Changing clocks

Daylight savings time as a topic is only relevant to Kauaʻi in that we don't have it here: one more nice appeal of living here. So if you are in the islands, the upcoming end of daylight savings just means having to adjust the time zone difference to your friends on the mainland.

I never really understood the point and it clearly seemed more trouble and confusing than any possible benefit. Having lived in the Seattle area - far northern US - where sunrise/sunset varies considerably with the seasons, no matter what you do in winter days are very short and in summer almost ridiculously long. Why playing games with the clock is supposed to help I have no idea. If schools, for instance, wanted to shift their hours with the seasons, they could just announce the new schedule and I think people could handle it.

Aside: As a software professional I am quite aware that simply changing computer time for daylight savings continues to frustrate programmers and we still have yet to reliably get it right. Just as one of many examples, Apple's latest iOS 7 recently had a daylight savings time adjustment bug.

But my real motivation for writing about this non-event topic here is that I just read of a brilliant fix to the status quo.

Here's how it would work:

1. Mountain time and Central time places would stop changing their clocks ever again;
2. At the end of daylight savings time, Eastern time places would "fall back" once only;
3. At the start of the next daylight savings time, Pacific time places would "spring forward" once only;

Today in the various time zones from west to east we have times:

1. 1pm Pacific, 2pm Mountain, 3pm Central, 4pm Eastern.
2. 1pm Pacific, 2pm Mountain, 3pm Central, 3pm Eastern.
3. 2pm Pacific, 2pm Mountain, 3pm Central, 3pm Eastern.

And thatʻs it: the US mainland operates with just two time zones that are one hour apart.