Miguel -SpanishInput
مدرّس
Daylight Savings Time is so annoying... (Plus a shout out to italki coders)
Here's my problem: I have a YouTube channel about architecture with 30K subs and I plan to premiere one video weekly. I want to tell all my subscribers the exact time when a new video will premiere every week, so they can get used to this and make it part of their weekly routine. I'm going to give a huge discount on new house plans to those who attend the premiere, so I really need to be able to tell everybody the exact time in a simple way.

However...

Most of my viewers are in Mexico and the U.S. I also have several from South America. When Mexico and the US enter DST, viewers in Chile are getting out of DST. I wish I could tell everybody something like this:
"Tune in at 10am US/Mexico Central Time, 12pm Chile time".

Buuuuut...

In September, Chile ADVANCES the clock one hour, while PARTS of Mexico move it one hour BACK in October and, other parts of Mexico and the US do it in November, and others parts of Mexico and the US don't change at all.

Even if I catered only to my Mexico/US viewers, the fact that parts of each country implement DST at different dates is annoying. Even if I say: "Tune in at 10am STANDARD Central Time", some people might not be aware that during DST they're no longer in the "Standard" time and thus should add one hour.

Italki programmers are heroes for sorting this all out for us. THANK YOU.
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التعليقات · 8
3
Use UTC.
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3
First world problems.
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I wish italki would allow members to use their scheduling system with our language partners!
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USE UTC and let the computers the recipients are on [or the server or database if you are using a database] automatically show the time IN UTC + OR - the offset.

It looks like the Uk will be the last place to give up on Daylight saving Summer and winter settings.
It is not needed any longer in the modern world, it was only used to get more agricultural production for a short time. We don't have to do this now with modern technology and harvesters that can harvest with lights in the darkness. In the UK it is only needed to prevent children in the northern Scottish isles from going to school in the dark.

You do not have to know what dates and times certain regions switch for daylight savings, you just have to know what libraries and functions are available to you in the computer programming language you are using.

which is the language italki is written in has good easy to use date libraries and functions to use without needing to manually calculate these yourself.
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There is less and less enthusiasm for Daylight Savings Time in the United States. I think your problem will be gone in a few years. When it began, factories were designed to make use of natural daylight. They had south-facing clerestory roofs. That's why you see those "sawtooth" roofs on old factory buildings. The time change really did save energy. I think studies have shown that nowadays energy savings are practically zero.

It might be even more annoying than you realize.

The United States is a federal republic, and the states have a lot of autonomy. The law is that every state decides whether or not to observe daylight savings time--but that if they are going to observe it, they don't get to choose the dates for the time change, they have to "spring ahead" on the 2nd Sunday in March, and "fall back" on the 1st Sunday in November. 48 of the 50 states observe daylight savings time, but Arizona and Hawaii do not. I suspect italki does <em style="color: rgb(69, 69, 69);">not</em> make an exception for Arizona and Hawaii.

The best thing about daylight savings time is the little mnemonic "spring ahead, fall back." For those who don't get it, "spring" has the dual meaning of a season of the year (primavera, the vernal equinox) and "jump," while "fall" has the dual meaning of a season of the year (autumn, otoño, the autumnal equinox) and to drop downward.
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