# Date format discussion



## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

Lady Sprite Blue said:


> 7/8? You mean August 7th, as in Wednesday? Awesome and E N J O Y your car.


I have to stop and think about it as well, remember the date formats, as much as I like and am used to Month first, I guess the US is in the minority across the world, most have day, then month.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

GDN said:


> I have to stop and think about it as well, remember the date formats, as much as I like and am used to Month first, I guess the US is in the minority across the world, most have day, then month.


The ONLY correct format and order is YYYY-MM-DD.
Anything else is silly.


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## Mesprit87 (Oct 29, 2017)

garsh said:


> The ONLY correct format and order is YYYY-MM-DD.
> Anything else is silly.


Off topic I know but couldn't let this one slip from a moderator...
You are in minority by the way, have a peek here:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/map-mondays-wtf-is-wrong-with-canada-s-time


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## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

Mesprit87 said:


> Off topic I know but couldn't let this one slip from a moderator...
> You are in minority by the way, have a peek here:
> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/map-mondays-wtf-is-wrong-with-canada-s-time


this headline really explains a lot about Canada  (like how someone can give directions that include both Km and feet in the same breath).


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## Mesprit87 (Oct 29, 2017)

MelindaV said:


> this headline really explains a lot about Canada  (like how someone can give directions that include both Km and feet in the same breath).


We are after all halfway between Britain, France and you guys. Hard not to get confused at some point.
N'est-ce pas?


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

RE; date format...
Can someone tell Tesla then (an American company), that I should get my Model 3 last month please. It's been a very, very long wait, I'm happy to jump in my time machine and collect it in July 2019, as soon as I pick it up from the menders as I broke it next week!


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

MelindaV said:


> this headline really explains a lot about Canada  (like how someone can give directions that include both Km and feet in the same breath).


Alas, being an engineer, I find it most irritating when people tell me they have a 9.8" screen on their tablet. We're all guilty, in the UK, we sell Litres of fuel and quote MPG! The mental math helps on long journeys though. Since I've been driving EVs though, I've been working out 13p per unit and how many miles per kWh etc... My smart EV was about 4mpkWh, model 3 is around 250Wpm. (see how I steered that back to the model 3)


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Mesprit87 said:


> You are in minority by the way, have a peek here:


When all scientists and all of China agree with someone, that person is NOT in the minority.


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

garsh said:


> The ONLY correct format and order is YYYY-MM-DD.
> Anything else is silly.


 YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS.xxxxxx to be precise.


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

styleruk said:


> Alas, being an engineer, I find it most irritating when people tell me they have a 9.8" screen on their tablet. We're all guilty, in the UK, we sell Litres of fuel and quote MPG!


 Don't you folks still purchase petrol in Litres and beer in Pints??


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

I think this thread contains way too much math.

Also, code all your dates better! There is zero confusion when you display it as "Mon Aug 5, 2019 12:47 pm". Except timezones, maybe, but that's only 3 more letters: "Mon Aug 5, 2019 12:47 pm EDT".


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## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

at work, things archived (or various current types of files saved) use YYYY-MM-DD so things are sortable by date. and the guy that ends up naming a file YY-MM-DD or MM-DD-YY(YY) is going to get blasted for screwing up the order.


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## Mesprit87 (Oct 29, 2017)

garsh said:


> When all scientists and all of China agree with someone, that person is NOT in the minority.


I agree with you, majority doesn't make it right. Take tires for example with the wheel diameter in inches and width in millimeter. ..
As for Canada we are making our way to the metric system one generation at time, almost nobody uses farh^#%^*eit anymore, liter is used at large, the kilometer too but we still have a lot to cover in the construction industry as for length measuring. 
The date format came up at work too, delivering aircrafts to customers around the word having different requirements, we ended up using @JasonF format suggestion and have been using it since.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

JasonF said:


> There is zero confusion when you display it as "Mon Aug 5, 2019 12:47 pm".


Except for people who don't know English.

ISO 8601 is the One True Date/Time format!
Repent, all those who have not yet converted!

Man, I figured it would be just the Americans arguing against it, not the Canadians too.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

garsh said:


> Except for people who don't know English.


That doesn't matter, the point is it's 100% unambiguous.

You will never get a 100% _readable_ date by everyone on Earth. There are multiple calendar types, and some don't even track the year, or don't track it the same way as the Western calendar does. Even the math-oriented Unix Timestamp is based on a Western calendar. So you're out of luck until someone figures out just how old the Sun is!


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

Klaus-rf said:


> Don't you folks still purchase petrol in Litres and beer in Pints??


Isn't that what I said? but yes , beer in pints too.


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

Mesprit87 said:


> I agree with you, majority doesn't make it right. Take tires for example with the wheel diameter in inches and width in millimeter. ..
> As for Canada we are making our way to the metric system one generation at time, almost nobody uses farh^#%^*eit anymore, liter is used at large, the kilometer too but we still have a lot to cover in the construction industry as for length measuring.
> The date format came up at work too, delivering aircrafts to customers around the word having different requirements, we ended up using @JasonF format suggestion and have been using it since.


I like this...
http://wiki.c2.com/?WhimsicalUnitsOfMeasurement

For volume, I prefer...
Barn Hubble: 1bH = about a liter. An object one barn in cross-section would have to travel a thousand million light-years before it traced out one liter of volume.

That makes as much sense as a football pitch to me


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## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

anyone on here should know the best measure of area is hamsters

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/759247416495316993


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## victor (Jun 24, 2016)

MelindaV said:


> anyone on here should know the best measure of area is hamsters
> 
> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/759247416495316993


What do you mean? A African Syrian or a European swallow Roborovski hamster?


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## Mesprit87 (Oct 29, 2017)

Good call moving this discussion to its own thread.
Things are _really_ sliding


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

We tried the metric system. It's too exact. There is no flavor or feeling. In the US a AA battery is smaller than a standard A battery, but a DD bra is bigger than a D bra. This cannot be accomplished with a logical metric system. Bring back furlongs per fortnight.


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## Bokonon (Apr 13, 2017)

Just don't make me use Decimal Time, that's all I ask.


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## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

Bokonon said:


> Just don't make me use Decimal Time, that's all I ask.


that reminded me - around 2000, there was another 'clock' that some were trying to kick off that was similar to decimal, but by the day instead of hour. can't remember what it was called, and my googling isn't coming up with anything this morning, but remember heated conversations with a few friends who thought it was the only way going forward in the spring of 2001-ish.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

MelindaV said:


> that reminded me - around 2000, there was another 'clock' that some were trying to kick off that was similar to decimal, but by the day instead of hour. can't remember what it was called, and my googling isn't coming up with anything this morning, but remember heated conversations with a few friends who thought it was the only way going forward in the spring of 2001-ish.


Oh yeah, "beats".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time


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## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

garsh said:


> Oh yeah, "beats".
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time


thats right! i forgot swatch was involved.


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## Charlie W (Apr 23, 2016)

@MelindaV - That reminds me of_ (watchmaker) _*Swatch Internet Time*, or *.beat time*, where the whole day was divided into 1000. IIRC, even CNN had it in the lower corner of their screen. It was kinda cool. Where I lived _(New Providence, NJ)_, 10:30 AM, would be @646. I was so sure it would catch on. :-(

~Charlie W

Edit: I'm too late. Several of you "beat" me to it.


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## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

I think the friend I remember having the conversation with in 2001, had the new ericssson phone...


> In March 2001, Ericsson released the T20e, a mobile phone which gave the user the option of displaying Internet Time.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

A friend of mine likes to say that he'll be there in "2 beats" instead of "5 minutes", just because.


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

Speaking of off-brand measurements, I used to measure speed in "Fathoms per Fortnight". Kinda British. 

And there's just something about having a speedometer with markings in the 20,000-40,000 range.


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## styleruk (Dec 3, 2018)

So in the US, should you be saying my model 3 does 0.34 HP per mile? 
Or 184 ft lbf/s?
Or, yeah I pay about 15 cents for 3.6million joules
Or, 4.1e-8 dollars per Joule.
Wait...4.1? You can't have that surely..... 41/10 
It will end up being stupid in the UK, what with litres and MPG, so electric will have some other way to hide the way companies like BP are finding a way to charge 40p per unit, when it costs me 13p at home! They'll probably have some other figure that nobody can work out.
I believe the only reason why we have litres is because when they put it up a penny per gallon, that became 4.5pence * per gallon when they changed to litres, so it's obvious why. Surprised they don't sell it as price per ml!

*[In UK a gallon is 4.5litres] a ten gallon hat in the UK would be ridiculous


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