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Cuba is skipping its November 1, 2026 clock change and staying on DST until 2027

50 points n_plus_1_acc 1 hour ago 82 comments

OsrsNeedsf2P 1 hour ago | parent

manually rolled datetime library screams

xnorswap 1 hour ago | parent

They're all over it before we hear about it:

3 days ago: https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/5b5b39dae16f787740b8c0d4...

It's not even the latest change to the library!

zombot 1 hour ago | parent

WTF. They should abolish DST.

F3nd0 1 hour ago | parent

Why?

oddIdentities 1 hour ago | parent

Because DST is the wrong time; if you look at the legal implementation of DST, most countries carve out exceptions for fields where lying about the time can obviously lead to death and destruction - navigation being perhaps the main one.

What everyone missed is that DST could itself lead to much greater loss of life than we might have lost had the use of DST been mandated all the way through to e.g. large naval, air or spacecraft.

And as research into DST continues, this seems to have been not merely an abstract possibility was missed, but _the actual outcome_. DST is quite literally killing people by the thousands.

mrweasel 59 minutes ago | parent

I don't know it this will be the case for Cuba, as it's somewhat differently placed on the map, but Russia tried DST only and had to switch to standard time and then stayed there.

Some people absolutely loves DST for some reason, but it creates stress and mental problems for people, especially in the north. The long mornings are somehow worse than the short evenings. Technically it shouldn't matter what the clock shows, but when society insists on things happening at a certain time, whether or not the sun is out becomes important.

For the Russian case see: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-28423647

paganel 29 minutes ago | parent

> especially in the north

We don't care about the people living in the North, there are more of us living not in North and as we live in a democracy (the EU) the majority vote should cound on this.

skeledrew 16 minutes ago | parent

Because it's generally senseless, and particularly for them even more so given their location.

thendrill 1 hour ago | parent

So... Cuba is the voice of reason?

Yehh Europe is loosing its mind..

I belive this whole clock fliopity flip twice a year is a huge contributing factor to people's "unbalance", and worsening mental state... Especially the northern parts....

We humans are creatures of habit... Mess with the circadian rhythm of en entire population and expect no adverse effect.... Mhm checks out.

Boltgolt 1 hour ago | parent

Calling canceling a time change mere days before it was going to happen "the voice of reason" is rich

lloeki 1 hour ago | parent

"Days" is plenty of time, IIRC some tz changes happened hours before they had to come into effect!

jansan 1 hour ago | parent

The EU again is all talk and no action on this topic. 84% said in a poll to get rid of it back in 2018, parliament voted to end it by 2021. But here we are at the end of 2026 turning the clocks back again. Next march same thing. Honestly at this point I don't think it will ever happen, they will still be "discussing"it in 2040.

tchalla 1 hour ago | parent

That’s the downside of EU decision making.

leipert 36 minutes ago | parent

Actually “only” Germany voted back then. Like 3.79% of Germans voted. So that comes out to ~3.18M of 4.6M votes cast by Germans.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_18_...

echoangle 1 hour ago | parent

> and worsening mental state

How would something that has been in effect for at least 60 years still lead to a worsening mental state over time?

wiseowise 46 minutes ago | parent

Yeah, because humans existed for only 60 years.

echoangle 43 minutes ago | parent

Well most people haven't existed for 60 years. Where I'm from, DST was introduced 110 years ago and people still complain. When will the worsening mental state reach equilibrium? Or is there maybe a chance that the worsening mental state isn't due to DST?

thendrill 20 minutes ago | parent

Daylight saving time: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine position statement

https://aasm.org/advocacy/position-statements/daylight-savin...

The transition from daylight saving time to standard time leads to depressions https://clin.au.dk/display/artikel/the-transition-from-dayli...

sschueller 51 minutes ago | parent

Switzerland never wanted it: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/daylight-saving-time-wh...

marliechiller 37 minutes ago | parent

I remember reading somewhere that we see an increased incidence of heart related ailments around the clock change, hypothesized due to this change in sleep patterns.

input_sh 32 minutes ago | parent

Most of the world is the voice of reason actually.

This is a very European / North American problem for some reason. There are some exceptions, but in general Asia, Africa and South America don't do this.

paganel 30 minutes ago | parent

> a huge contributing factor to people's "unbalance", and worsening mental state.

This is surely an exaggeration.

phgn 1 hour ago | parent

Nice! I don't really care if we end up on daylight savings or not, just stop this time change madness finally please!

ssl-3 1 hour ago | parent

This is the only reasonable and measured take.

(Unfortunately, it always gets derailed by highly-polarized discussions about whether to stay on DST forever or get rid of it forever. They'll be showing up here again soon enough.)

oddIdentities 1 hour ago | parent

It is a reasonable take but it is not the _only_ one - I think it is arguably more reasonable to transition away from DST to ordinary "best TZ granularity approximation to zenith-occurs-at-noon" time once, and then stay (and manage) that time over the millenia to come.

ssl-3 44 minutes ago | parent

I like this idea. I like it quite a lot.

But can we... uh... can we keep that as some kind of tertiary issue to solve later after we successfully stop screwing up the clocks twice every year? We don't really need to build a singular omnibus clock overhaul that will most assuredly never come to fruition, do we? :)

Boltgolt 1 hour ago | parent

If you read the article it's the worst of both worlds: Keep clock time the same but start work and school 30 minutes later?

genxy 51 minutes ago | parent

Shouldn't we just get up when the sun comes up? And if you can't see the sun, everyone can stay home.

mhd 54 minutes ago | parent

Swatch Beat time.

boonzeet 1 hour ago | parent

40 odd lines just for handling Cuba alone, amazing

murderfs 47 minutes ago | parent

The diff is 23 lines long, the vast majority of which is documentation: https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/5b5b39dae16f787740b8c0d4...

wafflemaker 1 hour ago | parent

If they still move time back in spring, they will gain 1h per person.

If they keep doing it indefinitely, they're looking at some serious profits and boost to GDP.

vasco 52 minutes ago | parent

This is Cuba we're talking about. Profits only matter if they go to the ruling family and friends.

berkes 44 minutes ago | parent

That's unnecessary political stereotyping.

But what does matter in Cuba, is Savings.

The country is in shambles, beyond bankruptcy, in cases literally starving. Because of it"international" sanctions. Severe shortages of petrol, water and energy.

So it wouldn't be surprising if, by moving the clock every year in just one direction, petrol, water and electricity is saved. And it wouldn't even be suprising if that actually happens.

stavros 34 minutes ago | parent

It's not stereotyping when it can be applied to basically every country in the world, including the US.

throw-qqqqq 30 minutes ago | parent

Haha I know a skit from 1990, where the comedian makes this exact point.

He even takes it a step further:

“Why settle for turning back time just one hour? Think about how much we f*cked up the world in the past 30 years! Let’s turn time back 30 years and fix that mess!”

gvieri 1 hour ago | parent

I really hope that Italy will follow... Every single time adjustment (or jet lag) is a drama for me.

Heliosmaster 58 minutes ago | parent

Fwiw last week my and my family kept our clocks in CEST. My son sleeps an hour longer in the morning. But we go to bed before 21. Aiuto!

mystifyingpoi 50 minutes ago | parent

I hate DST switching, and since last 3 days I've tried to live as if DST didn't happen, go to sleep super early etc.

It completely fails when you account for everyone else around you. Could work if you live alone with flexible working hours. But having a semi-active social life and kids makes it impossible.

paganel 32 minutes ago | parent

> Every single time adjustment (or jet lag) is a drama for me

As a counter-point, I personally don't even notice it. Also, I live in Romania, so every trip West of the border, even just to Hungary, means a one-hour change, so, again, no big deal.

flohofwoe 22 minutes ago | parent

Yeah same here, I don't even noticed the time switch this time. I remember it was worse as teenager, so maybe it affects young people more than old farts ;)

Svip 1 hour ago | parent

This articles mentions that Cuba tried permanent DST in 2004-06. This makes me wonder, has anyone ever tried permanent DST and not given up? I know Russia attempted in 2011-2013[1] (before switching to permanent standard time), and the US did it in 1974[2] before going back. I know British Columbia did it this year, but I wonder how long that will last. BC is pretty North, and I wonder how local Canadians will feel about the very dark mornings in winter.

[1] https://timeinrussia.com/daylight-saving-russia/ [2] https://www.newsweek.com/the-us-tried-permanent-daylight-sav...

dubcanada 41 minutes ago | parent

Mornings are still dark doesn't really matter

torvald 53 minutes ago | parent

From what I've gathered, this is the plan for all EU countries as well. But the pandemic has stalled the overall process.

https://jp.ibtimes.com/eu-clock-change-plan-stalled-104949

w3ll_w3ll_w3ll 49 minutes ago | parent

In EU it's currently stalled because some countries want to stay permanently on their DST time (south europe) and others (north europe) want to stay on their solar time.

It's better to make a common decison about this, so we are stalled.

mcv 41 minutes ago | parent

It's weird to standardise on summer time instead of standard time. It moves you one timezone to the east. And in western Europe, a lot of countries are already on central European time. Permanent summertime would put them on eastern European time, same as Kyiv. In winter the sun wouldn't come up until 9:30.

stavros 36 minutes ago | parent

And it would also set later, which is my personal preference as a Greek.

LluisGerard 35 minutes ago | parent

In Spain most people I talk to want permanent summertime because they like having sun late at the evening during summer, and they can't stand it when in winter the sun sets at 17:00. I think the issue is that a lot of offices work from 9:00 to 13:00 and 15:00 to 19:00. I remember when working on an office in Barcelona and having to drive 1 hour. I would leave home in darkness and drive back home in darkness.

CiaranMcNulty 23 minutes ago | parent

It’s also because Spain being on CEST makes little sense, with its longitude

matwood 34 minutes ago | parent

Maybe I’m an outlier, but I’d rather it stay light later. Sunset at 16:30 in the winter is horrible and depressing IMO.

wongarsu 31 minutes ago | parent

Moving time "east" of our actual timezone is pretty appealing to me because of how evening-heavy standard schedules have gotten. The sun might behave symmetrically around 12:00, but most people don't get up at 4:00 and go to bed at 20:00. Most people's days are shifted 2-4 hours to the evening compared to that symmetric schedule, which makes sunlight in the evening more useful than it is in the morning

karlosvomacka 28 minutes ago | parent

> In winter the sun wouldn't come up until 9:30.

Much better than having sunset before 16:00.

nkmnz 26 minutes ago | parent

Depends on your personal preference. It's ridiculous that the politic topic is the question "should most of us suffer in the morning or should most of us suffer in evening", instead of "how could we allow for more flexible individual schedules", especially when it comes to school, opening hours of public services, and store hours.

flohofwoe 25 minutes ago | parent

What? No! I find it utterly depressing to get up in the morning and it's still completely dark outside. A dark late afternoon is much nicer IMHO.

nkmnz 21 minutes ago | parent

P.S.: it's not even a question of personal preference. It's a question of scientific evidence. Even if you don't believe that most of these benefits apply to most people, you're free to bring evidence about the benefits of early-evening light exposure...

Evidence-backed benefits of morning light exposure:

Advances the circadian clock, helping shift the body's biological night earlier. Randomized controlled study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24179293/

Promotes earlier sleep timing and may improve subjective sleep quality. Systematic review of 45 studies: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30670164/

Improves alertness, attention, and reaction times, although average effects are small. 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of 150 studies involving 5,401 participants (daytime light, not exclusively morning): https://doi.org/10.1080/15502724.2025.2493669

Helps treat seasonal depression (SAD). Systematic review and network meta-analysis of 17 randomized trials involving 773 patients: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40629637/

Can improve outcomes in nonseasonal depression when bright-light therapy is added to treatment. 2024 meta-analysis of 11 randomized trials involving 858 patients: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39356500/

Natural daylight exposure helps synchronize the biological clock with the solar day. Experimental research found that exposure to natural light-dark cycles advanced circadian timing compared with modern indoor lighting environments: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23910656/

tedodor 27 minutes ago | parent

I would rather stay on permanent summer time and give up one hour of sun in the morning for one more hour of sunlight in the afternoon, even if it places us "wrong" geographically. The recent change from summer to winter time was brutal moving the sunset from 17:30 to 16:30, meaning it's dark when going home from work.

not-kinsale-joe 36 minutes ago | parent

I think there is also an issue with Ireland needing to stay in the same time zone as Northern Ireland.

lgrebe 36 minutes ago | parent

I dont see how having multiple timezones in europe would be disadvantageous.

4thguy 34 minutes ago | parent

Exactly. It's not like there aren't multiple timezones in Europe already

mantas 14 minutes ago | parent

At least in my whereabouts it's more about split opinions inside the country.

Someone 22 minutes ago | parent

> and others (north europe) want to stay on their solar time.

Closer to their solar time, for quite a few. As an extreme example, most of Spain lies West of the prime meridian (some parts of it even west of Great Britain, the island), but its time zone is an hour ahead of that of London.

mantas 12 minutes ago | parent

But does solar time matters nowadays? In modern day-to-day life noon is not 12:00. People wake up at 5-6-7. And go to bed at 10-11-12. Even for early risers, middle of the day is well past 12:00. Having DST time makes solar mid-day closer to factual mid-day. I'd even argue to for +2 hours DST :D

DocTomoe 4 minutes ago | parent

IT matters when you have an economic zone in which some have 9am being 'basically mid-day', while the others have '9am being 'oh, the sun just went up'.

This traditionally has been solved in two ways:

1. do the split and accept that you will have costs associated with different time zones and sleep/wake cycles in your population (e.g.: USA / Soviet Russia)

2. don't do the split, and have the cost by putting a time/light adjustment burden on the population (e.g.: PRC, European Union)

My preferred solution would be to abandon all time zones and use something like UTC, or yet better: .beat / Biel Mean Time [1], which does not come with a 'oh, 12 means midday' penalty.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time

mantas 15 minutes ago | parent

It's more complex than north vs south.

I'm quite north (but not the far north) but I'm strongly for DST. If we went for solar time, we'd loose long bright evenings in the summer but have sun at 3am. Spring/fall evenings would be much darker too. I hate time switching. But I'd rather switch then loose DST summer evenings. Otherwise we'd loose a lot of outdoorsy socialising on weekdays

But some people don't go outdoors after work. And they prefer brighter mornings for couple extra weeks. During the winter the mornings are dark with or without DST.

throwaway27448 52 minutes ago | parent

I don't understand the obsession with keeping the perfectly vertical sun at noon given we all work from dark to dark under winter time. What would actually help us experience daylight would NOT be moving the clocks or moving work an hour earlier or a few hours later

therealfigtree 49 minutes ago | parent

I'm curious how disruptive this would be from a database perspective ? For eg, All the flight bookings to/from Cuba needs to be updated because it would have originally accounted for DST.

15o9o 45 minutes ago | parent

well https://www.iana.org/time-zones/releases/2026f has the right info. If they stored everything in the DB as UTC... this is like a DNS change. Downstream partners need to have a TTL on it.

timonoko 46 minutes ago | parent

I have totally solved all issues. I have additional pointer on my watchface for the true position of the sun. https://photos.app.goo.gl/M95bW4XWR2NDUup46

RandomSwedish 43 minutes ago | parent

God, I would love if the EU actually got going with it.

dsign 42 minutes ago | parent

Does anybody what's the status with solar power there? Seems like the country would have plenty of sun to use. I know that some private people in the island are running almost 24x7 on solar and batteries, but most private people, companies and specially the government are still in blackout.

tomkarho 37 minutes ago | parent

Good for them. Hope that shames the rest of the world (looking at you EU) to action too.

aussieguy1234 36 minutes ago | parent

This makes sense given all of the power outages largely caused by U.S. sanctions. You would in this scenario want to have more daylight extending into the night time hours.

presentation 32 minutes ago | parent

I thought that DST was dumb until I moved to Tokyo and find it sad that sunset is at 4pm in the winter

nkmnz 28 minutes ago | parent

Sunset isn't changed by DST. You adjust your schedule. You're free to do so on your own terms, without the government forcing everyone to do the same shift at the same time for the same amount of time.

maratc 10 minutes ago | parent

It only works when you don't have children (kindergartens and schools start at 8) or spouse (who can have a different schedule) or office work (so you don't have to be at the office at 9.)

Time has stopped being an astronomical fact, and is a social contract nowadays. It's possible that you can afford to opt out of that contract, but most people can't.

ComSubVie 13 minutes ago | parent

I hope the EU will follow soon. Or at least my home country. Since the EU already has different time zones, the stalling because "all should have the same time" doesn't make sense.

igleria 7 minutes ago | parent

Here in Ireland we already changed the clock on 25/10