once in a forever

zhao

there are no accidents
On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three
seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date
will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

this will never happen again.
 
D

droid

Guest
I remember thinking something similar at 8 minutes past 8 on 8/8/88... :D
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06."
Except in England it will be 01:02:03 05/04/06 - which has always seemed a more logical way to write it to me. I guess it just means that we have to wait another month.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Im with you there... month first is just, well... stupid!"
Yeah, it just seems that it should be like an address in time (if you see what I mean) where you start with the most precise part and then zoom out. On the other hand I reckon that if I had designed addresses they would be the opposite way round saying the country first followed by the area followed by the street and finally the number. By that reasoning it would make sense to use year-month-date so that first you have a general idea and finally home in but date-month-year doesn't seem to have any logic to it at all.
 
D

droid

Guest
IdleRich said:
Yeah, it just seems that it should be like an address in time (if you see what I mean) where you start with the most precise part and then zoom out. On the other hand I reckon that if I had designed addresses they would be the opposite way round saying the country first followed by the area followed by the street and finally the number.

That approach works globally, but not locally. Why should anyone in the UK need to put 'the UK' at the start of all their local mail?

Otherwise OTM, though I fear 9/11 has permanently fucked up the struggle for a sensible calendar...
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
droid said:
Otherwise OTM, though I fear 9/11 has permanently fucked up the struggle for a sensible calendar...

what, the 9th november? what happened? :)
 
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D

droid

Guest
Its worth saying that to an American just to see the look on their faces... As long as you dont mind being nearly beaten up! :D
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"That approach works globally, but not locally. Why should anyone in the UK need to put 'the UK' at the start of all their local mail?"
Yeah of course I see that it's better for a postman to have the street and number written first because he knows what town he's in. Same with the date, you can assume that you are talking about this year and if you just say a day you assume it's this month. I'm just saying that that approach is another one that would be consistent with itself while the US one isn't.
How/why did the US way of doing it arise, does anyone know?
 
D

droid

Guest
Just to be contrary?

d/m/y (day, month, year) is used by:


* Albania
* Argentina
* Australia
* Austria
* Belgium
* Bolivia
* Brazil
* Bulgaria
* Canada
* Chile
* Colombia
* Czech Republic
* Denmark (often in the fraction form d/m-y)
* Dominican Republic
* Ecuador
* Estonia
* Finland (d. m. y)
* France
* Germany (d.m.y)
* Greece
* Guyana
* Hong Kong (in English)
* Ireland
* India
* Israel
* Italy
* Lithuania
* Mexico
* Netherlands
* New Zealand
* Norway (d.m.y; the fraction form d/m-y is common, but incorrect)
* Paraguay
* Peru
* Poland
* Portugal
* Romania
* Russia
* Slovakia
* Slovenia
* Spain
* Singapore
* Sweden (in the fraction form d/m-y, otherwise yyyy-mm-dd)
* Switzerland
* Thailand (with Buddhist Era instead of Common Era)
* Turkey
* Ukraine (dd.mm.yyyy)
* United Kingdom
* Uruguay
* Venezuela

m/d/y (month, day, year) is used by:

* Canada
* United States (Although Independence Day is often referred to as "the Fourth of July.")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_date#Little_endian_forms.2C_starting_with_the_day
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Its worth saying that to an American just to see the look on their faces... As long as you dont mind being nearly beaten up!"
That reminds me of a letter my brother told me about to Viz: When I married my wife on September the 11th 2001 I nervously wondered how I would remember our anniversary, imagine my relief when I turned on the tv only to see...
 

zhao

there are no accidents
I was to hasty when making the original post: it will happen again later that day at 1 PM, and ofcourse as Melchior pointed out, in 3006.

month/day is backward but what about Inches and Feet? that is just idiotic.
 
D

droid

Guest
confucius said:
I was to hasty when making the original post: it will happen again later that day at 1 PM, and ofcourse as Melchior pointed out, in 3006.

month/day is backward but what about Inches and Feet? that is just idiotic.

Thats more of a hangup from the past than a current system... Im metric/imperial when it comes to measurements, but imperial only when it comes to weight... its all ounces and stones instead of kilos round these ends...
 

bruno

est malade
on a side note

the ISO recommendation is far more logical, and useful when arranging things in modern filesystems (computers, mainly):

year/month/day hours/minutes/seconds

2006.04.05 01.02.03

i use it :D
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
confucius said:
I was to hasty when making the original post: it will happen again later that day at 1 PM, and ofcourse as Melchior pointed out, in 3006.

Well every century surely? As don quixote pointed out - 2106, 2206... and has happened several times already, most recently in 1906.

So I think "once in forever" is being a little but generous with the truth... ;)
 
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Freakaholic

not just an addiction
im gonna say this with absolutely no research whatsoever, but the month/day/year standard seems to come from how we talk. In America, we say "It will happen on April 5th." which would translate to 4/5.

Similarly, we say, for instance, "Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7th, 1941." The quickest way to transcribe is 12/7/41.


Im not saying its right. It just makes sense. But maybe thats because thats how i was brought up.

I would prefer that we were all on the same standard though, and that goes for metric as well.

Speaking of, isnt there some sort of difference between waht Americans call a trillion and British call a trillion? Or is it a different number?
 
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