EU to have summertime all year round.

[Zenith63]

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.

 

[Monbretia]

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.

 

[Jim2007]

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.

 

[Jim2007]

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.

 

[odyssey06]

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

 

[PGF2016]

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.

 

[Bronte]

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.

 

[Bronte]

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.

 

[Bronte]

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.

 

[Jim2007]

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

"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.

 

[dub_nerd]

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.

 

[dub_nerd]

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.

 

[PGF2016]

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.

 

[odyssey06]

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.

 

[losttheplot]

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.

 

[dub_nerd]

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.

 

[losttheplot]

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.

 

[dub_nerd]

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.

 

[Zenith63]

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.

 

[Purple]

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.