonable standard could be regarded as providing a sound basis for public policy.


You're technically correct, but it is commonplace to say things like "60% of people want to repeal the Eight" or "52% of people would vote Remain on Brexit today" when what is really meant is "52% of people in a study/survey of 1500 people would vote remain on Brexit today".  Nobody thinks that in these cases all people eligible to vote have been asked and chased until they give an answer to come to an result that is guaranteed to represent each and every person, we understand that some smaller number has been used to give an estimation of the view of the whole.  We accept it won't be perfect, so won't read much into a survey that is tight like 51%:49%.

Again I'll ask what would you suggest as an alternative here?  It's not like they could hold a referendum on it, nobody would bother to show up.  An outbound randomised sampling would likely be a more accurate and less susceptible to brigading or selection biases, but it's very unlikely to turn an 84%:16% result around.  I'd also imagine that an inbound survey like this is a good way to test the waters of interest, which can then be followed up with an outbound randomised survey to improve the certainty of the data.


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## Monbretia (31 Aug 2018)

Seems if it is changed it won't be until 2020   Flip it, I thought it was straight away, I'd much prefer the bit of extra light in the evenings over the winter.


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## Jim2007 (31 Aug 2018)

odyssey06 said:


> There's simply no comparison between the UK and any other country in this regard - the level of interactions between Uk and Ireland that would be impacted is huge.
> We don't have listings in the newspaper for Spanish TV, for example.
> We don't have trains running between Dublin and Madrid.



I’m sure Irish people are just as capable as anyone else of adding and subtracting an hour to figure out what local time is.  And newspapers are capable of printing local listings as well!  It will be a bit of confusion for some people for a few weeks until they get used to it.  Just like learning to deal with the Euro versus Sterling.


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## Jim2007 (31 Aug 2018)

PGF2016 said:


> It makes a lot of difference for those people working on IT systems that struggle with the changing timezones. Twice yearly projects to coax systems through the change over.
> 
> Get rid of it and good riddance I say.



Total nonsense, if you got developers who can’t develop software to handle the time change then heaven knows what else they are screwing up as well!  

Stop insulting people’s intelligence with this kind of nonsense claims.


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## odyssey06 (31 Aug 2018)

Jim2007 said:


> Total nonsense, if you got developers who can’t develop software to handle the time change then heaven knows what else they are screwing up as well!
> 
> Stop insulting people’s intelligence with this kind of nonsense claims.



There is no The Time Change. There are different changes per country.

Ps actually they screw up a lot of things and anything that can go wrong will when you are talking about hand written code used in multiple countries


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## PGF2016 (31 Aug 2018)

Jim2007 said:


> Total nonsense, if you got developers who can’t develop software to handle the time change then heaven knows what else they are screwing up as well!
> 
> Stop insulting people’s intelligence with this kind of nonsense claims.



"nonsense claims"? I have first hand experience of this.


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## Bronte (1 Sep 2018)

odyssey06 said:


> What would this mean in winter? Dark mornings and longer evenings?
> 
> If the UK doesn't follow suit going to be tricky for us.


Portugal is an hour behind Spain all year round. Doesn't seem to bother them.

I hate the clocks changing so this European would be delighted. My body hates the clock change for at least a week.


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## Bronte (1 Sep 2018)

odyssey06 said:


> There's simply no comparison between the UK and any other country in this regard - the level of interactions between Uk and Ireland that would be impacted is huge.
> We don't have listings in the newspaper for Spanish TV, for example.
> We don't have trains running between Dublin and Madrid.


There trains from London to Paris. Flights from Dublin to Madrid.

We might end up with a different time to the six counties for six months.


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## Bronte (1 Sep 2018)

Monbretia said:


> Seems if it is changed it won't be until 2020   Flip it, I thought it was straight away, I'd much prefer the bit of extra light in the evenings over the winter.


Me too, I'd prefer it darker for longer in the morning and them have light at the end if the day when you'd then get a chance to go for a walk with the children after school. Bet it would cut down on rush hour accidents too.


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## Jim2007 (1 Sep 2018)

odyssey06 said:


> There is no The Time Change. There are different changes per country.
> 
> Ps actually they screw up a lot of things and anything that can go wrong will when you are talking about hand written code used in multiple countries





PGF2016 said:


> "nonsense claims"? I have first hand experience of this.



I have spent over 25 years in various roles working on the development of systems for MNCs, handling time is a basic requirement.  Being able to analyze and understand this kind of stuff is a basic skill. There are countless articles available on the internet on how to handle it, there are libraries on pretty much every platform to handle the basic calculations and conversations and there are free databases that provide all the required parameters.  There is no excuse for not being able to handle it.


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## dub_nerd (1 Sep 2018)

Bronte said:


> We might end up with a different time to the six counties for six months.



That happens in the States too. I stayed in Laughlin, Nevada, across the Colorado river from Bullhead City, Arizona. Crossing the bridge took you from Pacific Time to Mountain Time but in summer time they were both on UTC-7 because Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time ... except on Navajo reservations where they _do_. Even that is an improvement compared to before the Uniform Time Act of 1966, when any area within any State could decide on its own arbitrary time zones and DST changes.

It seems commonly thought that summer and winter time are six months each, but in fact we have seven months summer time and five months winter. In the States, which changes time a week after us in Autumn and two weeks before us in Spring, it's closer to eight months and four months. They used to change at the same time as us in Autumn and a week after us in Spring until Bush's Energy Policy Act of 2005, which changed DST from 2007 onward. Interesting to see who lobbied for the DST change:

the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association,
the National Association of Convenience Stores,
the National Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation Fighting Blindness.
...and those who lobbied against:

the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,
the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism,
the National Parent-Teacher Association,
the Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium,
the Edison Electric Institute,
the Air Transport Association.


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## dub_nerd (1 Sep 2018)

Jim2007 said:


> I have spent over 25 years in various roles working on the development of systems for MNCs, handling time is a basic requirement.  Being able to analyze and understand this kind of stuff is a basic skill. There are countless articles available on the internet on how to handle it, there are libraries on pretty much every platform to handle the basic calculations and conversations and there are free databases that provide all the required parameters.  There is no excuse for not being able to handle it.



Having no excuse doesn't mean nobody gets it wrong, of course. Like PGF2016, I've seen software that makes a mess of DST changes. We are talking about the IT industry where -- in spite of decades of supposed methodological improvements -- 70% of projects still fail in one way or another. So appealing to basic analysis skills doesn't cut any ice.

The reason there are so many libraries and standards and documents is because people have made a hash of it so often. Have a look [broken link removed] for some small examples. When you read those you realise that failures aren't necessarily even about calculating things wrong, they are about having different requirements across systems so that there _is_ no single right answer.


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## PGF2016 (1 Sep 2018)

Jim2007 said:


> I have spent over 25 years in various roles working on the development of systems for MNCs, handling time is a basic requirement.  Being able to analyze and understand this kind of stuff is a basic skill. There are countless articles available on the internet on how to handle it, there are libraries on pretty much every platform to handle the basic calculations and conversations and there are free databases that provide all the required parameters.  There is no excuse for not being able to handle it.


I'm not disputing that it shouldn't happen but it does happen. You can't ignore that because you don't like it or agree with it. And my comment was it would be easier / better if it the clocks didn't jump.


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## odyssey06 (1 Sep 2018)

Bronte said:


> There trains from London to Paris. Flights from Dublin to Madrid.
> We might end up with a different time to the six counties for six months.



Yeah can you imagine the GAA trying to get their heads around scheduling games in a different timezone!

They can do a lot of things in Madrid, like run trains on time, have a minister for Housing who builds houses instead of faking powerpoints and spreadsheets... Irish Rail will probably go on strike for more money for extra 'overheads'. 
And the trains still won't be on time - either time!

My point remains, a new timezone where we've had the same timezone and same language for 100 years + is going to be major impact for us as the far smaller partner in the relationship.


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## losttheplot (1 Sep 2018)

We're Irish, we don't pay attention to time anyway. Nothing starts on time.

Train drivers crossing the border would need to be paid an extra hour to account for the difference. It would just be another division in the North, there would be Republican/Nationalist time and Unionist/Loyalist time.

The Stormount Executive would be permanently suspended over the arguments about what time it is.


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## dub_nerd (1 Sep 2018)

losttheplot said:


> there would be Republican/Nationalist time and Unionist/Loyalist time.
> 
> The Stormount Executive would be permanently suspended over the arguments about what time it is.



They'd probably clock in and out just to make a point. You'd find the Shinner and DUP MLAs magically coming to an agreement to clock in at 9am Nationalist time and leave at 10am Unionist time, so that they were due an hour's overtime for not turning up.


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## losttheplot (1 Sep 2018)

Then after years of negotiations, they'd split the difference and the North would be 30mins ahead of the Republic and 30 minutes behind the Uk.


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## dub_nerd (1 Sep 2018)

Except for two weeks around the 12th of July when clocks in the North would run at twice their normal rate, and ditto in the Republic at Easter.


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## Zenith63 (1 Sep 2018)

Jim2007 said:


> I have spent over 25 years in various roles working on the development of systems for MNCs, handling time is a basic requirement.  Being able to analyze and understand this kind of stuff is a basic skill. There are countless articles available on the internet on how to handle it, there are libraries on pretty much every platform to handle the basic calculations and conversations and there are free databases that provide all the required parameters.  There is no excuse for not being able to handle it.


While that is certainly all true, to back up the other posters, working in IT infrastructure for nearly as long as you and honestly time and DST is still a challenge.  Admittedly it is rare for it to bring down systems, but out of sync logs, trouble correlating logs in SIEM systems, trouble with NTP infrastructure, drift, hypervisors pushing incorrect time on virtual machines etc. are all unfortunately common issues that persist.  I'd imagine you may not see as much of this if you're developing modern systems, but much of the firmware running on physical infrastructure has been iterated for years and years at this point, and common sense things like automated DST management has not been implemented.


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## Purple (3 Sep 2018)

odyssey06 said:


> What would this mean in winter? Dark mornings and longer evenings?
> 
> If the UK doesn't follow suit going to be tricky for us.


They have voted to go back to the 1950's. One extra hour won't make much difference.


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## Purple (3 Sep 2018)

losttheplot said:


> A bit misleading saying Summer time all year round though, some people will expect the weather too


Only if they are thick.


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## Bronte (4 Sep 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> ...and those who lobbied against:
> the Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium,



What on earth is that !


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## Purple (4 Sep 2018)

Bronte said:


> What on earth is that !


They are the people who are always on time.


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## MugsGame (4 Sep 2018)

dub_nerd said:


> Ditto. One of the more painful was a source code management system that got confused when a code check-in occurred that appeared to be earlier than one that was actually later because of the clock change ... causing all hell to break loose with corrupted code syncs.



VSS? :shudder:  You didn't even need DST changes to break it, just a developer with a local clock earlier than everyone else.


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