My plea to all Developers
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And I wish the UK would drop the idiotic metric system and revert to imperial. One of the many benefits of which, is that people need to use their brains when thinking about and calculating weights and measures.
I'm a 65 year old English engineer who was brought up on imperial and worked to it for many years - and its critics today simply don't understand the way that it was used! My first job in the real world was as a turner - manufacturing drive shafts for relatively large turbines on a lathe. All our engineering drawings were in imperial measurements - but that did not mean yards, feet, inches and eighths of an inch. The drawing I worked to told me that the shaft should be 103.5 inches long, 6.35 inches diameter and I should put a 5 thousandths of an inch chamfer on each edge. As a check after it came out of the lathe, I would weigh it and the specifications told me that the answer should be 537.88 ounces. Yes, the original definition of imperial measurements was pretty arcane - but it was not used that way for serious things. We used it as a metricated system with different basic units to the SI system. And I would say, as an aside, that the imperial units are more pragmatic than the metric ones. They were based on every-day life whereas the metric system was driven by the French who tend to like to base their systems on some academic and philosophical structure. Metric units tend to be too big or too small for pragmatic usage - if I'm measuring the width of a worktop or the diameter of a screw, I really don't give a damn whether or not the unit I'm using is some full decimal fraction of the circumference of the earth or the distance between the earth and the sun! If I'm ordering a glass of beer, I want to receive a quantity that is comfortable to lift but large enough that I'm not going to have to order another within the next few minutes! Martin
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W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
tired old inbred monarchies,
Yup, true.
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
dying languages (like French)
Not a monarchy, nor a dying language. Don't forget that lots of Afrikans speak French, as do some carribean parts.
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
Oprah apparently got a first-person account of how the Old World fixes things. I guess they want to go back to ugly. I mean, really. The whole damn place is shot.
I don't watch Oprah, no idea what you talking about. And yes; things getting ugly, we not supposed to be united like the US is. I hope we reverse that mistake soon, but don't expect that to happen; too many paychecks depend on unity.
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
Begs the question: why did you sample lots of Europe and settle in Maryland?
All of the US gives you a taste of Europe. Americans were built of European rejects. Prisoners and the like. The "new world" is one of criminals of the old one. That's just history. Documented history.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
French = dying language. They wouldn't need to basically have language police and fine publsihers/etc. for using a non-french word if the french equivalent exists. They know it peaked perhaps a century ago (like par avion for air mail when that existed) - but it's done. Replace by a language that accepts the diversity of its users and grows and enriches itself. (care to guess which one?). I don't watch Oprah but it was all over the news and everyplace else how their (former) prince (now living in California) was admonished about having children with his wife - they might not be white enough. Your mixing the US with Australia in terms of a target for criminals. The US was settled by, all things considered, opportunists. Some because they were unwelcome in Europe (like the Pilgrims), others because they had no future in Europe (class systems, monarchies - no chance at land of ones own). Some were indentured servants (enslaved whites because of debt). My Grandfather, escaping that tired old "continent" and entering as an illegal alien through Canada. Others brought, in later generations, as slaves. Some may have committed actual crimes (I'd bet on it) - and others, their crime was being the wrong religion. Quite a mixed multitude. Australia, being basically as far from England as you can get, was a great place to get rid of undesirables. Along the way, as often as not, those already here thought it in their interest to not let anyone else in that didn't meet their standards (typically white/protestants). Most importantly - for a long time - no long standing traditions to block progress !
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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Probably to feast the Big Macs!
That's never going to happen. McDonald's was a nice little burger place until the corporate criminal got involved and this is probably a metaphor for all that is wrong with the US today. However, since politics is frowned upon here I will avoid any further escalation of your deluded ranting! ;P
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
I'll repeat a question for you: You seemed to have traveled and lived in various locations in Far-Western-Asia (a/k/a Europe) and yet now you have settled down to live in Maryland, USA. But just about all of your posts that say anything about the USA are negative. WTF do you stay?
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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And MM/DD/YYYY doesn't sort lexically either.
Dean Hawthorne 2021 wrote:
And MM/DD/YYYY doesn't sort lexically either.
I, for one, admitted that right off the top. There's no advantage of mm/dd over dd/mm, or vis-versa, except for the obvious one: it should reflect the way people speak. In science and business - yyyymmdd is the rational solution because sorting (for example) is needed without ridiculous accommodations (such as in code). The key here is to realize writing, deep down inside, is a way to represent speech and transfer ideas. Smoothly. For the people with whom one is in contact with pretty much all the time. The smoother and more convenient it/they is/are for this purpose the better.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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Apart from the fact the imperial system has nice familiar names there are no advantages to using imperial but I guess some people will never change. I am only glad we were using the metric system when I did my engineering college course as some of the other imperial units are completely nuts.
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No advantages?? The gas tank will fill almost 4 times faster when buying by the gallon vs. liter. And imperial guitar amps go to 12 whereas the metric only go to 10. That's 20% louder. :laugh:
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French = dying language. They wouldn't need to basically have language police and fine publsihers/etc. for using a non-french word if the french equivalent exists. They know it peaked perhaps a century ago (like par avion for air mail when that existed) - but it's done. Replace by a language that accepts the diversity of its users and grows and enriches itself. (care to guess which one?). I don't watch Oprah but it was all over the news and everyplace else how their (former) prince (now living in California) was admonished about having children with his wife - they might not be white enough. Your mixing the US with Australia in terms of a target for criminals. The US was settled by, all things considered, opportunists. Some because they were unwelcome in Europe (like the Pilgrims), others because they had no future in Europe (class systems, monarchies - no chance at land of ones own). Some were indentured servants (enslaved whites because of debt). My Grandfather, escaping that tired old "continent" and entering as an illegal alien through Canada. Others brought, in later generations, as slaves. Some may have committed actual crimes (I'd bet on it) - and others, their crime was being the wrong religion. Quite a mixed multitude. Australia, being basically as far from England as you can get, was a great place to get rid of undesirables. Along the way, as often as not, those already here thought it in their interest to not let anyone else in that didn't meet their standards (typically white/protestants). Most importantly - for a long time - no long standing traditions to block progress !
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
French = dying language. They wouldn't need to basically have language police and fine publsihers/etc. for using a non-french word if the french equivalent exists.
:D Germans don't need that; they'll make up a new German word if only an English one exists.
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
I don't watch Oprah but it was all over the news and everyplace else how their (former) prince (now living in California) was admonished about having children with his wife - they might not be white enough.
Never heard of it, but I'll take your word for it.
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
was a great place to get rid of undesirables.
That was a bit later. A large part of our navy was built on criminals. They were expendable, and a ship would always come back with less crew than it started with. Long voyages, and no one knew what vitamine C was.
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
Along the way, as often as not, those already here thought it in their interest to not let anyone else in that didn't meet their standards (typically white/protestants).
The Netherlands is built on protestantism, and I happen to live in the Catholic part of it.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
French = dying language. They wouldn't need to basically have language police and fine publsihers/etc. for using a non-french word if the french equivalent exists.
:D Germans don't need that; they'll make up a new German word if only an English one exists.
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
I don't watch Oprah but it was all over the news and everyplace else how their (former) prince (now living in California) was admonished about having children with his wife - they might not be white enough.
Never heard of it, but I'll take your word for it.
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
was a great place to get rid of undesirables.
That was a bit later. A large part of our navy was built on criminals. They were expendable, and a ship would always come back with less crew than it started with. Long voyages, and no one knew what vitamine C was.
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
Along the way, as often as not, those already here thought it in their interest to not let anyone else in that didn't meet their standards (typically white/protestants).
The Netherlands is built on protestantism, and I happen to live in the Catholic part of it.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
Inventing a new words (Germans) is quite alright - although they do adapt when convenient - but what they didn't do was to criminalize use of a foreign (read that English) word. That delight is found only in French speaking locals (Frogland, itself and Quebec). As for who was first settled in Australia, see the second paragraph[^]. I love their national anthem (Waltzing Matilda) - unofficially. It shows a heart of not taking yourself too seriously. As for Vitamin C - it wasn't identified but was implicitly understood:
Quote:
The disease was shown to be prevented by citrus fruit in an early controlled trial by a Royal Navy surgeon, James Lind, in 1747, and from 1796 lemon juice was issued to all Royal Navy crewmen
- hence the term "Limeys" for British sailors. Interestingly, the Pilgrims, of whom many Americans are so proud and are featured in the Thanksgiving lore, were a bunch of lousy intolerant bastards. More or less calvinists, their version of christianity made them rather unpleasant (i.e., labeled sepratists in England) and they left d for . . . the Netherlands. From their, where calvanism was more tolerated they left for 'the new world" and brought their intolerance with them. The state of Rhode Island was founded by Roger Williams, with the design to be religious tolerance, as he was driven out by the Pilgrims. Somewhat similarly, William Penn established Pennsylvania. In his case, he was a Quaker and the name was not his ego but demanded by the king who gave him the land for the state (as though it was his to give). It, too, was a place for religious freedom (note that this freedom often only extended to various versions of christianity). The point being, those Pilgrims left for religious freedoms which they denied to all others - perhaps the criminals to whom you refer !
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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I see that as less of an issue as it is not (usually[1]) prone to lack of clarity as dd-mm vs. mm-dd is. One can measure accurately in Imperial or Metric, so it's purely a matter of personal preference. I see nothing inherently idiotic about Imperial. It's quirky and inconsistent but then so are many things. Footnote:- 1: Yes, yes, I know that some very expensive things have blown up or gone off course due to Metric/Imperials mixups. But that was due to lack of project management clarity and QC/QA, rather than the existence of two measurement systems.
Metric will only be complete when there's a metric calendar, a metric clock, and a metric angular measurement.
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Please, for the love of all things good in this world Stop using mm/dd/yyyy for the numerical date format Only the US, US jurisdictions, and Swahili in Kenya use this format, so 6/7/2021 means two completely different things to someone in the US and someone in the UK. Or NZ, Or Oz. Or, well, anywhere else really. Please: make dates unambiguous. Use month abbreviations like 6-Jul. Use yyyy-mm-dd if you have to. Or go crazy and sniff a user's preferences but that doesn't actually work because everyone in the US seems to think Canada uses the US format. Canada doesn't use the US format: It merely understands the US format which I find astounding. Show a Canadian 6/7 and they'll tell you the correct interpretation without context. It's a skill akin to national mind reading and I do not understand how they do it.
cheers Chris Maunder
I just use ISO 8601 UTC date/time for technical communication and in the cases the date/time should be stored as a string - when stored as a date (without time zone information), I store it as UTC. For display, I just use the settings of the user - show it in his/her format and time zone.
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Please, for the love of all things good in this world Stop using mm/dd/yyyy for the numerical date format Only the US, US jurisdictions, and Swahili in Kenya use this format, so 6/7/2021 means two completely different things to someone in the US and someone in the UK. Or NZ, Or Oz. Or, well, anywhere else really. Please: make dates unambiguous. Use month abbreviations like 6-Jul. Use yyyy-mm-dd if you have to. Or go crazy and sniff a user's preferences but that doesn't actually work because everyone in the US seems to think Canada uses the US format. Canada doesn't use the US format: It merely understands the US format which I find astounding. Show a Canadian 6/7 and they'll tell you the correct interpretation without context. It's a skill akin to national mind reading and I do not understand how they do it.
cheers Chris Maunder
Yes! I even write ISO 8601 format on personal correspondence, check (yes, checks!), etc.
But I still have to deal with files at work that come in MM-dd-yy format - yes, using dashes "-" instead of slashes, and others that are dd-MM-yy, so it's ambiguous when read in context for various countries.
Hello all specification authors! Don't invent a new format! Just Don't! I've never seen anyone get confused reading ISO 8601 format
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Please, for the love of all things good in this world Stop using mm/dd/yyyy for the numerical date format Only the US, US jurisdictions, and Swahili in Kenya use this format, so 6/7/2021 means two completely different things to someone in the US and someone in the UK. Or NZ, Or Oz. Or, well, anywhere else really. Please: make dates unambiguous. Use month abbreviations like 6-Jul. Use yyyy-mm-dd if you have to. Or go crazy and sniff a user's preferences but that doesn't actually work because everyone in the US seems to think Canada uses the US format. Canada doesn't use the US format: It merely understands the US format which I find astounding. Show a Canadian 6/7 and they'll tell you the correct interpretation without context. It's a skill akin to national mind reading and I do not understand how they do it.
cheers Chris Maunder
I have spent far too much time "correcting" data from US sources. It is frustrating.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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I know what you mean, I cannot visualise things in metric sizes I have to convert them mentally to feet and inches ( or whatever ), metric can be ambiguous to, some people say ( usually related to the building trade ) you need a 60*40 or a 600*400 - there is no ambiguity in you need something 2 foot by three foot.
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
I live in Canada and have been using metric since grade school. That being said, I still buy 2x4's for framing, and sheets of plywood come in 4x8 sheets. The crazy thing is that our plywood is often 4x8 sheet by 5mm.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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Canada is metric. That's why all temperatures are in F, weights in lb and heights in feet and inches. :doh:
cheers Chris Maunder
... and we buy plywood in 4'x8' x 5.0mm sheets.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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... and we buy plywood in 4'x8' x 5.0mm sheets.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
I think my favourite over here is Tirecentre. Talk about culture collision.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Please, for the love of all things good in this world Stop using mm/dd/yyyy for the numerical date format Only the US, US jurisdictions, and Swahili in Kenya use this format, so 6/7/2021 means two completely different things to someone in the US and someone in the UK. Or NZ, Or Oz. Or, well, anywhere else really. Please: make dates unambiguous. Use month abbreviations like 6-Jul. Use yyyy-mm-dd if you have to. Or go crazy and sniff a user's preferences but that doesn't actually work because everyone in the US seems to think Canada uses the US format. Canada doesn't use the US format: It merely understands the US format which I find astounding. Show a Canadian 6/7 and they'll tell you the correct interpretation without context. It's a skill akin to national mind reading and I do not understand how they do it.
cheers Chris Maunder
I'll think about, but leaning towards OK. Maybe I should call rivers "River Mississippi" instead of Mississippi River as well. Just kidding ...
If it ain't broke don't fix it Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
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Please, for the love of all things good in this world Stop using mm/dd/yyyy for the numerical date format Only the US, US jurisdictions, and Swahili in Kenya use this format, so 6/7/2021 means two completely different things to someone in the US and someone in the UK. Or NZ, Or Oz. Or, well, anywhere else really. Please: make dates unambiguous. Use month abbreviations like 6-Jul. Use yyyy-mm-dd if you have to. Or go crazy and sniff a user's preferences but that doesn't actually work because everyone in the US seems to think Canada uses the US format. Canada doesn't use the US format: It merely understands the US format which I find astounding. Show a Canadian 6/7 and they'll tell you the correct interpretation without context. It's a skill akin to national mind reading and I do not understand how they do it.
cheers Chris Maunder
D/M/Y Surely? Question: Why *do* Americans use M/D/Y? Totally wierd. Low to high (chronologically): D/M/Y. Today is 07/04/2021 Either 4'th of July. Or 7'th of April. Each to their own, though...
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Please, for the love of all things good in this world Stop using mm/dd/yyyy for the numerical date format Only the US, US jurisdictions, and Swahili in Kenya use this format, so 6/7/2021 means two completely different things to someone in the US and someone in the UK. Or NZ, Or Oz. Or, well, anywhere else really. Please: make dates unambiguous. Use month abbreviations like 6-Jul. Use yyyy-mm-dd if you have to. Or go crazy and sniff a user's preferences but that doesn't actually work because everyone in the US seems to think Canada uses the US format. Canada doesn't use the US format: It merely understands the US format which I find astounding. Show a Canadian 6/7 and they'll tell you the correct interpretation without context. It's a skill akin to national mind reading and I do not understand how they do it.
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder I understand your concern But my question is why not harvest the IP address and make a decision the date format that would be favorable for that location YES VPN use will render this UI design less than desirable Just a thought from a novice so please feel free to correct my thinking or lack of experience In my profession we used metric to compound pharmaceuticals so I guess a lot depends on if your web site or product is used or reviewed by multiple countries
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Chris Maunder I understand your concern But my question is why not harvest the IP address and make a decision the date format that would be favorable for that location YES VPN use will render this UI design less than desirable Just a thought from a novice so please feel free to correct my thinking or lack of experience In my profession we used metric to compound pharmaceuticals so I guess a lot depends on if your web site or product is used or reviewed by multiple countries
Choroid wrote:
why not harvest the IP address and make a decision
It's not about location (which is unreliable to guess and unavailable in many instances). It's about culture. If I'm travelling in the US (in some distant Utopian future) that doesn't mean once I cross the border I suddenly understand that 4/7 means 7 Apr instead of 4 Jul. Why not simply spell the date out. 4 Jul 2021 is not much longer than 7/4/2021.
cheers Chris Maunder
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But all the measurements are based on real objects that exist in the world about us. The metric system is just random numbers. For example who can remember (or visualise) that one meter is the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second?
Units are an attempt to codify something physical into a value. For things that people use every day in casual life, the best units are those that are easily visualized or understood. This is because those same people will whine in school about having to take geometry or trigonometry and then get bamboozled by a contractor because they didn't know how to do math. Making units easily quantified by things in every day use and you won't end up with a building that was built for you at half scale. In designing trajectories in the solar system, I use astronaumical units (AU) more than any other unit of distance except when performing a flyby, in which case I wouldn't care if I measured the altitude in km or mi or even nmi, but am usually dictated to use km. Fahrenheit is useful for describing human comfort. It expands the scale where humans live. Much below zero degrees F really sucks even with extra clothing and just breathing in starts to hurt. Much above 100 degrees also really sucks as you can't shuck many extra clothes to feel comfortable. A foot is about the length of an adults foot, which makes it easy to walk off a distance. Pounds make no sense. Many imperial units are easy to estimate by using the human body, which is how a lot of imperial units came to being. They don't make doing math problems in physics easy. MPH isn't particularly relatable when driving a car and you just have to calibrate it, but neither is kph. Because I've converted it enough I know that 40 degrees C sucks and I know that somewhere -20 degrees C also sucks. However, that really is only 60 degrees C of describing comfort. There is a big difference in an 80 degree F day and a 60 degree F day. Even between 72 degree F and 78 degree F you can easily feel the difference in comfort. A better unit for measuring human comfort would probably center around 72F with positive numbers being warmer than optimum comfort and negative numbers being colder than optimum comfort and be about the size of a degree F but maybe a little bigger. C is useful for cooking since 100C is the boiling point of water at sea level, but since a lot of the world is above sea level even that isn't super useful, but better than a random number like 212F. A meter isn't particularly useful at measuring things in the casual life of a human other than saying that human adults are typically between 1.5 and 2 meters tall. Grams don't make a lot of sense and you have to raise it to a kilogram to be useful to visualize in human life. PSI is pretty useless, but so is pascal
