This is just the worst of both worlds. Some people are getting up when it's pitch black out for 3 hours part of the year. Some people are getting home 3 hours after sunset part of the year. Two time zones is not fixing anything, it's still sucky part of the time and you still have to know what time zone someone is in to know how to relate to their meeting invitations.
Yes, DST is annoying. But changing to two time zones? How is that better than 4? If you're going to do it, there's really only two ways to do it - either the way we have it now, where everyone can get up at 7am and have it be reasonably light out most of the time.... or have one global time and people might have to get up at 1500, because that's when the sun rises (note that AM and PM would lose meaning, which is also a good thing).
As a developer who has worked on programs that have to deal with time and days.... this would be awesome. As a developer that has international meetings every single workday... this would be awesome. Right now, when we want to move a meeting, we can't say "we're going to move the meeting to 11am" we say "we're going to move the meeting 2 hours later".... because the people at the meeting are in 4 different time zones. It's a pain in the butt.
Note, it's not just about meetings between two time zones, meetings between N time zones is horrendous with the current system.
Now everyone complains they won't know when shops are open... how do you know now? The shop could be open from 6am to 3pm (common for downtown Boston restaraunts that don't do dinner) or 9am to 5pm, or 11am to 10pm (common for restaraunts that don't do breakfast)... etc etc. So, yes, each place would need to define their own working hours, and yes, you'd have to look them up. Big deal. You already do.
>But changing to two time zones? How is that better than 4?
Jet lag for one thing. Flying from LA to NYC currently sets you back three hours. It will wreck your sleep schedule and leave you tired for three days. Change to two time zones, and it will set you back one hour instead, which is essentially the same effect DST has. You might be slightly tired, but you'll recover within a day.
Another benefit is communication. Communicating with people in different time zones is a pain, and the more time zones between you, the worse it is. With only one hour between them, you greatly increase the overlap of when people on different sides of the country are able to communicate.
Yes, DST is annoying. But changing to two time zones? How is that better than 4? If you're going to do it, there's really only two ways to do it - either the way we have it now, where everyone can get up at 7am and have it be reasonably light out most of the time.... or have one global time and people might have to get up at 1500, because that's when the sun rises (note that AM and PM would lose meaning, which is also a good thing).
As a developer who has worked on programs that have to deal with time and days.... this would be awesome. As a developer that has international meetings every single workday... this would be awesome. Right now, when we want to move a meeting, we can't say "we're going to move the meeting to 11am" we say "we're going to move the meeting 2 hours later".... because the people at the meeting are in 4 different time zones. It's a pain in the butt.
Note, it's not just about meetings between two time zones, meetings between N time zones is horrendous with the current system.
Now everyone complains they won't know when shops are open... how do you know now? The shop could be open from 6am to 3pm (common for downtown Boston restaraunts that don't do dinner) or 9am to 5pm, or 11am to 10pm (common for restaraunts that don't do breakfast)... etc etc. So, yes, each place would need to define their own working hours, and yes, you'd have to look them up. Big deal. You already do.