[Discuss] This year's Beowulf Bash is not for the lily-livered

[Kurt L Keville]

There are certainly fewer justifications for this since we migrated off a farming-first economy (which was what, a century ago? Just about the time the US adopted DST?)


Maybe when the Senate sends the Infrastructure Bill back to committee they can mandate a certain percentage of the workforce has to be remote workers. Then, like Bill says, people can move the "work" hours to the appropriate level of sunlight ...


________________________________
From: Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2021 8:12 PM
To: Kurt L Keville
Cc: John Abreau; discuss at lists.blu.org; klk
Subject: Re: [Discuss] This year's Beowulf Bash is not for the lily-livered



On Sun, Nov 21, 2021 at 7:57 PM Kurt L Keville <kkeville at mit.edu<mailto:kkeville at mit.edu>> wrote:

Sen Markey is trying to outlaw Daylight Savings Time... a rare bipartisan issue apparently...

IIRC, the US was on permanent DST during The War. (Some areas may have had Double Summer Time ? I'd have to poke the Olson File to see where.)

Mass Legislature has discussed this separately as well.
They might as well just legislate Boston's latitude to 30°N ?

Doing it nationally makes a lot more sense than state by state or even regionally.

The reality is there just isn't enough daylight mid-winter here to work a full shift and commute, let alone shovel, no matter whether you call it 7.15am-4.30pm or 8.15am-5.30pm .
What we REALLY need (especially from 40°N and up) is FLEX TIME so that people can do what they can in the dark and do what they must in what little light there is.
Being half the year on the same TZ offset as Canadian Maritimes and half the year on the same TZ offset as NYC would be f***ing awkward.
This only makes sense if NY does the same as we do.
If Boston and NYC (and Boston exchange, NY exchange, AMEX, TV network HQs) declare a new normal together, as with i95 touchless tolling the rest of New England and NJ will fall in line for convenience whether they theoretically agree or not. But going it alone would be insane without our neigbors.

Does it really count as Bipartisan if you've got a handful of senators & reps from both parties grandstanding to populists at home on this issue while it dies in committee for a third time<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Protection_Act>? OTOH, if this issue can get SENs Rubio and Markey working across the aisle, maybe it'll be catching.