Date & Time options

ixnay · February 13, 2002, 01:49

I'm curious as to if it would be possible to add user options so that users could display dates in mm-dd-yy format and the time in a 12 hour clock format. And while we're at it, could you please set the apolyton clock back about 10 minutes? The other thread about that turned into a spamfest and was closed with no result.

Asher · February 13, 2002, 01:59

I, too, would love to see these features.

johndmuller · February 13, 2002, 03:25

If having options is too much for whatever reason, perhaps we could have a format such as Feb-13-2002 or 13-Feb-2002 so that those of us with diminished capacity don't have to remember that it is in Euro-format and aren't frequently misreading the dates.

There is presumably an AM/PM format for times also, although at least with a time > 12:59 you know that it is 24 hour time, not like the date where a careless misreading is very easy to slip into for those of us accustomed to the mm-dd-yyyy format (and with the dimished capacity).

ixnay · February 13, 2002, 03:30

True, with the 24 hour clock it's simple to figure the time in am/pm after 12:00, by just subtracting 12, but it's a minor hassle that I would like to see alleviated. And I like your idea about using letter abbreviations for the months to make it easier...

Dauphin · February 14, 2002, 09:50

Quote:

Originally posted by johndmuller
it is in Euro-format and aren't frequently misreading the dates.

Is it just Euro-format? What format do other countries use? (e.g Australia, Brazil, India, Japan etc)

I thought that the US format was the unique way, not the Euro-format.

Skanky Burns · February 14, 2002, 19:12

I think you are right, SD.

Australia uses an ordered date format dd-mm-yyyy
and as far as I know, only US uses an alternate format.

Asher · February 14, 2002, 19:14

There's the "international" format of DD-MM-YYYY and the "American" MM-DD-YYYY.

Half of the people here seem to use the International, the other half is American. It's frickin' annoying.

I prefer the American way. That's how I say dates "January 12th, 1999" not "12 January 1999", like the "Euros" do.

ixnay · February 14, 2002, 20:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Asher

I prefer the American way. That's how I say dates "January 12th, 1999" not "12 January 1999", like the "Euros" do.

I prefer the american way, too. Probably because I'm american.

Locutus · February 14, 2002, 20:29

But there's only one true format of course: yyyy-mm-dd. We don't say '20 cm, 500 m and 3 km', do we? (Or for the Americans, '50 yard, 6 inches and 2 mile') Or '34 minutes 23 seconds and 7 hours'? In everything except dates do we write the larger units in front of the smaller ones. This system should be used for dates as well. Unfortunately only ISO realizes this and most people don't take ISO seriously in this respect.

*sigh* I feel so misunderstood

Skanky Burns · February 14, 2002, 21:25

Yes, the true international date format is yyyy-mm-dd.
As with all other measurements, it puts the largest (most significant) first, and the smaller ones later.

Its gaining popularity.

Asher · February 14, 2002, 21:53

I think it's silly.

The year doesn't change very much, why should it be the first number? The only time it's used is for clarification on what year something was dated, that's why it's last, it's out of the way.

Skanky Burns · February 15, 2002, 01:42

Basically to keep it consistant with every other method of measuring stuff. Same as time. Hours dont change as often as minutes, yet they come first...

Asher · February 15, 2002, 02:04

Right, right, except years aren't always written.

I date my papers like 2-14 at the top, which means February 14th. Not 2002-2-14.

Basically the date format is used as shorthand for writing it out, it's not some real "format" like hours/minutes. For that reason, it makes more sense for some of us to write it as February 14th, 2002 and 2-14-2002 rather than 2002-14-2 or 14-2-2002.

Skanky Burns · February 15, 2002, 04:28

Yeah, I understand where you are coming from.

Quote:

Originally posted by Asher That's how I say dates "January 12th, 1999" not "12 January 1999", like the "Euros" do.

Incidently, I say "12th of January 1999"

Hydey · February 15, 2002, 07:25

I say "its friday"
That seems to be enough information for my brain to handle.

Dauphin · February 15, 2002, 07:50

I say dates number first, like "My birthday is the sixth of July".

Wasn't there an American film called "Born on (the) 4th of July" or was is "Born on July 4th"?

Dauphin · February 15, 2002, 08:41

Quote:

This system should be used for dates as well. Unfortunately only ISO realizes this and most people don't take ISO seriously in this respect

Time is a valid exception to the rule. Would the ISO also like to see 100 secs in a minute, 100 minutes in and hour, 10 hours in day.....

Also would they recommend addresses on letters be reversed? ie Country first rather than house number and street name?

Its just not convenient to measure somethings in an "easy" or systematic way.

mactbone · February 15, 2002, 12:10

I want Indiana time!

Even Microsoft gives us our own time!

We don't change clocks. EVER!

Dauphin · February 15, 2002, 12:51

Changing clocks every ~6 mnths would be expensive, we just set them forward or back an hour.

Skanky Burns · February 15, 2002, 23:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Time is a valid exception to the rule. Would the ISO also like to see 100 secs in a minute, 100 minutes in and hour, 10 hours in day.....

When you get to the "micro" scale with time, it goes in lots of 1000 ie: milliseconds, nanoseconds, etc

Dauphin · February 16, 2002, 09:16

But how much is femto- or picoseconds used in everyday language?

Its hard enough getting Americans to use metric weight and distance, there isn't a snowballs chance in hell of getting metric time used in everyday life.

ixnay · February 20, 2002, 02:35

Bump.

The clock still hasn't been fixed.

johndmuller · February 20, 2002, 15:06

If the month is in numeric format, a significant number of people are going to have some difficulty and/or occasional misreadings of the date.

If the month is in text format (and the year remains 4 digits), then nobody would have any significant difficulty.

If date formats such as 20-Feb-2002 or Feb-20-2002 are do-able, it would seem to be the obvious solution. People might have a slight preference between the two, but at least the confusion would be removed.

On the other hand, if the idea is to maximize the confusion, Markos is missing the opportunity to change the year to 2 digits (keeping the others numeric).

Gramphos · February 23, 2002, 15:20

I remember posting somthing about this mystef when I was new to Poly.

There should be a hack somewhere to change this. (I read to vB-boards)

Grrr · February 24, 2002, 03:17

And a +13 time option. We are currently in summer time, and thus GMT+13hours. This is not possible on Apolyton.

Dauphin · February 24, 2002, 06:02

That's just silly.

It isamusing that for half the year Greenwich is ahead of its "mean time", the other half it is at mean time - so Greenwich Mean Time is not the mean time of Greenwich at all!

ixnay · February 26, 2002, 18:49

OK, i've been looking into this, and changing the date format from 26-02-2002 to 26-Feb-2002 is as simple as opening up the control panel, and changing an m to an M in the date/time options. So it definitely is doable!

Dauphin · February 26, 2002, 19:15

Quote:

So it definitely is doable!

You have been here long enough to know that what can be done ¹ what will be done.

ixnay · February 26, 2002, 19:29

Oh, I know. I don't expect this to get done anytime soon...

although doing it would require all of 30 seconds...

Dauphin · February 27, 2002, 09:33

Quote:

Originally posted by ixnay37
Oh, I know. I don't expect this to get done anytime soon...

although doing it would require all of 30 seconds...

Add in another 30seconds to reset the clock and he would still finish before he started. I'm sure he can "make" the time to do it.