Freedom Clock

Post by zokier » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:46 PM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #59

warent wrote: post #42

One thing I've come to learn is that American formats are human-friendly rather than machine-friendly. Our date system is like the Fahrenheit system; it works well when thinking like a human. in Fahrenheit, you just think of it in terms of 50 being the middle, "not cold and not hot". Then you understand 80 is high warm, closing in on hot, etc. Similarly for our date system, we lead with names and important informatio…

It only is human-firendly if you grew up with it, so it's rather "American-friendly". > You don't say "25th Apartment", you say "Apartment 25", We say 25th March in German. Saying the whole date follows the importance: day, month, year: fünfundzwanzigster märz zweitausenddreiundzwanzig.

Post by lfciv » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:48 PM UTC

andrewfromx wrote: post #2

Should we list hours, minutes, seconds? or year, month, day? Should we drive on the right side of the road or left? Should we use imperial or metric system? These are all good questions but I think the answer is "it depends." Just like timezones. You can't get rid of timezones: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26416337 https://qntm.org/abolish

Post by kortilla » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:49 PM UTC

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #70

warent wrote: post #42

One thing I've come to learn is that American formats are human-friendly rather than machine-friendly. Our date system is like the Fahrenheit system; it works well when thinking like a human. in Fahrenheit, you just think of it in terms of 50 being the middle, "not cold and not hot". Then you understand 80 is high warm, closing in on hot, etc. Similarly for our date system, we lead with names and important informatio…

Yeah, I don't think so. If it's 0°C outside, I know it's probably time to put winter tires on because the water in the puddles will freeze. If water in the pot on my stove is close to 100°C, I know it will boil soon. Same with dates — it has nothing to do with being machine readable or not, dates should go from largest to smallest (yyyy-mm-dd, etc) or vise versa, not turn 180 degrees at midpoint for some reason. Your…

Post by koheripbal » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:49 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #8

jacknews wrote: post #3

I get it, it's really annoying that there are different formats. In fact I once nerfed a small database by importing a bunch dates from a csv in the wrong format. But honestly both formats (M/D/Y and D/M/Y) are wrong, as clear from the clock example: dates should be big-endian; Y/M/D.

While I agree that big-endian dates are the best solution (if nothing else, because lexical sort puts it in the right order), I think little-endian at least makes sense. The middle-endian format is just absurd.

Post by warent » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:51 PM UTC

kebman wrote: post #124

warent wrote: post #42

One thing I've come to learn is that American formats are human-friendly rather than machine-friendly. Our date system is like the Fahrenheit system; it works well when thinking like a human. in Fahrenheit, you just think of it in terms of 50 being the middle, "not cold and not hot". Then you understand 80 is high warm, closing in on hot, etc. Similarly for our date system, we lead with names and important informatio…

Excuse me, but can you please expand upon how Fahrenheit is easier "when thinking like a human"? Why 50? Why not 100? Why not simply use something that is easily compared, such as the freezing and boiling point of water? You know... Celsius?