Susan's Place Transgender Resources

In Australia we type the date correctly and logically; today is 6-1-2012 . The sixth day of the first month of 2012.

In the USA you have this convoluted  1-6-2012, which of course means the first day of June 2012.

Tomorrow in Australia will be the seventh day of the first month of 2012; 7-1-2012.

In the USA you will be starting July; 1-7-2012.

Why is this so? ::) Except of course we a re 24 hours ahead, but that need not come into the discussion :laugh:

Cindy; with another Earth shattering post.

January 6, 2012.
01/06/2012

vs.

The 6th of January, 2012.
06/01/2012

That's why.

But who uses Jan 6/ 1/2012?

Hahaha that is indeed one of the most mundane quibbles I've seen in awhile. It's wonderful. :laugh:

I used to study Spanish and I love languages, so I've run into this a lot. Ah, it's all the same to me. I personally have a harder time with how some languages use their commas and periods differently when referring to monetary values.

Quote from: Cindy James on January 06, 2012, 03:02:35 AM
But who uses Jan 6/ 1/2012?

The Jan is the 1. You're duplicating.

It differs from country to country.
I'm pretty sure Americans aren't the only people who date things this way.
Really, it's the the month/day of that month/year vs day of that month/month/year.
Frankly, it makes less sense to me to put the day before knowing what month it belongs to, but I guess that's because I was brainwashed into dating things this way...no, honestly, I probably have been. That and not sleeping...Mon Dieu.


Psst. Honestly, you could argue that there's lesss logic in Americans still using the imperial system over the metric.
>_<

Moi? Guilty of mundane quibbles? Sacre Blu Cheese.

But shouldn't the day come first?

Ok you have a marvellous night, he, she or whatever takes you to orgasmic heights. You pass out from la petite morte (I think, I did fail French, as a language, I passed in other ways ::))

Slowly you awake the next day, do you want to know what day it is or what month it is?

Quote from: Cindy James on January 06, 2012, 03:17:31 AM
Slowly you awake the next day, do you want to know what day it is or what month it is?

Neither. I want to snuggle up with her under the covers and maybe have sex again.

Just to confuse things, I understand that the Armed Forces in the US use the British system.  31/12/2011 etc.

I can hardly stand to wake up to another day of this ridiculous world let alone care how anyone marks their calender  :laugh:

Every day is one closer to "the chop!"

If the first was V M day then how you mark your calendar would matter. One way you would only be celebrated on the first of each month or 12 days per years, the other way you would be celebrated all of January or31 days of the year.


V M day celebrations would be even better if they were paid holidays of course.

Jason said.

I'm pretty sure Americans aren't the only people who date things this way.

Who else does?

Ridiculous? My sister calls me ridiculous! Sacre Blu Cheese with la small cracker type things.

I reckon my gift of the French language will only improve Susan's; Cindy mulls quietly to herself.

V M day?

Quote from: justmeinoz on January 06, 2012, 03:39:33 AM
Every day is one closer to "the chop!"

Whatever that means

Quote from: Cindy James on January 06, 2012, 03:47:52 AM
Jason said.

I'm pretty sure Americans aren't the only people who date things this way.

Who else does?

Ridiculous? My sister calls me ridiculous! Sacre Blu Cheese with la small cracker type things.

I reckon my gift of the French language will only improve Susan's; Cindy mulls quietly to herself.

No-one called you any such thing



V M Day? What? I've got a headache  :P

I'm always struggling with the date in the US.
The same thing counts for the temperature, I think the only country who is using F, is the US.
Or the weights, they don't use the metric system, the distance with miles and feet instead of meters.

I also think Cindy is doing quite well in French, long time ago since I heard the words le petit mort, it sounds so poetic for an orgasm.

Why are the Americans doing that, je ne s'ais pas, maybe to confuse the rest of the world.
So, fromage blue, pour moi aussi.

câlins
Annette

2003-11-09: the ISO 8601 international standard orders the components of a date like this, and additionally uses leading zeros, for example, 0813-03-01, to be easily read and sorted by computers.

All I can tell,
Axélle

We revolted against british rule over 200 years ago

so we changed a lot of stuff just to be different

so there

phtttpph

;D

Quote from: Axélle-Michélle on January 06, 2012, 05:23:43 AM
2003-11-09: the ISO 8601 international standard orders the components of a date like this, and additionally uses leading zeros, for example, 0813-03-01, to be easily read and sorted by computers.

All I can tell,
Axélle

Yes ISO for the win. It is hands down better than all the rest. No ambiguously since it uses or not leading zeros. It also sorts perfect by both computer as Axelle said, but also on paper. Pretend you have a set of tickets if they are numbered this way it s every so much each to sort.

Ironically, despite the date format we use here in the U.S., when I am speaking to someone I always refer to it by the day first, then the month.

For example...

"Today is the sixth of January."
However, we'd write this as 01/06/2012
01 (January; first month of the year) /06 (Sixth day of the month) /2012 (year)

Regardless, I don't know why it is the way it is here.  As per the ISO system, I am beyond confused.

  A lot of times in the Navy, we used the Julian date.  February 10, 1974 would be 1974 041.  There were conversion charts, but the single day desk calendar had that day's Julian number in the corner of the square.  With December 31, 1974 being 1974 365.  Of course the number is 1 day up past February 29,  1976 as December 31, 1976 being 1976 366 due to it being a leap year. 
  Joelene

Quote from: Axélle-Michélle on January 06, 2012, 05:23:43 AM
2003-11-09: the ISO 8601 international standard orders the components of a date like this, and additionally uses leading zeros, for example, 0813-03-01, to be easily read and sorted by computers.

All I can tell,
Axélle

I was waiting for this one!  I was floored when it first came out. So on top of standard date parsing routines us computer geeks had to roll yet another one!

BTW, being from the USA and a ham radio geek since I was a kid I've always used the US military / Euro system. I also say zed for 'Z', even put the little slash in it  :o

These days of total ambiguity of dates my preference is 6 Jan 2012. I like how the text is bracketed by numbers. It's mostly an esthetic thing for me, but I find it easier to parse than Jan 6 2012. I never use 6/1/2012 or 1/6/2012  or the DREADED 6/1/12 or 1/6/12 or 12/1/6.  One more year to go to end that "is that 12 the year, month, or day?"

awe, I thought I was going to get tips on dating.

A clearer way to think about how we do it in America is to think of setting up a meeting ahead of time in the given year.  In America we would look at a calender to start and would want to know what month to look at first.  So, "Let's meet in April on the 5th."   Then you would open the calendar to April and find the 5th. There is no right or wrong but there is some logic to how we do it.

what gets me is that we still refer to 9/11 as "9/11". We should call it "11/9"

While the dating system in the US is silly...I also think the way North Americans in general tell time is incredibly illogical (except for Québec, who are apparently the only ones, other than the Canadian and American militaries, able to tell the time correctly on the entire continent).

Just think, such pointless phrases as "1 in the morning" or "1 in the afternoon" would fall into disuse once people realised that there are 24 hours in a day and all you need to do is keep counting, instead of restarting after the twelfth hour. Whoever decided that nations should be run on this system should be smacked across the back of the head, I tell you! :police:

I also think the US should get with the Celsius programme. And should stop making up their own spellings for things.

It's just the writing convention following the speaking convention.  American English will always put the month before the day when speaking, writing just follows that.

What I want to know is why no one outside of airlines, rock and roll and the military uses military (24 Hour) time?  It's just so much better.

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it Cindy but I read that when you flush the toilet in Australia the water funnel flows in the opposite direction.  Since all great thought and planning take place on the john then it stands to reason we have to do our date the opposite way.  ;D

I alway use the following: 6 Jan., 2012

Quote from: tekla on January 07, 2012, 10:47:32 AM
What I want to know is why no one outside of airlines, rock and roll and the military uses military (24 Hour) time?  It's just so much better.

Because then people could never redundantly say "It's too early, it's 6AM in the morning."  :P Seriously, though, we should all switch to military time.

As for the original topic, to this day I still have to think for a few seconds to figure out the American date format, even though I've lived here in the US for more than half my life, I still think in the Australian format. Oddly enough, though, when it comes to temperature I use Celcius for cold weather and Farenheit for warm weather, and can't seem to switch to either one or the other completely.  When it comes to other measurements (miles, cooking measurements, etc) I'm definitely used to the American way of figuring it out.

Actually though I like metric over English in general, I do like Fahrenheit more than Celsius, much greater differences.

Cindy,

Because my birthday is on January 1st (or the 1st of January), and because I am American, I have always written it as 01/01/59. But from now on I will write it as the rest of the world does...01/01/59. ;D

Jennifer

P.S. When I was in 7th grade we were told that America was going to switch to the metric system. I was so happy to hear this because the metric system is obviously better and easier to understand. That was 40 years ago... ???

"It's too early, it's 6AM

They have a 6 in MORNING now too?

Kia Ora Cindy,

::) I blame the bloody Romans for creating all this confusion ! Time, day, months, years ...All just illusions-- There's only one time and that is "NOW" outside this nothing else really matters !

::) Mind you when I first read the title of your thread I thought "Cor Blimey not another can't find a bloody 'date' thread!"

Metta Zenda :)

Quote from: Amazon D on January 06, 2012, 05:36:09 AM
We revolted against british rule over 200 years ago

so we changed a lot of stuff just to be different

so there

phtttpph

;D

So why does the US still use the British system of weights & measures?

Ooh, my head hurts trying to understand all this.

Quote from: melissa.wilkins on January 07, 2012, 07:05:15 PM
So why does the US still use the British system of weights & measures?

Ooh, my head hurts trying to understand all this.

Good good. We try to make everything as confusing as possible. :D

So why does the US still use the British system of weights & measures?

Because it doesn't make a difference in our market.  Anyone who wants to sell here will make it that way if it seems important.  Some things are changing, slowly, but hey, look on the bright side, if your a tool company here you get to sell everyone two different wrench sets.

I thought dating systems were complex computer programs that match you up with someone who tells the same lies that you do? Hugs, Devlyn

To me the most logical system is the one the Japanese and other countries use - Year, month, day. E.g. 2012-06-01. Why? Because if you are saving or cataloguing files in numerical order, particularly on a computer system, this system ensures everything is kept in date order, from most recent to most long ago (or reverse, if you reverse the order).

I have to admit, I initially clicked on this thread because I thought it would be about systems used in dating. i.e. going out with people!!

Quote from: Assoluta on January 07, 2012, 08:19:10 PM
To me the most logical system is the one the Japanese and other countries use - Year, month, day. E.g. 2012-06-01. Why? Because if you are saving or cataloguing files in numerical order, particularly on a computer system, this system ensures everything is kept in date order, from most recent to most long ago (or reverse, if you reverse the order).

I have to admit, I initially clicked on this thread because I thought it would be about systems used in dating. i.e. going out with people!!

I use that format in my spreadsheets and databases.  It makes it easier to sort by date.  I've seen more of that format on some sites that needs a date for information.  When I send in an observation to the Minor Planet Center, they want the YYYY MM DD.XXXXX!   The day is in a five place decimal with a resolution of 0.864 seconds!

  I also thought that this was a dating problems thread.  This 59 yr. old, never dated, needs dating tips!
  Joelene

Sorry people didn't mean to confuse with dating tips :laugh:

But if I guy asks you out on the 12/1/2012 you might miss out on a date! :laugh:

Cindy

Quote from: Cindy James on January 08, 2012, 12:32:37 AM
Sorry people didn't mean to confuse with dating tips :laugh:

But if I guy asks you out on the 12/1/2012 you might miss out on a date! :laugh:

Cindy

Kia Ora Cindy,

::) Only our North American cousins ! ;) ;D

Metta Zenda :)

Quote from: Cindy James on January 08, 2012, 12:32:37 AM
Sorry people didn't mean to confuse with dating tips :laugh:

But if I guy asks you out on the 12/1/2012 you might miss out on a date! :laugh:

Cindy

12/01/2012? If I get that mixed up I'd miss an appointment, one I need to go to as I need some prescriptions.. That and Rosie will charge me anyway if I don't turn up..

Even in the computer world, it's less standardized than you think. In Win32, you have to deal with at least variant date, filetime, and systemtime. You might also have to deal with DOS representations and/or Unix time. Julian dates are one long-used method of dealing with dates more easily. Database servers provide various date and time functions as SQL extensions. Helpful as they are, they still vary greatly from one DBMS server to te next. Some people, like Egbert Zijlema, have also contributed lots of helpful code.

Standard formats like YYYY-MM-DD are helpful in parsing user input and human readable formats like CSV/TSV.  But not so good to calculate or sort. Then you really need Julian or Unix time. They are also more compact. Modified Julian lets you represent a pretty long time with just 2 bytes. Unix time, covering date and time (duh), is traditionally 4 bytes though is starting to move to 64 bits. I've also seen a nonstandard option of Unix time in a signed 32 bit int to cover before and after 1970, albeit with fewer years representable. Anyhoo, once you have a JD, MJD, or Unix time it's just a simple add, subtract, or compare of integers and fairly cross platform. Though variant date is also simple, it's not cross platform nor is usable with most Win32 API's.

If you really like things getting interesting, try expressing the date by the Japanese imperial calendar or the time by Thailand's 6-hour clock. See what kind of reactions you get.

Btw since I was in fifth grade I use 24 hour time as much as people will let me get away with.

So you are all telling me that the most basic physical law, and its manifestations are totally cactused?

We cannot communicate about time!

We don't even know what day we are on.

Never mind what month

Quote from: Cindy James on January 08, 2012, 04:21:21 AM
So you are all telling me that the most basic physical law, and its manifestations are totally cactused?

We cannot communicate about time!

We don't even know what day we are on.

Never mind what month

cac·tus

noun /ˈkaktəs/ 
cacti, plural; cactuses, plural

   1. A succulent plant with a thick, fleshy stem that typically bears spines, lacks leaves, and has brilliantly colored flowers. Cacti are native to arid regions of the New World and are cultivated elsewhere, esp. as houseplants


I don't know what's going on. Are we going to talk about entropy? :laugh:

Oh Felix'
I do love you so. :-*t
Being cactus'ed . You have had the spikey bits put into a place you do not want spikey bits put. You are left alone in the middle of no where


Australian for no hope, complete failure.

Close to total failure

Cindy

Quote from: Cindy James on January 08, 2012, 04:21:21 AM
So you are all telling me that the most basic physical law, and its manifestations are totally cactused?

We cannot communicate about time!

We don't even know what day we are on.

Never mind what month

Well....  I just heard on the tele the other day that the Guardians of Time are taking a second away from us on 30 June, I believe it was. (or was it June 30th? ) Something about a wobbly Earth. Probably from too many adult beverages.

Quote from: tekla on January 07, 2012, 07:16:23 PM
So why does the US still use the British system of weights & measures?

Because it doesn't make a difference in our market.  Anyone who wants to sell here will make it that way if it seems important.  Some things are changing, slowly, but hey, look on the bright side, if your a tool company here you get to sell everyone two different wrench sets.

And if you are a mechanic you get to drag two sets of wrenches and sockets out to work on the vehicle. Even just for one job like the hardware for an alternator!  >:(

No you don't you use one or the other, no car or bike uses both.

Quote from: Axélle-Michélle on January 06, 2012, 05:23:43 AM2003-11-09: the ISO 8601 international standard orders the components of a date like this

Yeah, I've got a friend who prefers that method.  Here's the WP link, if you're feeling nerdy:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601)

I'll stick to the only standard I know that is unambiguous for modern dates: 8 Jan 2012 or fully written out (January 8, 2012).  But my day job involves systems on 6 continents and milliseconds are important, so I would support us all going to UTC for time with time specified in 24H format (20:21:30.523 for example).

I use military time at work and I just love it.  Much better way to comprehend, and way, way, way clearer to communicate.

QuoteNo you don't you use one or the other, no car or bike uses both.

That is not true.  It's a world economy.  Not all the parts on a Ford are made in the US.  There are metric and standard nut and bolts on a car. 

I'm a woodworker and most of the hardware I use is from Europe and therefore metric.  As is some of the machinery I buy.  I have no problem switching back and forth between the two.  I will say I prefer using an inch/foot tape measure to metric.  It is confusing to learn but once you master it, it's easier to use.  I know most will disagree with me on that.

Quote from: JulieC. on January 09, 2012, 11:04:11 AM
That is not true.  It's a world economy.  Not all the parts on a Ford are made in the US.  There are metric and standard nut and bolts on a car. 

I'm a woodworker and most of the hardware I use is from Europe and therefore metric.  As is some of the machinery I buy.  I have no problem switching back and forth between the two.  I will say I prefer using an inch/foot tape measure to metric.  It is confusing to learn but once you master it, it's easier to use.  I know most will disagree with me on that.

The last couple places I worked used metric, and it was actually pretty simple, but I still reflexively (roughly) converted everything in my head to not-metric.