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Högertrafikomläggningen

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21–30 of 190 posts

Re: Högertrafikomläggningen

#21
post #2

Maybe the world should standardize on: Driving on the right Speaking English The metric system The 2024-06-09 date format The Celsius scale The 24-hour clock

I can agree on all of the points except "Speaking English". The way things are going it's going to be either that or mandarin regardless, but there's so much culture in language that IMO it'd be a shame to hurry it up.

English is more likely than Mandarin, because lots of people (including the mainland Chinese working in sectors that interface with the outside world) can speak some English, but very few people outside China speak any Mandarin.

Nassim Taleb wrote about this in https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict....

Re: Högertrafikomläggningen

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at what date it is today, and then try to guess which one of these format is the one they are referring to. Also: one of these is an ISO standard format. The other one is a format that no one would use. (DD/MM YYYY is in use, but no one would write YYYY-DD-MM.)

Don’t Americans do: MM-DD-YYYY? So it would stand to reason that an American commenter may be meaning YYYY-DD-MM And guessing based on todays date, tell that to commenters who check this post in 6 months

Americans do mm/dd/yyyy, but never mm-dd-yyyy

Re: Högertrafikomläggningen

#23
post #2

Maybe the world should standardize on: Driving on the right Speaking English The metric system The 2024-06-09 date format The Celsius scale The 24-hour clock

No daylight savings time ...would be one that I would add.

Found the German.

On a serious note: compared to the other inconsistencies, this seems like a very minor one. If we wanted to standardize time, we should agree on ONE timezone across the world. But of course that seems almost impossible: Having to convince 8 billion people on a change that has little benefit in their everyday life.

Re: Högertrafikomläggningen

#24
post #3
post #2

Maybe the world should standardize on: Driving on the right Speaking English The metric system The 2024-06-09 date format The Celsius scale The 24-hour clock

> Speaking English If you mean teaching english as a second language, I can agree. If you mean switching over to it as the primary language I hard disagree.

I am fluent in one language and speak three others passably, and have order-a-beer/ask-for-a-toilet/get-directions ability in a few others. It does not matter to me which language I use to communicate. Why should it? The one I am fluent in is not the language of any of my ancestors if I go back just a couple of generations. So what?

My children are natively fluent in two languages. Neither of their languages is a second language.

Which language should I tell them is their primary language?

Re: Högertrafikomläggningen

#25
post #2

Maybe the world should standardize on: Driving on the right Speaking English The metric system The 2024-06-09 date format The Celsius scale The 24-hour clock

Great list! Let’s add Euros and universal health care too!

The euro was great for Germany. Others weren't that happy.

Re: Högertrafikomläggningen

#26
post #2

Maybe the world should standardize on: Driving on the right Speaking English The metric system The 2024-06-09 date format The Celsius scale The 24-hour clock

Did it happen yesterday?

Did it happen last month?

Did it happen last year?

I feel like that's the order I ask questions if wonder when something happened.

Re: Högertrafikomläggningen

#27
post #2

Maybe the world should standardize on: Driving on the right Speaking English The metric system The 2024-06-09 date format The Celsius scale The 24-hour clock

> Driving on the right No thanks > 2024-06-09 date format That doesnt infer what you want. Are you saying you want YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-DD-MM

Underscore as a separator, YYYY_MM_DD:

  1970_01_01
  2024_06_09
  2024_12_31
  16383_12_31
Treated as base-10 number literal in some programming languages.

5 bits for DD [0, 31] + 4 bits for MM [0, 15] + 14 or more bits for year [0, 16_383] = 23 bits.

Re: Högertrafikomläggningen

#28

One surprising (after we got a ticket..) thing about parking laws in Sweden is that you're also only allowed to park on the right side of the road / with the car in the direction of the traffic. This has the benefit of that when you're leaving the street parking, you are sitting close to the lane and can look behind you for coming cars and only cross one lane. Compared to parking on the "wrong" side, where you're sit…

As a Swede it amazes me that some countries allow parking "in the wrong direction". I've never even thought about it, and I don't know if it's a written rule (I'm sure it is, just it;s been a long time since I got my license).

Re: Högertrafikomläggningen

#29
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Speaking English If you mean teaching english as a second language, I can agree. If you mean switching over to it as the primary language I hard disagree.

I am fluent in one language and speak three others passably, and have order-a-beer/ask-for-a-toilet/get-directions ability in a few others. It does not matter to me which language I use to communicate. Why should it? The one I am fluent in is not the language of any of my ancestors if I go back just a couple of generations. So what? My children are natively fluent in two languages. Neither of their languages is a sec…

Are you trying to make a point or..? It's a bit unclear. People can have multiple languages they're native in, that doesn't mean we should try to replace every language with English.

Re: Högertrafikomläggningen

#30
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Speaking English If you mean teaching english as a second language, I can agree. If you mean switching over to it as the primary language I hard disagree.

I am fluent in one language and speak three others passably, and have order-a-beer/ask-for-a-toilet/get-directions ability in a few others. It does not matter to me which language I use to communicate. Why should it? The one I am fluent in is not the language of any of my ancestors if I go back just a couple of generations. So what? My children are natively fluent in two languages. Neither of their languages is a sec…

Usually people have one primary language which is usually the one predominantly used in the home they grew up in (or maybe the one used for their primary education).

If you have multiple, that's fine, but your disregarding the reality for 90%+ of people if you don't think most people have a language that is their "primary".

> It does not matter to me which language I use to communicate. Why should it?

For most people language is tied to their culture and history. I'm just saying that we should not mandate that people use a certain language as their "primary". It would be nice if we had a global way to passably communicate though.

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