Now, I've been designing an app in my head for a while. I wanted something that would display Sun Time next to clock time. It would know where I am located and display the clock time of dawn, sunrise, sunset, and dusk along with the passage of the sunlight over the course of the day. I pictured Sun Time as a percentage, with dawn at 0% and the end of dusk at 100%. So every day in Sun Time has an equal number of daylight gradations understood in terms of percentages even though the number of hours in clock time varies greatly over the course of the year and includes the brutal jumps when DST comes or goes. The Sun Time gradations are perfectly gentle — because they are tiny and because they put you in close touch with the natural world of sunlight.
I thought I could get A.I. to write the code for this app I had in mind, but I had the sense to ask first if there already was such an app. There are a few. I picked Sundial. It looks like this:
I would like to see the Sun Time percentages displayed on the dial, but you can see at the bottom right that I was 45.1% into today's daylight when I took the screenshot. I want to maximize my thinking in terms of that percentage, which, of course, ticks by faster in the winter than the summer. But that's good if you want to be adjusted to nature. You've got to hurry a bit to get out for a walk (or whatever) in the daylight, and it's cold, so you'll want to move fast. You've got a longer night in the winter, but confront it, full on, and make something of the dark.
Mga Post
103 komento:
Step into the Sun Time and don't go back.
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Wait... do you get a commission on this, professor?
What exactly is your angle, cuz we know you got one!
The WeatherUnground app has a sun & moon screen that shows sunrise, sunset, first light and last light, along with hours/minutes of daylight.
I just get up at 3:00 or 4:00 year round. In the winter I run in the dark, and in the summer I (nearly) beat the heat.
I cannot recommend what you say highly enough. Then again, I've not had a watch since 1964, and during my 50 years of farming [vegetables] I always lived by the sun and the seasons, even at Arctic latitudes for several years. North of 60°, in midsummer you have 20-some hours of sunshine, and the rest is perfectly usable twilight, as in light enough to read.
Living in what the Greeks call Kairos, rather than by Chronos time is remarkably liberating, yet if I had to meet someone at 13:45 I was there with military precision. But the rest of my life, for many decades has been thoroughly relaxed, even in those long Arctic nights, telling time by the stars.
Purely from my selfish viewpoint as a very early riser, and as an early morning golfer 3 days a week, my preference would be to just leave it on Standard Time, as it will blessedly be in 12 hours.
I positively thrive in the early morning hours.
The traditional Japanese clock, known as the wadokei (和時計, literally “Japanese clock”), represents a distinctive adaptation of timekeeping technology that accounted for seasonal variations in daylight. Unlike the fixed 60-minute hours of Western clocks, the wadokei employed a temporal hour system, where the duration of each hour fluctuated based on the time of year to align with the natural cycle of day and night.   This system persisted until Japan’s adoption of the Gregorian calendar and equal-hour divisions in 1873.
Description from Grok. Saw one at Snows Hill Manor in the Cotswolds
"There's nothing about your "o'clock" affairs that should stop you from doing that."
It's not as easy as you suggest if you're working the 5PM-2AM shift.
I could get up at dawn on Monday and be fine. If I try that at the end of the month I'll be late to work. I'll be getting home around sunset then. I hate this time of the year when I only see the sun as it's rising or setting and that's during my commute.
We should end having the annoyance of the twice-a-year time switch (except in Arizona).
There seems to be roughly equal support for permanent daylight time or standard time.
Why doesn't Congress (in a showing of bipartisanship) simply sponsor a (nationally televised) coin flip--heads would be daylight time, tails would be standard time starting, say, a year hence?
States, of course, can decide what they want to do, but I suspect that most would follow a Federal lead and settle the matter.
People can adjust to a permanent change: start their day earlier or later--or even at dawn.
Just get it done.
Retried privilege. Those whose school and work scheduels are tired to clocks are not as flexible.
Except the sun does not come out everyday even if it is officially "light" out...
Better, if you have 24 hours of free time, to look out the window and go out for a walk when it is sunny and bright. And yes, it's easy to know in your head during each season when the sun rises and sets, so you really don't need an app for that.
The trouble is, most people don't have 24 hours of free time, but are locked into when things open and close, and when they have work and appointments.
If you're free and it's nice and sunny out, sure, go for a walk knowing you don't have all day. This is not hard. People did fine before having all these watches that count steps, log your outdoor time or whatever. Lame.
You want congress to actually make a decision? Where have you been for the last 30 years or so.
However, I do agree that the useless elected folks should make one, either DST or STD, permanent and stop the twice yearly shift.
I only see the sun as it's rising or setting and that's during my commute.
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This. Most people, even before retirement, do not have the few rare "set hours" for working, but are required to be there during all daylight hours.
Tenured profs are another thing. I hear they let you "work from home" now, not only for "sabbaticals" or maternity/paternity leave, which actually requires producing a child, but if you adopt a "severely anxious" dog who cannot be left alone. You get to stay home and "work" because of that. Or worse... bring the dog to work with you??
Make it make sense what some workers get over the good majority of them. I kind of pity the intellectual class and this type of bragging ann does, with zero realistic idea of how real workers live...
Wa St Blogger said...
Retried privilege.
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I think she was teaching two or three classer per semester tops, before she retired, which -- with mandated weekly "officer hours" -- likely required she be on campus about 18 hours a week only. Mid day hours too...
I remember when ann "cancelled" an 8am mandated test time set for her class by the law school, because "we took a vote, and that was just too early for my students". Lol. Special privileged people don't have to play by your silly rules... Now get up an hour early and take a walk in the dark before work, you lazy asses! lol
"I do it like this... why can't YOU?"
If I wait till dawn to get up, I'll be late. Dawn is something I watch happen with my first cup. I've always been a morning person. Even as a toddler, I would be first up, and at 4 or 5 years old, I'd leave the house, go exploring with my dog, and then go wait outside my friends' house for them to wake up. Maybe I'm just a creeper.
"Step into the Sun Time and don't go back."
Sounds like you're telling us to go into the light.
"Set your day by the sun. I've done that since 2019, and I didn't need to be retired to do it."
When I was working, which was most of my life, my lab couldn't get access to the clinical imaging machines we needed for our research until after the clinical staff and patients went home for the day. I was often working well into the early AM hours. Not everybody's life is the same.
Morning people. I hate those guys.
"I pictured Sun Time as a percentage, with dawn at 0% and the end of dusk at 100%. So every day in Sun Time has an equal number of daylight gradations understood in terms of percentages even though the number of hours in clock time varies greatly over the course of the year"
I believe the Romans told time like that.
I think people who live within 15 degrees of the equator can live by the sun. Maybe even people within 30 degrees.
But the farther north (or south) it’s tough. It would be great if the planet had 15 hours of light between dusk and dawn.
I know I'm not the only one, but I get an actual buzz in the morning that feels a little like cocaine, and lasts just about as long.
Yea, how does this work in Alaska?
"I know I'm not the only one, but I get an actual buzz in the morning that feels a little like cocaine, "
I feel like I have a hangover in the morning. Even after a good night's sleep.
I find the calls for year-round Standard Time (ST) amusing. In the 1970s I lived for a while in Indiana, which stayed on ST all year; summer sunrises were absurdly early. I never got over the feeling that I was late for teaching my summer session 8AM class. It works better in Arizona because it's far enough south that the summer daylight is not as long as northern states. Many places would see ST sunrise well before 5AM in the summer.
I dislike mornings and getting out of bed ('hate' is too strong). It's gotten worse in retirement. When I was working, getting up early became a routine, but now, it's a chore.
Thank God for coffee.
This public service announcement is brought to you by?
I should’ve written it up by dawn, not at dawn. if you’re a before dawn person like I am, usually, you probably don’t need the advice I’m giving.
And I acknowledge that some people work the night shift and can’t use the advice I’m giving.
“Retried privilege. Those whose school and work scheduels are tied to clocks are not as flexible”
Exactly. Post needs a Sententious Hippie Bullshit tag.
Shit. Corrected tied but not retired. Do others feel that spelling and grammar errors detract from the validity of their comments? Other than Dinky Dau, natch….
For some things; for instance, I haven’t used an alarm clock in at least a decade (I have no idea how many years it’s been). Not by choice, I just naturally wakeup earlier than any normal person needs to. But I’m no more interested in eating dinner at 4:30 in January than I am in eating at 8:30 in July.
All well and good when you are retired and don't have a set schedule for work or school. Then, sure, it is easy to ignore the clock face time...you have nothing pressing to do.
Assuming one has the flexibility (e.g. retirement), I think one should be up when your body wants to be up. I am a night person. I am just more alert and energetic in the evening; always have been. I can fight this predilection; I did for decades because I had to. But why should I now when there's no external forcing? I simply have no interest in bed before midnight. And I have an astronomical bent. I want to be up and out at night. Morning people have looked down on me my entire life (yes, Dad, I'm thinking of you). I thought we celebrated diversity.
"Many places would see ST sunrise well before 5AM in the summer."
And many places would see DST sunrise well after 9AM in the winter.
All that happens when you adjust the time is that some people benefit and others are inconvenienced. Set 12PM at solar noon for locations more or less centered by longitude in each time zone and be done with it.
We could adjust the clock daily. Sunrise = 6 AM, by definition.
Synchrony is an elusive destination, a topic of social consensus, with Nature's pretension.
I have to be out of the house at 5am to start my commute. In summer this is daytime already. At this time of year it's 3 hours before sunrise. I actually prefer the winter because I can see the stars when I get to work; in summer I basically never see the night as I'm in bed by 8pm.
"Synchrony is an elusive destination"
Einstein taught us there is no such thing as agreed upon simultaneity.
Jewish law and practice does this. Midnight is halfway between sunset and sunrise, "third hour of the day" is 25% from sunrise to sunset, etc., regardless of clock time. This relates to the times by which certain prayers or ceremonies must take place.
You live in a small town and had plenty of flexibility you could dictate, thanks to the non-demands of being a tenured professor. Most people, including the adjuncts your generation of academics knowingly dumped all the hard work on, for pennies, while you did a 1/2 or less, with lots of time off, don't have such leisure, retired or not. Please don't rub it in.
I'm retired, so nothing pressing clock wise unless I have a doctor's appointment, which I always schedule very early. But that's more about traffic and a desire to get it over with. The bigger issue daily is my cat. He has a food clock and could care less about DST. He's very persistent on wake up time. It's more work staying in bed than feeding him.
I had a daily morning paper route for much of my youth. Up at 5:00 a.m., deliver the newspapers on my bike all over town, back home for breakfast, then change clothes and off to school. 7 days a week. That pretty much forces you to become a morning person.
"Sounds like you're telling us to go into the light."
Don't go to the light!
Those people don't come back.
I delivered my papers at 3 am so I could come home and take a nap before getting up for school.
I worked at a job for 30 years that required me to be up at 5:45AM. It didn't force me to become a morning person, I just hated having to do it. Immediately upon retirement, getting up early ended.
You can try my MAX Daylight app here: https://apple.co/4h9t2Zo
Free, ad-free, spyware-free.
It's localized into 15 different languages.
We're retired, and our days start anywhere from pre-dawn to post-sunrise. The triggers in the wake-up department in our household these days are our dogs, unfortunately...
"The triggers in the wake-up department in our household these days are our dogs, unfortunately..."
My dogs aren't like that, they're usually asleep on the bed with me when I wake up.
Any similar themed Android-based apps out there? Looks like Sundial is Apple only.
I downloaded the app, thanks.
When AZ declined DST, how people laughed at us. Who’s laughing now?
When I was 5 years old and afraid I’d oversleep, my sister told me to pray to my Guardian Angel and I would be woken at exactly the time I wanted. So I used to test my GA. Passed the test every time.
So I’ve never had a problem waking up. But it’s still nice to know what the sun’s doing.
Clock determines what time habitual radio shows come on, around which your day may be organized. Organize around information, not light.
Lux et veritas
Bagoh20: “ Even as a toddler, I would be first up, and at 4 or 5 years old, I'd leave the house, go exploring with my dog, and then go wait outside my friends' house for them to wake up.”
If a kid did that today, he’d be sending his parents to jail and himself to a series of foster homes (and then eventually to jail, too, probably). Dog would probably get euthanized as a bad influence on kids. CC, JSM
DST year 'round, please. 4:15 sunsets suck.
God separated the summer from the winter.
God called to the light: daylight savings time!
God called to the dark: standard time!
And there was summer and there was winter: the first year.
Live not by Lies.
Live by the Sun
Unlike my wife, I'm a natural morning person. We have flex time, and can start from 6 AM to 9 AM. I've naturally drifted - over the years- to starting sooner and sooner. Now, its 630. Which means up at 6 AM if Telework, and sooner if its an office day.
Retirement days of getting up at first light will be no problem.
In Fortuna, ND the latest sunrise is at 8:48AM. With DST, sunrise there wouldn't occur until nearly 10AM.
All of our clocks are set to Zulu time.
NYT wire drops their stories around 3 or 4am CST at the latest... No need to even wait for the morning paper anymore!
Great post. Honestly, I never loved the idea of moving the clocks to and fro to begin with.
But I digress. Your app idea was wonderful. So good, others have done it already!
I like getting up before dawn. I just wish I could sleep in the hours before dawn.
I am only a slave to the clock when midnight comes and the new Wordle appears. Although it is possible to set a computer to another time zone.
Time changes are chaos because almost all of my clocks set themselves, but not reliably, and some have the La Crosse Atomic Clock bug, where even if it changes, it changes back briefly that night. An inability to keep straight the GMT status change and the 2-3am local change.
Fall Back example
I don't watch the clock, I watch the thermometer.
Some of us still work. I have morning meetings on my daily calendar, and I work some retail shifts on weekends. I like getting to the gym when it opens at 5:30. Personally, I am a morning person, so I strongly favor standard time. Much as I dislike it, I realize this is a 50-50 issue. But if put to a vote, he'll yes, I'd vote for Standard Time all year.
If permanent Standard Time vs. permanent Daylight Savings Time is a 50-50 question, there's a simple solution: set the permanent time half-way in between. Make the last spring forward or fall back a half hour.
There are already quite a few countries in the world whose clocks are set to X-and-a-half hours difference from Greenwich. Having four such zones lined up next to each other would be new, but why not?
Just don't ask me whether the new year-round Eastern time would be 4 1/2 or 5 1/2 hours different from Greenwich (non-daylight) time! I think it's 5 1/2, but I may be wrong.
Since we live in a digital world, all options are on the table.
My proposal is to snip 10 minutes out of the 2AM-3AM hour, every night, every week, Monday thru Saturday. Then, every Saturday night, (really Sunday morning), at 2AM inject that hour back. The extra hour we get tonight with the clock switch ?--every Saturday night, year round.
Who wouldn't like that ?
I have been a night owl my entire life though I had to change this when I started graduate school. When I retired, I more or less kept going to bed by 9 or 10 for several years but I have slowly drifted to later and later nights over the last 5 years because my elderly mother stays up all night long, mostly getting her sleep from about 5 AM until noon. I still am usually in bed by 1 AM and up again 8 hours later but I know that when my mother is gone I am very likely to go back to ending my evenings at 9 or 10 PM and getting up at 6 AM- I just find that is the most efficient way to run my day left to my own preferences now.
Another thing to consider is how far east or west one's location is within your time zone. There are some areas that really belong in the adjoining time zone, but for whatever reason were placed in the time zone they are in. For example, all of Maine and most of Michigan's Upper Peninsula (other than a few counties adjoining Wisconsin) are both in the Eastern Time Zone. In Bar Harbor, Maine, sunrise tomorrow is at 6:11 AM and sunset is at 4:20 PM, while in Houghton, Michigan, sunrise is at 7:39 AM and sunset is at 5:36 PM. You can see how the experience of being in the Eastern Time Zone can vary even for two towns at very northern latitudes.
India has a half hour offset. Rather than split the country between two time zones, they elected to be a half hour off from their neighbors.
Another thing to consider is how far east or west one's location is within your time zone.
I was going to say that's a big factor in how people feel about DST. Being in the eastern part of the eastern time zone, I like DST. Otherwise it would get dark around 7:30 in June, and sunrise would be at 4:30am. The western part of the zone is almost an hour later and doesn't really need DST, so it's less popular, and year-round DST would mean 8:30 am sunrises in the winter. But if we're going to have just four time zones on the mainland, there's no way around this problem.
“… your waking and sleeping and much of the rest of what you do — eating, going out walking, chores, reading, napping, conversing, and generally being the human animal that you are — can and should be done according to the time of the sun…”
Many of the greatest human innovations—fire, oil, electricity— were motivated by the desire to escape the tyranny of the sun. I’m not going back. And there’s definitely something wrong with morning people.
"And there’s definitely something wrong with morning people."
My only problem with morning people is them telling the rest of us how to live.
My only problem with morning people is them telling the rest of us how to live.
I am one, and I couldn't agree more! We're like fricking vegan bicyclists.
"My only problem with morning people is them telling the rest of us how to live."
I suppose it must have happened somewhere, but I don't recall hearing night owls telling morning people how they should live. Can't say the same thing for what night owls are told by those morning folks, though.
I get tired of arguing with people about the "extra hour" of light.
there is no extra hour of light... we just shifted the time around. The amount of time the sun is above the morning horizon and below the night horizon - depends on the time of year and the earth's position as it rotates around the sun. Also the tilt of the earth and the position in the northern hemisphere.
Changing the clock does nothing to the amount of daylight.
I wish we would stop messing around and pick a time.
The early worm gets eaten by the bird.
I am a morning person, too. Although less so as I get older.
When I was a kid - I was always the first to get up and drive everyone nuts. Until school started - then I wanted to sleep.
“… your waking and sleeping and much of the rest of what you do — eating, going out walking, chores, reading, napping, conversing, and generally being the human animal that you are — can and should be done according to the time of the sun…”
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People who got up "before the sun" every weekday morning for decades for WORK are not impressed by you retired johnny come lately early birds, prof.
Life your life. Stop giving advice to others. Really? They don't need it. One size does not fit all. If you were really happy, you'd just do you and not bother about others. If the like what they see, they'd emulate you. I think a lot of people here are fascinated by you, but not too much interested in emulating your personal choices...
Nwwawwt. Write what you want to write....
Exactly. Post needs a Sententious Hippie Bullshit tag.
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Don't rile the lil meadster now. He's gotta protect his woman's rep when you diss her like that... and he might not be happy if his prediction does not hold: the BJ's do not win in 7.
I was a C-130 Navigator. One of the biggest misconceptions about being a Tactical Navigator is that the most important duty you have is map reading. Wrong-the Co-pilot was the primary map reader. The Navigator's primary job was getting to the drop zone On Time (1.5 minute window,) and calling green light so the load would land at the right spot on the drop zone, and calling out time warnings/alerts. Also, start time, taxi time, etc. Of course, celestial navigation demanded accurate time in order to calculate Lat and Long to get a good fix, and for good dead reckoning. I now take great delight in not having to wear a watch.
Amtrak in the fall just stops the train for an hour when the clock goes back so that the schedule is adhered to even after the time change.
I'm late to this party but Clyde at 8pm last night nailed it. The further west you are in the time zone typically determines your opinion on moving the clocks one way or another.
Came for the Poor Richard reference. Leaving disappointed.
"I feel like I have a hangover in the morning. Even after a good night's sleep."
You might have sleep apnea. Get that checked out.
Being retired has it's advantages. I sleep with a CPAP machine and I'm very covetous of my eight or nine hours. There are times however when I can't get back to sleep around four or five in the morning I'll go outside and check out the constellations. Not being tied to s schedule is liberating.
I prefer DST as I like lots of daylight after dinnertime so I can walk the beach. During my life, I have been a morning person as well as a night owl. It depended on what job I had at the time. My now-five year romance with Huang Qin began when I invited her to watch a sunrise with me.
Winter vs summer, though. While I'm all for sticking with one time for work schedules, the 'up with the sun' doesn't really work in winter when you get, what 8 to 10 hours or less of sun - or daytime, I should say?
"I feel like I have a hangover in the morning. Even after a good night's sleep."
Appreciate the advice, Rusty, but I don't.
"Amtrak in the fall just stops the train for an hour when the clock goes back so that the schedule is adhered to even after the time change."
Uh-huh. What do they do in the Spring?
I was surprised that I woke up at 6:30 this morning. Then I figured out that it was because of daylight savings time. I'm still surprised that I woke up at what would have been 7:30.
My professional life consisted of being a pilot, first military, then airline, flying freight. So, slave to Greenwich Mean Time (aka Zulu), while also being a circadian rhythm disruption, sleep deprivation lab rat.
Interesting sunrise phenomena: The great circle course from Stansted, England, to Memphis, TN goes fairly far north, where the groundspeed of the airplane cancels the earths rotation. We'd take off just before sunrise, and park the sun just below the horizon for the next five or so hours, until the course turned south.
On one trip, I saw the ISS while east of Greenland, and realized that since the ISS is in a sun-synchronous orbit, I would see it again in 90 minutes. Sure enough — so I'm one of the few people to see the ISS twice in the same day.
Boise is on the western edge of the Mountain Time zone, just forty miles from the Pacific. Heading due north to Coeur d' Alene, about halfway there the time zone changes to Pacific because CdA is close to Spokane, and there is near as darnnit to nothing in those seven hours between Boise and CdA.
Elko, NV five hours due south of Boise is in the Pacific zone.
Now that I'm retired, I go to bed around 2330, and wake up within about 15 minutes of 0530. Since nearly all our clocks slave to ISP time, the seasonal time shift is super easy, barely an inconvenience.
I've always thought we should fall back in the fall and spring back in the spring. That way we get an extra hour of weekend twice a year and don't lose any at all. Of course, the "day" would gradually rotate around so sometimes it would be "daytime" in the middle of the night. On the plus side, we would no longer privilege the light over the darkness, which is racist anyway.
if you know any pilots or astronomers, they should be able to explain things like twilight phase, civil twilight, nautical, twilight, astronomical, twilight, sunrise, sunset, solar, noon, our local apparent, noon, which y’all have to do with the actual position of the sun relative to the observer.
" where the groundspeed of the airplane cancels the earths rotation. We'd take off just before sunrise, and park the sun just below the horizon for the next five or so hours, until the course turned south."
That's so cool.
"so I'm one of the few people to see the ISS twice in the same day."
I have to disagree with that. Seeing two ISS passes is common, even from the ground, if you pay attention. It is true that one pass is brighter than the other.
I have to disagree with that. Seeing two ISS passes is common, even from the ground, if you pay attention. It is true that one pass is brighter than the other.
The earth rotates roughly 15º per hour, so about 22º during one orbit.
The earths diameter at the 52º (the ISS's orbital inclination) is 8,000 miles. At that latitude, a point on the earth will have moved 488 miles during one orbit. (The distance increases with decreasing latitude.).
At 36,000 feet the horizon is about 160 miles away. At the ISS's altitude, it is above the horizon at about 80 times that distance. So way more than 488 miles.
I rate your comment Zero Pinocchios.
(AI and Quora agree with you.)
I wished I would have said "... saw the ISS appear in the same place in the sky twice in one day".
I've seen two passes many times. Didn't know you could do more; I've never made a point of ISS observations. In fact, I'm trying to ignore the increasing orbital hardware pollution.
"I wished I would have said "... saw the ISS appear in the same place in the sky twice in one day".
Ahh!
We're retired. We also have an indoor dog. His schedule follows the sun, so that's our schedule.
It's easier for retired people to follow Prof's advice than for the younger of us. If I wake and go to bed based on the sun during "spring forward" time, I'll be late for everything for a couple of months (which is the reason for the complaining, by the way. Others want to force ME to change MY clock instead of modifying their personal routine)
I usually take the dogs for a walk around 4PM, Lucas is pretty good at reminding me when it's time to go. Today, he came looking for me at 3.
Today it is pitch black at 6 PM, which is why I hate Standard Time
any commens? humans-used-to-sleep-twice-every-night-heres-why-it-vanished
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