Sometime around midday you could write the exact time and date as 12:34:56 07/08/09 and if you were up early you could have witnessed 04:05:06 07/08/09.But only in Europe—and a few other countries [Date and time notation by country].
In America you celebrated the big day last month and if your country is unlucky enough to have adopted the international standard notation then you've missed the big day by two years.
In Canada we use all three notations and this leads to a great deal of confusion. The good news is that we get to celebrate the sequential date three times. Tonight there will be a huge celebration in downtown Toronto with parades and fireworks and speeches by famous people.
How many more sequential time/dates will we celebrate in Canada this millennium?
Down with the little-endians!
ReplyDelete2009-08-07 23:59:59
Everything else is Wrong. Except the utterly confused mixed-endians, who aren't even wrong.
I agree, Anonymous. I've been using ISO8601-style notation since well before Y2K, simply because it is the only unambiguous form.
ReplyDeleteI also use 24-hr clocks whereever I can. It can be amusing to watch the reaction when someone asks me for the time and I respond with something like "seventeen thirteen". In Canada, though, it can be pretty hard to find appliances that display 'military time'. Our stove has it, and my alarm clock (a Roku Soundbridge Radio) can be configured virtually as desired, so I set it to show hh:nn:ss. Bliss.
βPer
2009-08-07...
ReplyDeleteThis is a great idea. If you use dates like this in your computer files, then an alphanumeric directory listing is also a chronological listing.