this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2026
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xkcd #3272: Time Change

Title text:

All discussions of daylight saving time policy are doomed by a mix of contradictory, inconsistent, and impossible preferences, which is why I think the only thing we can really hope to do is to make it worse.

Transcript:

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Source: https://xkcd.com/3272/

explainxkcd for #3272

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[–] dumples@piefed.social 5 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Dumb. Much better idea is to split the daylight into 12 equal chunks and the night into 12 equal chunks so we have 24 hours a day 12 of which are light and 12 of which are dark.

It's so simple. We just got to change the definition of an hour everyday.

[–] drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They used to do this. Hours were divisions of the day, like slices of a pie, rather than a specific length of time.

Using equal hours, and dividing them into minutes, was something only astronomers did to help with their calculations.

[–] dumples@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

It kind of makes sense in a way. It feels more natural

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

An 8 h work day during the winter flies by, but the lunch hour is only long enough for one bite sandwich. On the other hand, 12 h of night is plenty enough for all my hobbies.

In the summer, work devours your entire life and there’s hardly any time to sleep.

[–] grranibal@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Just normalize 4h work days :D

[–] dumples@piefed.social 2 points 2 days ago

This is exactly what I was thinking. Smaller working hours. Or at least smaller around the peak of summer and winter.

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sounds good to me. In this case, 4 flexible hours of work in the summer means about 6 fixed length hours. In the winter those 4 flexible hours translate to about 2 fixed length hours, so I think I'll have plenty of time for my hobbies.

[–] grranibal@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

One can dream of such a beautiful future

[–] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] dumples@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

Twice a day or once a day for the day hours length vs night length hours. Also for every latitude as well. What a simple system