Comment Re:Worthless fucking statistic. (Score 4, Informative) 113
Your "reliable" power sources are not reliable, they are inert. This is not the same, and if conditions change quickly, or aren't within specifications, they fail in a big way.
Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 150
Yeah, there's two main problems:
1) People entering the wrong fields. For example, medicine really needs workers, at all levels, but not enough people are going into it.
2) Certain manual labour fields, like field work and home construction, because... well, I think we all know why there's a shortage of workers in those fields.
Comment Re:Context? (Score 1) 96
Comment Re:Wish Australia had it, even the equatorial part (Score 1) 246
We have DST, but only some states. But the sun coming up at 4:45am in summer sucks up near the tropics and makes no sense.
Well, this particular discussion is about a (not yet enacted) law concerning DST in the United States, and none of the states are in the topics except Hawaii, which does not use DST.
Comment Re:Can't Channge The Universe (Score 1) 246
You can't change the universe, nor the solar system. There's very specific reasons why the Sun reaches its zenith(daily peak) at mid day(12:00).
The sun does not reach its zenith at 12:00.
If you defined noon as the time of the sun reaching its zenith, days would no longer be the same length. Days in northern hemisphere winter would be slightly longer than 24 hours, and days in northern hemisphere summer would be shorter, due to the difference between sidereal time and solar time.
Comment Re:More dead Americans (Score 3, Insightful) 246
Driving to work in darkness, schoolchildren crossing streets, in winter.
When the daylight hours are short in winter, you have to pick some time in which it's darkness. If it's light during the morning commute, it will be dark during the evening commute.
This depends on how far north you are, of course.
Comment Re:DST is Dumb (Score 1) 246
"Permanent Daylight Savings Time" is a misnomer.
What it actually is, is that the standard time in every location in the US is shifted one time zone to the west, and the clocks stay on standard time all year.
Comment most of the US slightly west of their solar time (Score 1) 246
Most US population centers are in places east of the point in their time zones where the sun is overhead (or due south) at noon,
Unless I'm misreading the map, on the East coast, the EST time zone is pretty much centered on where it should be, with New York very slightly east and Washington DC very slightly west of center. The main problem with EST is that it extends west to the city limits of Chicago, while it should change to CST around Toledo.
If anything, most of the population in the US is slightly to the western edge of the time zones, not the east.
Comment Re:DST is Dumb (Score 2) 246
On the other hand, we tried this in the 1970ies already, and it was abolished immediately after the first winter, after traffic accidents during morning rush hour had risen sharply, and school children had to wait for the school bus in the coldest time of the day (and the school bus took longer because of all the icy roads anyway).
Comment Re: They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score 4, Interesting) 246
Permanent standard time is ideal for human health and balance of daylight throughout the day.
That is not true. Left without clocks, humans in median latitudes tend to sleep longer in winter than in the summer. A standard schedule throughout the year is not healthy, except you live close to the equator, where the day length does not vary much during the year.
Comment Re:They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score 1) 246
Comment Re:DST is Dumb (Score 2, Interesting) 246
So either you abolish a strict day schedule and adopt during the year, which is not only two switch days a year, but multiple times, or you have some kind of switch between Summer time and Winter time.
Comment Re:They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score 5, Insightful) 246
People complaining have simply no clue how it is to have DST in the winter, and can't imagine.