Date and Time Notation
Posted by Qrystal on July 8, 2009 at 19:10.
Category: Concepts. Tags: date, geek, notation, time.
Please consider the 12h time to be a relic from the dark ages when Roman numerals were used, the number zero had not yet been invented and analog clocks were the only known form of displaying a time. Please avoid using it today, especially in technical applications!
I took a moment to research a little deeper into my discomfort about today being “celebrated” because it can be written in such a way that the digits are in numerical order: 12:34:56 on 7/8/09. What bothered me about it is that the date notation just feels so awkward, because it is not in increasing or decreasing order.
I prefer to write 2009-07-08 for today, myself. But why is that? Someone suggested it might be a Canadian thing, but I was under the impression that the difference between the Canadian and American ways was that one was month-day-year and one was day-month-year, neither preferring to put the year first, and the only way for me to free myself of the mess was to find a different way altogether. A more logical way… or we could even say, CHRONOlogical. And alphabetical too.
It seems I wasn’t alone in this. I discovered a page today that outlines a lot of fascinating information about International standard date and time notation. It also said the quote above, which made me giggle out loud — a sure sign that I had to share it!
Anyways… will you join me in celebrating on ‘09-08-07 at 06:05:04 and 321 milliseconds? (I’ll try to dream of pi.)