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Reorganise The Day

To maximize daylight hours
  (+5, -3)
(+5, -3)
  [vote for,
against]

In normal, non-summer tme, the sun is at its highest point at noon (more or less, thats the problem with time zones). And yet, the middle of the day for most of us is actually only 5 hours* into the day. This leaves a remaining 11 hours*, most of which will be in relative darkness.

The plan is to reorganise the day to make better use fo the sunlight during the first half of the day. According to sleep specialists, you need one hours sleep fro every two hours you aree awake. Thus, with 24 hours to a day, we need to sleep for 8 hours, with 16 hours of being awake.

So, 12 noon is the middle of the day, thus the day should 'begin' (i.e morning television should start) at 4 am, and the day should 'end' at 8 pm. This ensures that during winter months, you get the most of the sunshine, because you do loose quite a bit of daylight during the morning.

Work should begin at 6 am*, finishing at 2 pm*. This leaves 6 hours* in the afternoon, and 2 hours* in the morning, so you don't really have to change your eating habits, or the amount of time you have in the evening.

All in all, you can make better use of the daylight, instead of stumbling around in the dark.

*Assuming that you wake at 7am, breakfast at 8am, work 9am-5pm, go to bed at 11pm.

[ sctld ], Jul 11 2002

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       While this is somewhat biased towards residents of higher lattitudes, where there is considerable seasonal day-length variation, it does make some sense.   

       Since society copes well enough with the existing longtitudinal time zones, there is no logical reason that we should not have latitudinal time zones too.   

       This idea could contribute to energy saving.
8th of 7, Jul 11 2002
  

       Not bloody likely! As a practising night owl (I've got the beak and everything), I view the prospect of getting up for work at 5am with total horror. This easily gets my 'for the love of god, no!' vote.
DrBob, Jul 11 2002
  

       You may be getting up at 5am, but you go to bed earlier as well, so there should be no recognisable change. Everything would be the same, just earlier in the day. You wouldn't miss your favourite tv programs, you wouldn't feel any extra tired.
[ sctld ], Jul 11 2002
  

       "Assuming that you wake at 7am, breakfast at 8am, work 9am-5pm, go to bed at 11pm"   

       For the love of [insert favoured deity here], no.
-alx, Jul 11 2002
  

       What time do you wake at? That was just an outline of a typical day, there is of course lee-way on both sides. I prefer to get up at 7:30, but you get the idea.
[ sctld ], Jul 11 2002
  

       Anywhere between 8 and 10am on a working day (usually closer to 10), and generally later otherwise.   

       I enjoy the night-time, and so I spend much of my leisure time during those hours. If I'm up to see the sun rise, it's usually because I've not gone to sleep yet.
-alx, Jul 11 2002
  

       //work 9am-5pm//
If only. Usually 7:15-ish until about 4:30 or 5:00 these days.
I did eight years as a bus driver, where alternate weeks were early and "late". The early started anywhere from 4:30 to 7:30 and the late anywhere from 8:00 to 3:15. Finish times were approx eight and a half hours later. The early shifts were OK in summer, but 4:30 AM in February is *not nice* (particularly in an unheated bus cab).
The theory's OK though.
angel, Jul 11 2002
  

       -alx, in [ sctld ]'s defence, I guess that it must be quite an exciting thing for a Scot (and other residents of the Arctic circle) to wake up and actually see the sun. I can quite understand why he would want to make a special effort to do so. Whereas down here on the glorious South Coast it's no big deal. Just lay back and have a snooze. The sun'll still be there when you get up.
DrBob, Jul 11 2002
  

       Rather than reorganise the times we get up, wouldn't it be better just to move 8am till it was nearer sun-rise? By introducing this extra super duper hyper daylight saving time, no one would get hurt, except vampires, and antisocial night people who'd continue to keep different hours anyhow.
pottedstu, Jul 11 2002
  

       What never made a lick of sense to me is the whole a.m. / p.m. thing. Why should it switch at precisely 12:00? Why not at 12:59:59?   

       And I think I rather prefer the old Hebrew system. The first hour the sun's up on average is, well, the first hour of the day.
RayfordSteele, Jul 11 2002
  

       With the slow development of things like flexi-time and the "24/7" society, surely this is becoming a bit irrelevant ? Many people now work what were once thought of as "unsocial hours" and the advent of VCRs and the TiVo have made timeshifting practicable if not enjoyable. Are we heading toward a totally "desynchronised" society ? Is this a good or a bad thing ?
8th of 7, Jul 11 2002
  

       Midnight's no longer the middle of the night. According to our own biological clock, at least.
[ sctld ], Jul 11 2002
  

       Shirley this should be entitled "Size The Day"...?
DrCurry, Jul 11 2002
  

       [DrBob] Fair point...I forget that not everybody, even in the same country as me, gets the same deal daylight-wise...
-alx, Jul 11 2002
  

       [DrC]: Carve diem?
angel, Jul 12 2002
  

       // it must be quite an exciting thing for a Scot ... to wake up and actually see the sun.//   

       It would be a miracle - so much rain up there. A nice day in Scotland is when the rain isn't horizontal. I know - I lived in Glasgow for 5 years. The sun appeared somewhere in Yorkshire, usually.
PeterSilly, Jul 12 2002
  

       <yawn> I think my company has completely baked your idea, [ sctld ]. They start the morning shifts at 5 am (with hourly increments afterward). And as a night owl (sans beak) I am absolutely contemplating insertion of a caffeine IV tube. </yawn>
polartomato, Jul 12 2002
  
      
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