Not only in Germany. The Social Security online tools have "hours."
No, I'm not joking. I discovered this trying to estimate my mom's benefit late one night.
Only in Germany: An API with opening hours
71–77 of 77 posts
Re: Only in Germany: An API with opening hours
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe they process batch transactions overnight. Maybe they want to reserve a nightly maintenance window. Or maybe it's an instance of the "12:01" effect where they're scared to do anything too close to midnight. :-)
Can you explain the 12:01 effect? I've never come across that term before.
I just made it up, but others have probably noticed it. Insurance contracts (in the US) seem to always start at "12:01 on January 1". For some reason, our legal system can't get its collective head around the idea of "midnight" being the dividing line between two days and belonging to neither. I've heard there was actually a supreme court ruling that a street sign which read "12:00" was ambiguous. One of those things someone told me that I'm not sure to believe. "12:01" isn't any less ambiguous than "12:00" in that respect, yet it still seems to be used for some reason.
Re: Only in Germany: An API with opening hours
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you explain the 12:01 effect? I've never come across that term before.
I just made it up, but others have probably noticed it. Insurance contracts (in the US) seem to always start at "12:01 on January 1". For some reason, our legal system can't get its collective head around the idea of "midnight" being the dividing line between two days and belonging to neither. I've heard there was actually a supreme court ruling that a street sign which read "12:00" was ambiguous. One of those things…
It's most of the time 12.01, because nobody is sure whether midnight is actually 12:00 a.m or 12:00 p.m. To avoid confusion or phishy interpretations they choose the one minute delay, cause it's clear that way which time was actually meant.
Re: Only in Germany: An API with opening hours
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just made it up, but others have probably noticed it. Insurance contracts (in the US) seem to always start at "12:01 on January 1". For some reason, our legal system can't get its collective head around the idea of "midnight" being the dividing line between two days and belonging to neither. I've heard there was actually a supreme court ruling that a street sign which read "12:00" was ambiguous. One of those things…
It's most of the time 12.01, because nobody is sure whether midnight is actually 12:00 a.m or 12:00 p.m. To avoid confusion or phishy interpretations they choose the one minute delay, cause it's clear that way which time was actually meant.
Why doesn't the USA let a Standards Institution define a standard whether midnight is 12:00 a.m. or 12:00 p.m. to solve this problem permanently?
Re: Only in Germany: An API with opening hours
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's most of the time 12.01, because nobody is sure whether midnight is actually 12:00 a.m or 12:00 p.m. To avoid confusion or phishy interpretations they choose the one minute delay, cause it's clear that way which time was actually meant.
Why doesn't the USA let a Standards Institution define a standard whether midnight is 12:00 a.m. or 12:00 p.m. to solve this problem permanently?
Midnight is obviously 12:00am, but people don't know which day it belongs to. Is midnight the start of the day? Or the end of the day? Tuesday 12:00am could be 2 different times (spaced 24 hours apart) depending on your interpretation. If you say 12:01am, there is no ambiguity.
A lot of people in high school probably ignored their math teacher when he explained open/closed intervals.
Re: Only in Germany: An API with opening hours
#76reminds me of mbank.pl - a polish _internet only_ bank which accepts money transfer orders only from 0800 - 1800 hours and not on weekends. no, they don't save the order to execute it the next morning. they just print an error message and you have to enter your transfer order during opening hours.
Wow, that's interesting, but unfortunately it's not true. Maybe you got an error message because an error occurred? ;)
I tried it a few weeks ago again (I thought after 2 years they might have fixed that) - but still there was no transfer possible.
Re: Only in Germany: An API with opening hours
#77I dont think this is joke. Not all system are like Facebook and Twitter, banking systems and many other complex and distributed systems will need to have this compulsary daily downtime until we improve our communication technologies by 10x everywhere.