America has it Wrong # 73

[Lafayette]

The YYYY-MM-DD format enables ready sorting of such files if they're used as part of the file name. We've been doing that for years in my line of work.

True enough for those who work with data. Not so true for jerks-like-me who do not.

I need something that is far more efficient in terms of managing "information" that is important-to-only-me. Which I can organize into "subject-headings" and perhaps according to multiple-subjects. And for which the entry is easily obvious (because the words have been compiled for a search-mechanism). No more mechanical manipulations as exist today!

Perhaps this sort of Personal Information-Saving/Searching mechanism exists but I've not seen it. Such a mechanism allows classification according to specific areas of interest, which is its first-asset only because that is the way people-think.

As in, "Where do I go to find this info!" ...

 

[Lafayette]

The sole real difference for some is: Day/Month/Year or Month/Day/Year.

I figure the former above is more "usual" to most people and not the latter - but there could be a significant-difference between the US and the EU as regards such "usage" ... !

 

[Mircea]

No, it's not the Metric system this time, that was #12

Why wouldn't it be the racist and phobic unscientific metric system?

Firstly, all dates should be the same number of characters.

When were you diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

 

[SMTA]

It sorts alphabetically into chronological order.

Dates are numerical, not alphabetical

 

[Ug make hammer]

Dates are numerical, not alphabetical

If you have a list of numbers and you sort them alphabetically, the left-most digit sorts first, then the second-most-left digit, and so on. I think you know that, and you're just quibbling about the difference between alphabetical and alphanumeric. Computers use alphanumeric sorting for file names, it's just called alphabetical sort because ever since PC's it's been a reasonable assumption that users are idiots.

 

[Ug make hammer]

Why wouldn't it be the racist and phobic unscientific metric system?

It wasn't a good joke, but the fact you can't even tell it was a joke, is disappointing.

When were you diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

If DD and MM are always two digits (even if that requires a leading zero) then it's clear that no digit has been left out. In printed or written copy, that prevents forgery too.

 

[SMTA]

If you have a list of numbers and you sort them alphabetically, the left-most digit sorts first, then the second-most-left digit, and so on. I think you know that, and you're just quibbling about the difference between alphabetical and alphanumeric. Computers use alphanumeric sorting for file names, it's just called alphabetical sort because ever since PC's it's been a reasonable assumption that users are idiots.

Horseshit
Any alpha numeric sort places the alpha in order first and then numbers in order by their first numeral, so 1300 would come before 140
Numeric shirts will maintain the integrity of the B actual numbers
MS dumped alphanumeric sorting in Windows 7

 

[Ug make hammer]

Horseshit
Any alpha numeric sort places the alpha in order first and then numbers in order by their first numeral, so 1300 would come before 140
Numeric shirts will maintain the integrity of the B actual numbers
MS dumped alphanumeric sorting in Windows 7

Example-2022%02%02-quack
sorts before
Example-2022%02%03-quack
As it should.

Windows having to identify numbers which are dates, in order to sort them properly, is a prime example of a kludge.

 

[Ug make hammer]

Dates are numerical, not alphabetical

Dates are only numerical in the Julian dates (which I only heard about since this thread) and in Linux time (which is also not human friendly). In Julian the point sign/period is used, which IS a numeric symbol.

2022/02/26 and 2022-02-26 both have non-numeric characters in them.

 

[SMTA]

Dates are only numerical in the Julian dates (which I only heard about since this thread) and in Linux time (which is also not human friendly). In Julian the point sign/period is used, which IS a numeric symbol.

2022/02/26 and 2022-02-26 both have non-numeric characters in them.

I don’t care

 

[Ug make hammer]

I don’t care

Fair enough. I think there's an option for you in the poll.

 

[Dayton3]

I prefer nine day weeks and no months, myself, but baby steps.

Months have an astronomical foundation. The orbit of the moon.

Weeks don't have that. They are totally arbitrary.

 

[Ug make hammer]

Months have an astronomical foundation. The orbit of the moon.

Weeks don't have that. They are totally arbitrary.

The phases of the moon (or orbits) are actually shorter than a month. 29.53 days. Lunar calendars are terrible though, they have to reset by a whole month every few years.

Weeks are about a quarter of a month. That probably did have origins in the phases of the moon, of which there are four equally spaced in time.

 

[Mircea]

It wasn't a good joke, but the fact you can't even tell it was a joke, is disappointing.

The fact that you can't tell the metric system is racist, phobic and unscientific is disappointing.

If DD and MM are always two digits (even if that requires a leading zero) then it's clear that no digit has been left out. In printed or written copy, that prevents forgery too.

Dates are not a mathematical system nor are they an accounting system. They're a dating system.

Worse still, dates and date formats are wholly subjective, arbitrary and artificial.

Why don't you man-up and use the Julian System? It is just as worthy as any other system.

By the way, today's Julian Date is 22057.

Note the absence of leading zeroes.

 

[Ug make hammer]

The fact that you can't tell the metric system is racist, phobic and unscientific is disappointing.

I'll get some popcorn and you can explain it to me.

 

[NoMoreDems-Reps]

No, it's not the Metric system this time, that was #12

No, it's not the driving-on-the-right business, that was resolved in #41. America is actually right.

I'm here today to harangue Americans about their DATE FORMAT.

Firstly, all dates should be the same number of characters. It's just laziness to leave leading zeros off. If Americans absolutely insist on putting the month first, then at least make January an 01 instead of a 1. I know, it's a style point, but it really does look better, and dates will never be mistaken for anything else. I walked into a 7/11 and said 9/11 by mistake, the cashier pulled a gun on me. That's not right!

Secondly, and more seriously, the only date format which sorts alphabetically into chronological order is YYYY-MM-DD and that's the format every country on Earth should use. It is somewhat in use in the US, in science and the military, but it should be required in all government documents and websites. And I mean exclusively: if people can't grasp it, they should try harder.

Thirdly, if government doesn't strongly encourage the use of YYYY-MM-DD then there's a risk of the US trying to adopt the most popular format from overseas, which is DD-MM-YYYY and since about one quarter of dates have an indistinguishable format (01/06/2021 could be two different dates) it would be a shemozzle. Not considering YYYY- at the START of a date, is probably why America has never changed from the worst possible system.

Fourthly and finally, China uses the YYYY-MM-DD system, as does Japan. If the US is serious about engaging in Asia (for markets, or to contain China, or both) then it should forget about them adopting the worst system, and save them from using the second worst, by switching to the best. Most Western European countries and the UK also use the YYYY-MM-DD system, but not exclusively. They also use the second best DD-MM-YYYY but it doesn't get them in a tangle the way it would Americans. For instance, 2021-01-06 is clearly distinguishable from 06-01-2021.

Fifthly, I'm only bugging you for fun. I know there's no way the average American will ever break their date habit, any more than they will go metric. "If it ain't broke yet, don't try and fix it" should be the national motto.

Yet "YOU" are here talking about America, and no one cares about Norway....
Must make you sad.

P.S. "I'm only bugging you for fun."

 

[NoMoreDems-Reps]

The fact that you can't tell the metric system is racist, phobic and unscientific is disappointing.

Are you making a joke or are you serious?

 

[Ug make hammer]

Yet "YOU" are here talking about America, and no one cares about Norway....
Must make you sad.

P.S. "I'm only bugging you for fun."

I take the metric system more seriously. I also admit that most countries, not just the USA, have date formats wrong.

YYYY-MM-DD is the best mainly because it can't be mistaken for any other system. Consumers of US packaged food should not have to guess whether the use-by is passed or not.

 

[American]

No, it's not the Metric system this time, that was #12

No, it's not the driving-on-the-right business, that was resolved in #41. America is actually right.

I'm here today to harangue Americans about their DATE FORMAT.

Firstly, all dates should be the same number of characters. It's just laziness to leave leading zeros off. If Americans absolutely insist on putting the month first, then at least make January an 01 instead of a 1. I know, it's a style point, but it really does look better, and dates will never be mistaken for anything else. I walked into a 7/11 and said 9/11 by mistake, the cashier pulled a gun on me. That's not right!

Secondly, and more seriously, the only date format which sorts alphabetically into chronological order is YYYY-MM-DD and that's the format every country on Earth should use. It is somewhat in use in the US, in science and the military, but it should be required in all government documents and websites. And I mean exclusively: if people can't grasp it, they should try harder.

Thirdly, if government doesn't strongly encourage the use of YYYY-MM-DD then there's a risk of the US trying to adopt the most popular format from overseas, which is DD-MM-YYYY and since about one quarter of dates have an indistinguishable format (01/06/2021 could be two different dates) it would be a shemozzle. Not considering YYYY- at the START of a date, is probably why America has never changed from the worst possible system.

Fourthly and finally, China uses the YYYY-MM-DD system, as does Japan. If the US is serious about engaging in Asia (for markets, or to contain China, or both) then it should forget about them adopting the worst system, and save them from using the second worst, by switching to the best. Most Western European countries and the UK also use the YYYY-MM-DD system, but not exclusively. They also use the second best DD-MM-YYYY but it doesn't get them in a tangle the way it would Americans. For instance, 2021-01-06 is clearly distinguishable from 06-01-2021.

Fifthly, I'm only bugging you for fun. I know there's no way the average American will ever break their date habit, any more than they will go metric. "If it ain't broke yet, don't try and fix it" should be the national motto.

 

[Ug make hammer]

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is an idiotic maxim. If you wait until Social Security or over-incarceration are "broke" then they'll be impossible to fix. Not to mention that conservatives will deny that it's broke because they can't conceive of change ever being improvement.

However, I'm satisfied that the US does use the most rational date system sometimes, much like the Metric system, and if I'm right that the system is self-evidently better then I just have to wait to see if it catches on. Perhaps the government could require BOTH for a period of time, and if my preferred system does not catch on then, just admit that it's not self-evidently better after all.

 

[Risky Thicket]

No, it's not the Metric system this time, that was #12

No, it's not the driving-on-the-right business, that was resolved in #41. America is actually right.

I'm here today to harangue Americans about their DATE FORMAT.

Firstly, all dates should be the same number of characters. It's just laziness to leave leading zeros off. If Americans absolutely insist on putting the month first, then at least make January an 01 instead of a 1. I know, it's a style point, but it really does look better, and dates will never be mistaken for anything else. I walked into a 7/11 and said 9/11 by mistake, the cashier pulled a gun on me. That's not right!

Secondly, and more seriously, the only date format which sorts alphabetically into chronological order is YYYY-MM-DD and that's the format every country on Earth should use. It is somewhat in use in the US, in science and the military, but it should be required in all government documents and websites. And I mean exclusively: if people can't grasp it, they should try harder.

Thirdly, if government doesn't strongly encourage the use of YYYY-MM-DD then there's a risk of the US trying to adopt the most popular format from overseas, which is DD-MM-YYYY and since about one quarter of dates have an indistinguishable format (01/06/2021 could be two different dates) it would be a shemozzle. Not considering YYYY- at the START of a date, is probably why America has never changed from the worst possible system.

Fourthly and finally, China uses the YYYY-MM-DD system, as does Japan. If the US is serious about engaging in Asia (for markets, or to contain China, or both) then it should forget about them adopting the worst system, and save them from using the second worst, by switching to the best. Most Western European countries and the UK also use the YYYY-MM-DD system, but not exclusively. They also use the second best DD-MM-YYYY but it doesn't get them in a tangle the way it would Americans. For instance, 2021-01-06 is clearly distinguishable from 06-01-2021.

Fifthly, I'm only bugging you for fun. I know there's no way the average American will ever break their date habit, any more than they will go metric. "If it ain't broke yet, don't try and fix it" should be the national motto.

You are joking, right?

We couldn't handle the attempt to switch to the metric system a couple of decades ago. Americans are not any smarter than we were then.

After serving in the US military many years ago I've always written the date: day/month/year; 1 Mar 2022.

 

[Peter King]

Personally I say "live and let live". Everybody should choose their own date notation. We do DDMMYYYY but I have no problem with the US version. It sometimes gives me a second to think but usually I get it immediately.

 

[Peter King]

You are joking, right?

We couldn't handle the attempt to switch to the metric system a couple of decades ago. Americans are not any smarter than we were then.

After serving in the US military many years ago I've always written the date: day/month/year; 1 Mar 2022.

To me that is the most logical way to write and say it, but again, not a thing to really make an issue about IMO.

 

[jcgriff2]

No, it's not the Metric system this time, that was #12

No, it's not the driving-on-the-right business, that was resolved in #41. America is actually right.

I'm here today to harangue Americans about their DATE FORMAT.

Firstly, all dates should be the same number of characters. It's just laziness to leave leading zeros off. If Americans absolutely insist on putting the month first, then at least make January an 01 instead of a 1. I know, it's a style point, but it really does look better, and dates will never be mistaken for anything else. I walked into a 7/11 and said 9/11 by mistake, the cashier pulled a gun on me. That's not right!

Secondly, and more seriously, the only date format which sorts alphabetically into chronological order is YYYY-MM-DD and that's the format every country on Earth should use. It is somewhat in use in the US, in science and the military, but it should be required in all government documents and websites. And I mean exclusively: if people can't grasp it, they should try harder.

Thirdly, if government doesn't strongly encourage the use of YYYY-MM-DD then there's a risk of the US trying to adopt the most popular format from overseas, which is DD-MM-YYYY and since about one quarter of dates have an indistinguishable format (01/06/2021 could be two different dates) it would be a shemozzle. Not considering YYYY- at the START of a date, is probably why America has never changed from the worst possible system.

Fourthly and finally, China uses the YYYY-MM-DD system, as does Japan. If the US is serious about engaging in Asia (for markets, or to contain China, or both) then it should forget about them adopting the worst system, and save them from using the second worst, by switching to the best. Most Western European countries and the UK also use the YYYY-MM-DD system, but not exclusively. They also use the second best DD-MM-YYYY but it doesn't get them in a tangle the way it would Americans. For instance, 2021-01-06 is clearly distinguishable from 06-01-2021.

Fifthly, I'm only bugging you for fun. I know there's no way the average American will ever break their date habit, any more than they will go metric. "If it ain't broke yet, don't try and fix it" should be the national motto.

Sorry, but the hell with all of that.

We tried metric - it was beyond a dismal failure, especially for my dad's board member friends at Coca-Cola.

They had a nice 64-ounce bottle of soda; going metric changed that to 67.6 ounces (2 liters). All soda companies either took the hit on the extra 3.6-ounce amount of soda loss or raised their prices.

We all lost with the metric system. As the most powerful nation on Earth, we will use whatever the hell we want to use!

The best part - any idea how difficult it is for Russia and China spy factories to create a metric equivalent of a US part that has to be within 1/10000 of an inch?

There is no easy and simple way to convert certain covert parts between Imperial and metric and vice-versa.

 

[Lafayette]

As the most powerful nation on Earth, we will use whatever the hell we want to use!

There is also the European Union, which is not so much a "nation" as a "set of nations". But, laws are general nonetheless.

And, it has a larger public than the US. So, anyone selling anything takes both "markets" into account. It is dangerous to do just one and not the other - because if "the market" is genuinely good many will nonetheless copycat the product/service ...