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Freedom Clock

domsson.github.io

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Re: Freedom Clock

#131

Post by WorkLobster »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #55

Dates should be annotated as such and rendered according to your browser's time zone and formating preferences. Don't blame the other culture, blame your inept communication medium.

I dimly remember trying this five years ago and it being a bit of a mess. IIRC it was that date picker widgets in browsers presented in a different format to what the Accept-Language header suggests (a killer when you're trying to render static and editable dates in the same table), or users were confused seeing dates in their preferred format after being linked from a site that disregards them, etc. Perhaps the situation has improved by now.

Re: Freedom Clock

#132

Post by Krasnol »

nerdponx wrote: post #71
Krasnol wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think their point is that the American date format is natural in the context of English grammar. Which it is, but written dates serve more purposes than acting as a record of things people said.

This is my point too: all of this is not "human-friendly" but "American-friendly" or in the case of dates "english-friendly".

Re: Freedom Clock

#133

Post by Krasnol »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #106
Krasnol wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“fünfundzwanzigster märz zweitausenddreiundzwanzig” What I’m impressed with is the duration of time it takes to say todays date in Germany. I guess it’s rather “German-friendly” though. ;-)

It looks longer than it is if you speak it though.

It looks scary too btw. Had to double-check it too because you rarely write it as words in German (I'm not German too).

Re: Freedom Clock

#134

Post by pclmulqdq »

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…

I am usually an apologist for imperial units thanks to the divisibility by 3 and "human" scale, but temperature is ironically the one that I think is the silliest. It's basically arbitrary.

The original idea of Farenheit was that 0-100 was the range between the freezing point of salt water and human body temperature, and it was designed to be convenient for use in labs. At the time, 0F was the coldest temperature you could reliably make in a lab environment (using a saltwater ice bath). 100F was when the thing started to be uncomfortable to touch, I guess?

Sure, as an American living in the northeast, it is pretty convenient for my current use - temperatures vary from 0 (sometimes below) to a little less than 100 over the year and I know what "jacket weather" is - but that doesn't really mean anything if you don't live in this exact climate. I imagine that if we switched to Celsius tomorrow, after re-learning the numbers for "put on a sweater" and "put on a jacket," it would be about the same.

Re: Freedom Clock

#135

Post by groestl »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #95
seydor wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

water freezes at 0, boils at 100. this is an excellent and intuitive scale for a human that is 70% water. The SI units, like kg or m are characteristic of the human scale. and more importantly, sanely decimal. and you say 3rd street, not Street 3. and 4th of july i do prefer the american decimal point 1,000.00 , it makes more sense. But it's time for humans to quit our nonsense and give way to machines , which requir…

That’s why I say 11rd Street and set my hot pot to 1100100 degrees. The added benefit is I can now do math on my fingers with a 100x greater range! Bring in toes and it gets insane.

You will love this: https://www.earthdate.org/episodes/how-10-fingers-became-12-...

Re: Freedom Clock

#136

Post by allenu »

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…

I'm biased since I grew up with mm/dd/yy format, but I do find month first more useful simply because the 30-day period something takes place in gives me more context immediately about an event, at least when talking about scheduling things.

The year is typically implied, so it's not needed. The actual day of month gives you more specificity, but the month is an easier "chunk" to keep in my head when thinking about a date. If I think about my next dentist appointment, just knowing that it's in September is more useful to me than just knowing the actual day of the month.

Re: Freedom Clock

#137

Post by mynegation »

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…

All of this is a matter of habit. I assure you as someone who grew up with Celsius system, we have no problem translating temperature ranges to the levels of comfort and clothes layering. European mailing addresses start with the biggest addressable unit (country) and then drill down to region, city, street, house number, unit number which is actually closer in spirit to your “lead with important information” example.

Re: Freedom Clock

#138

Post by noizejoy »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #79
seydor wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

water freezes at 0, boils at 100. this is an excellent and intuitive scale for a human that is 70% water. The SI units, like kg or m are characteristic of the human scale. and more importantly, sanely decimal. and you say 3rd street, not Street 3. and 4th of july i do prefer the american decimal point 1,000.00 , it makes more sense. But it's time for humans to quit our nonsense and give way to machines , which requir…

> But it's time for humans to quit our nonsense and give way to machines , which require universal standards. I think we should arrange our society to favor humans and program computers in such a way to accommodate humans rather than the other way around.

Arguably human imperfections are already deeply reflected in computer design and programming.

Re: Freedom Clock

#139

Post by viro »

nozzlegear wrote: post #6

The monkey’s paw curls, and Americans adopt this time format as well just to spite the rest of the world for complaining about their preferred date format.

I can see us doing it out of spite... " Oh ? you thought that was odd? hold my beer"

Re: Freedom Clock

#140

Post by kraussvonespy »

vehemenz wrote: post #45
kraussvonespy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...

There are more factors of 12 than of 10. This makes some imperial units more practical for certain types of things that involve mental math or quick calculations. Fahrenheit is higher resolution than Celsius for weather/climate measurements.

...
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