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Freedom Clock

domsson.github.io

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Re: Freedom Clock

#71

Post by nerdponx »

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.

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.

Re: Freedom Clock

#72

Post by freedomben »

kraussvonespy wrote: post #32
vehemenz wrote: post #16

Europeans have access to multiple countries, cultures, and languages, yet still complain about imperial units, date formats, "soccer," SMS, and all of the many other ways in which the United States differs. It's another country. Stop being so insular.

...

> There is no justification for it other than the general US contrarian attitude of "you're not the boss of me".

I'm a proponent of the metric system, but that's either a wild straw man or very lazy thinking. An obvious justification (which has lots of merit) is "I've been using imperial all my life and it's what I know, what I think in, etc." Changing systems would be very disruptive for a lot of people. IMHO that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, but it is something that should at least be acknowledged before a massive forced upheaval of a system.

Just thinking about driving for a minute, even little things like the speedometers in cars being primarily mph, millions of miles of mileposts all around the country that would need removing and changing. Every road sign with miles on it, etc. Those things are a little more than just "you're not the boss of me"

Re: Freedom Clock

#73

Post by cratermoon »

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…

> 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.

Depending on where you live, 50F could be considered cold. It's certainly not warm enough to be comfortable when lightly dressed.

There's nothing special about Fahrenheit in this respect. 20C is really what I'd call "not cold, not hot". 0 is freezing, 5 is cold, 10 is chilly, 15 is cool, 20 is comfortable, 25 is warm, 30 is high warm, 35 is hot, 37 is body temperature, and 40 is really hot.

Re: Freedom Clock

#74

Post by graypegg »

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.

Also the standard in French. Day (optional ordinal) Month.

Re: Freedom Clock

#75

Post by cratermoon »

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…

> you're drawing the bullseye afterwards if remember my idioms correctly.

That's informally known as the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy

Re: Freedom Clock

#76

Post by mianm »

vehemenz wrote: post #31
mianm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are both "wrong" compared to big-endian, but M/D/Y is by far the least logical of the three formats. M/D/Y should never be a default for any software without the user explicitly selecting it or specifying their country.

What do you mean by "wrong?" And why should logic trump practicality? Besides, rightness and wrongness are value judgments. They have nothing to do with logic. M/D/Y seems to be the most practical because it reflects how dates are spoken in American English. It separates the date (month/day) from the year, which in many cases can be omitted, while also keeping the larger unit, the month, up front.

"wrong" was in reference to the post being replied to.

The majority of English speakers and people in general don't speak American English, so it makes zero sense to default to "M/D/Y", unless the user explicitly states to use American English, over a more logical order, ideally Y-M-D.

Pretty much all defence in this thread of M/D/Y is just American exceptionalism.

Re: Freedom Clock

#77

Post by Dah00n »

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…

>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.

You could say the exact same with Celsius. Also, how is 50 the middle in Africa and also Northern Europe? Average temperature is very different.

>Here we are on March 25. The year comes last because it's least important.

So 25 is clearly the most important by your own logic hence day/month/year is the logic choice. If someone asked the date do you say “the 25th” more or less often than “March 25th”? Most people know the year so that can be skipped. Many know the month so that can frequently also be skipped. Hardley anyone that ask for the date know the day of the month though so why is that not the first part of information you reply with?

Seems you are just stating what you are used to.

Re: Freedom Clock

#78

Post by nerdponx »

vehemenz wrote: post #31
mianm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are both "wrong" compared to big-endian, but M/D/Y is by far the least logical of the three formats. M/D/Y should never be a default for any software without the user explicitly selecting it or specifying their country.

What do you mean by "wrong?" And why should logic trump practicality? Besides, rightness and wrongness are value judgments. They have nothing to do with logic. M/D/Y seems to be the most practical because it reflects how dates are spoken in American English. It separates the date (month/day) from the year, which in many cases can be omitted, while also keeping the larger unit, the month, up front.

YYYY-MM-DD is also abbreviated as MM-DD.

As for practicality, I don't think closely mirroring English grammar makes it any more practical for written communication.

Re: Freedom Clock

#79

Post by chordalkeyboard »

seydor wrote: post #58
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…

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.

Re: Freedom Clock

#80

Post by dtech »

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…

Firstly this logic doesn't hold water. Month is not the most important, day of month is. "What date did you mean?" can easily be answered with "the 25th" if it's a nearby date, month only becomes relevant if disambiguation is needed.

Secondly this is 1000% purely what you're used too. After a month in California Fahrenheit felt very natural to me despite being used to Celcius.

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