27Dec / 2022

Apply your daylight saving preferences to the rest of the country

We like to complain about changing time an hour back or forward, and usually it’s in the context of our own geography. Maybe one area gets a lot of later sunsets, but then another gets much less. FiveThirtyEight made a map that lets you put in your preference to see how the rest of the country is affected:

Unfortunately, no solution will make every American happy. Even if you’ve found a combination that satisfies your personal preferences, you may have noticed that those preferences could negatively impact other parts of the country. And advocates for changing the system we currently have — whether for or against DST — feel strongly that their personal preference is the best.

We all know the solution here. Everyone gets to sleep, wake, and work whenever they want. Easy.

Tags: daylight saving, FiveThirtyEight

Permalink

03Nov / 2022

Daylight saving time and circadian rhythms

Daylight saving time ends in the United States this weekend and ended already in other places. This can only mean one thing, which is that we must hem and haw about whether to shift our clocks or not. Aaron Steckelberg and Lindsey Bever, for The Washington Post, illustrated the sleep challenges that arise when we have to change measured time, which is easy to shift with button presses, against our less malleable internal time, which is more in tune with sunlight.

Scrolling through, it started to feel like too many layers on top of that clock, but my main takeaway, and I think we can all agree on this, is that we should all get to sleep and wake whenever we want. Boom, problem solved.

Tags: daylight saving, illustration, sleep, Washington Post

Permalink

18Mar / 2022

Sunrise times with permanent Day Light Saving

Changing the clocks twice a year can be a hassle, so some people in the United States want to permanently keep Daylight Saving Time. However, that also means some areas in the country end up with late sunrise, which means going to work or school in the dark. For The Washington Post, Justin Grieser, Joe Fox, and Tim Meko mapped how sunrise times would change.

Tags: daylight saving, sunrise, Washington Post

Permalink

05Nov / 2019

Daylight Saving Time gripe assistant tool

In a follow-up to a map from a few years back, Andy Woodruff provides a gripe assistant tool for Daylight Saving Time. Plug in your preferences for an ideal day, and you can see if you’re in the right or in the wrong for complaining.

Obviously if you have kids, the whole map is automatically yellow.

Tags: Andy Woodruff, daylight saving

Permalink

19Nov / 2015

Daylight Saving Time geography

Keith Collins for Quartz made an interactive that showed how much more daylight you get because of Daylight Saving Time. But it was generalized to a single location. Andy Woodruff is on it, and added a geographic component.

It’s noted on that page that the chart’s data “assume you are located in New York, but differences are minimal across the contiguous 48 states,” but I’m a geographer and must always disagree with any and all spatial claims, by anyone. I live in the same time zone where I grew up, but the sunrise/set times are almost an hour different between the two places.

See how DST impacts where you live.

Tags: Andy Woodruff, daylight saving

Permalink

02Nov / 2015

Daylight you get from daylight saving

We recently fell back an hour with the end of this year's Daylight Saving Time, and as per usual, we had to discuss why or why not we should shift out clocks at all. But the main question is — what it all really comes down to — what have you done for me lately, Daylight Saving Time? Keith Collins for Quartz put together an interactive that shows you an answer, based on the waking and sleeping times.

The blue area shows the daylight you experience, and the black represents the dark you get. Some quick math on the bottom of the chart shows how many more hours of daylight you get, thanks (or no thanks) to Daylight Saving. [Thanks, Steve]

Tags: daylight saving, Quartz

Permalink

Reader

Tag Archives: daylight saving

Apply your daylight saving preferences to the rest of the country

Daylight saving time and circadian rhythms

Sunrise times with permanent Day Light Saving

Daylight Saving Time gripe assistant tool

Daylight Saving Time geography

Daylight you get from daylight saving

Meta