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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Timezones are already a step toward an arbitrary standard time for the purposes of making communication easier and not needing to change your watch just because you moved around. UTC everywhere would just be another larger step in that already established direction.

    The next step is to stop talking about “Daylight Savings Time” and “Standard Time” and phrase these as UTC offsets.

    The Eastern timezone uses UTC-5 over the winter. We use UTC-4 over the summer. In summer, if they used UTC-5, the sunrise in New York would be around 4AM. Which is way too early. New York should not be on UTC-5 in the summer. But there is no real problem with New York using UTC-4 year round.

    Detroit, on the other hand, would have sunrise after 9AM in winter if they used UTC-4. Which is absurd; they cannot use UTC-4 year round. But, there is no real problem with them using UTC-5 year round.

    The solution, then, is not to select permanent DST or Standard Time for the entire timezone. The solution is for the states (or localities) to each select which UTC offset makes sense for them, and the next time they are on that offset, they do not switch again.


  • I commented on it, but I never accepted your premise that saving lives counts toward redemption. The reason why is simple: Whatever future potential you envision this kid having, you must also give to the kid he killed. Balancing the number of potential future lives the murderer saves vs the same number of potential lives lost by killing his victim, this kid is always going to be one life short of redemption.

    Edit:

    Forgot to comment on this earlier:

    Throw away the keys and you worsen the odds.

    No, by locking him up forever, you greatly improve the odds that he won’t kill again. He is free to explore the development of his personality within the context of having his behavior directly supervised for the rest of his life.







  • He might save a life that, in prison or dead, he could not have saved. He might save twenty, even a million.

    Sure. He might save more lives than anyone who has ever existed. The chances of that happening are as good as winning the lottery, but hey, it could happen.

    He might also take another life. Or twenty. Or a million. The chances of that are substantially higher: far more people lose the lottery than win anything at all.

    The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. The best approach to playing the lottery is to lock up the money you would have used, and never let it out to buy a ticket.


  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.todaytoComic Strips@lemmy.worldBack on Standard Time
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    13 hours ago

    Let’s stop using the terms “DST” and “standard time”. They really confuse the issue. The contiguous US uses UTC-4 (EDT) , UTC-5 (EST/CDT) UTC-6 (CST/MDT), UTC-7 (MST/PDT) and UTC-8 (PST) time zones. We aren’t all going to be using the same UTC offset for permanent time. We are all going to be adopting the UTC offset that makes sense for our region.

    New England and Michigan are currently in the same time zone, which switches between UTC-4 and UTC-5. Year-round UTC-5 puts dawn before 4am in New York City during the summer. New England should absolutely not be on UTC-5 in the summer. They should be on UTC-4. On permanent UTC-4, New York dawns will always be between 5 and 8 AM.

    Year-round UTC-4 puts dawn at 9am in Detroit during the winter. Detroit should absolutely not be in UTC-4 in the winter. On permanent UTC-5, Detroit dawns will always be between 5 and 8 AM.

    New York should be on permanent UTC-4. Detroit should be on permanent UTC-5.