|
context?
Also, I agree if the app/site will never be used outside the United States (i.e. internal business apps and sites).
|
|
|
|
|
Slacker007 wrote: context?
Probably he saw a date like 4/7 and was unsure if it was tomorrow, or 3 months from now.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
|
|
|
|
|
Whether it's mm/dd or dd/mm, I start looking for numbers higher than 12 to be sure of what the hell is intended.
|
|
|
|
|
ISO 8601 has existed for a coupla decades now. It is the _only_ Atandard.
|
|
|
|
|
most people do not write in ISO-8601. Most people want to see their dates in a familiar format; a format they write in.
I know you don't give an elephant's turd, but I had to say it none the less.
|
|
|
|
|
I write in ISO 8601. Done.
|
|
|
|
|
I (usually) write in ISO 8601 for the complete avoidance of doubt, my own and anyone else's.
Unless I know that my audience will actually be confused by ISO 8601, that is!
|
|
|
|
|
I will change my styles tomorrow
diligent hands rule....
|
|
|
|
|
Yes. And I wish the USA will bite the bullet for once and all and drop the idiotic imperial system and go METRIC!
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
|
|
|
|
|
I see that as less of an issue as it is not (usually[1]) prone to lack of clarity as dd-mm vs. mm-dd is.
One can measure accurately in Imperial or Metric, so it's purely a matter of personal preference. I see nothing inherently idiotic about Imperial. It's quirky and inconsistent but then so are many things.
Footnote:-
1: Yes, yes, I know that some very expensive things have blown up or gone off course due to Metric/Imperials mixups. But that was due to lack of project management clarity and QC/QA, rather than the existence of two measurement systems.
|
|
|
|
|
Metric will only be complete when there's a metric calendar, a metric clock, and a metric angular measurement.
|
|
|
|
|
Metric Angular Measure: Gradian. One down, two to go...
|
|
|
|
|
Shortly after the revolution in France there was a suggestion that the week should have 10 days, the day 10 hours and the hour 100 minutes. This was abandoned quickly. The people only had one or two free days every 10 days, so they rebelled, and all timekeeping devices would have to be swapped out. One sensible suggestion was that the year should have 12 months of 30 days plus 5 or 6 epagomenal days per year at the end of a month.
One still sees calculators with 100° in a quadrant as an option
|
|
|
|
|
And I wish the UK would drop the idiotic metric system and revert to imperial. One of the many benefits of which, is that people need to use their brains when thinking about and calculating weights and measures.
|
|
|
|
|
Yes this so much more logical and less idiotic than the metric system.
It is ordained that 3 grains of barley dry and round do make an inch, 12 inches make 1 foot, 3 feet make 1 yard, 5 yards and a half make a perch, and 40 perches in length and 4 in breadth make an acre.
|
|
|
|
|
Tony Hill wrote: It is ordained that ...
Yea, verily! I've seen the light*, brother!
* And it is an approaching train.
Seriously, the only inherent advantages of the Metric system are that:
- It eases conversions between units (cm in a kilometer is much easier to calculate than inches in a mile)
- The Metric system has a MASS unit, while the Imperial system has a WEIGHT unit (of importance to natural scientists and to anyone or anything that goes into space)
OTOH, only the US, Liberia, and Myanmar still use the Imperial system, and the US, at least, uses a debased version where there are 16 fluid ounces to the pint, rather than the divinely ordained 20. Even in the US, scientists are taught the Metric system.
I would say that the battle for metricization has been won.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
|
|
|
|
|
Apart from the fact the imperial system has nice familiar names there are no advantages to using imperial but I guess some people will never change.
I am only glad we were using the metric system when I did my engineering college course as some of the other imperial units are completely nuts.
|
|
|
|
|
Well no, other than you can divide a foot into exactly 2 parts, or 3, or 4, or 6, or 12, all without a decimal point or fraction in sight. Similarly if you want a smaller cake, you just divide the amount of flour by 2, or 4, or 8 - again all integral results. Or a gallon into 2, or 4, or 8.
|
|
|
|
|
No advantages?? The gas tank will fill almost 4 times faster when buying by the gallon vs. liter. And imperial guitar amps go to 12 whereas the metric only go to 10. That's 20% louder.
|
|
|
|
|
Some interesting observations there.
|
|
|
|
|
Daniel Pfeffer wrote: OTOH, only the US, Liberia, and Myanmar still use the Imperial system, and the US, at least, uses a debased version where there are 16 fluid ounces to the pint, rather than the divinely ordained 20. Even in the US, scientists are taught the Metric system.
And of course, those fluid ounces are different, the US fluid ounce being larger than the UK imperial ounce, so the pints are *almost* the same (though the US one is still smaller!)
|
|
|
|
|
And the circumference of the earth is easy to remember. Pole to Equator is 10000km. (was 'exactly', through Paris)
|
|
|
|
|
But all the measurements are based on real objects that exist in the world about us. The metric system is just random numbers. For example who can remember (or visualise) that one meter is the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second?
|
|
|
|
|
It is not a random number, the metre was defined was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole (a real object) in 1798.
However because of the need for greater precision using light which is constant it throws up some odd numbers when we try and use it with the older historical measures and the same applies when using yards instead of metres after all who is going to remember that the speed of light travelled in a second is 327,857,019 yards.
Also time is not a physical object but a human construct based on observation of the days and seasons going back centuries.
|
|
|
|
|
Which is why some branches of physics use "natural" units - the speed of light == 1, etc.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
|
|
|
|