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"american" Dates On Geocaching.com


blazius

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Hi,

 

dates on geocaching.com are shown in the odd & peculiar US style of mm/dd/yyyy. This makes importing dates into other applications a challenge, especialy if they are not tailored to the prevailing US taste.

 

Since 1971, the agreed, international standard for writing dates (ISO 8601) has been yyyy-mm-dd. Why haven't geocaching.com adopted this standard?

 

geocaching.com already has an option for selecting between imperial and metric units. If changing to ISO 6801 dates is hard for those who are used to the mm/dd/yyyy notation, why not add an option that would allow the users to select between ISO standard and US style?

 

More information on the benefits of using ISO 8601 notation is available at http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/p...tesandtime.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 and http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html.

 

Kind regards,

blazius of Norway

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Since 1971? Then why do schools still teach it MMDDYYYY? There's your problem, go complain to the schools :D

B) Many europeans are quite anstonished of all the archaic stuff US people don't seem go want to get rid of:

  • imperial units
  • paper checks
  • conservative government

;) (putting on my asbesto suit) :D

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Since 1971? Then why do schools still teach it MMDDYYYY? There's your problem, go complain to the schools :D

B) Many europeans are quite anstonished of all the archaic stuff US people don't seem go want to get rid of:

  • imperial units
  • paper checks
  • conservative government

;) (putting on my asbesto suit) :D

While I am working on changing the government part, I am curious about paper checks. How is that done elsewhere? Sorry if this is not truly pertinent to the question.

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At the risk of being serious, I think blazius is right.

 

Switching to the ISO standard would be traumatic for us Americans, but there should be a user settting for how dates will be displayed (and entered).

 

(I tried to switch to YYMMDD in 1970 after reading an article about it, and also not being concerned with Y2K...I still use that in some of my personal notes, but I've given up "converting" my friends.)

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Since 1971? Then why do schools still teach it MMDDYYYY? There's your problem, go complain to the schools :D

B) Many europeans are quite anstonished of all the archaic stuff US people don't seem go want to get rid of:


  •  
  • imperial units
     
  • paper checks
     
  • conservative government
     

;) (putting on my asbesto suit) :D

Nothing in the US can be archaic, we are a baby compared to most of Europe. How can a country that has only been around since 1776 be archaic compared to a country that has been around since 793? B)

 

BTW, My family name is Berg from Lillehammer, my great grandparents were married in the church that was shown during the 1994 Olympics and had their reception on the Skibladner.

 

Edited for spelling

Edited by webscouter.
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I've been using YYMMDD as a filename convention for years, because it sorts better in a directory listing. MMDDYY is one of the few American habits I'll concede is wrong and confusing.

 

On the other hand, hearing that its persistence astonishes and confounds Europeans makes me want to revert to it immediately. I live to be out of step with the international community.

 

And remember, everybody, there are four bushels in a peck!

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Since 1971? Then why do schools still teach it MMDDYYYY? There's your problem, go complain to the schools :D

B) Many europeans are quite anstonished of all the archaic stuff US people don't seem go want to get rid of:

  • imperial units
  • paper checks
  • conservative government

;) (putting on my asbesto suit) :D

I prefer using metric, but very few things here are listed with it. Road signs are in miles, fountain drinks in ounces, gasoline in gallons, temperature in fahrenheit, etc.

 

It would take years (more like, a couple of decades) of the schools teaching metric for it to start taking hold in our culture. The problem, though, is that instead of using only metric on signs and cereal boxes is that both systems would be listed. Older people would continue to use their system and the young people would be confused. I imagine it would take 2 decades, minimum, before all the signs are in place (it's a money thing). It would probably take another 2 decades before anyone would consider taking the old system away, and 2 more decades to replace all the signs again.

 

Not likely to happen in my lifetime B)

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It would take years (more like, a couple of decades) of the schools teaching metric for it to start taking hold in our culture.

It HAS been decades since they've been teaching the metric system in US schools. They were teaching it in the 1970s!

 

About the only metricity that has crept into my everyday life is the two-liter bottle (for beverages) and the 10K running race.

Edited by CacheNCarryMA
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I think US dates are the way the are based upon how they're said. Today's date, in the US, would be spoken as "July fourteenth two-thousand five" so our date standard of 7/14/2005 is in keeping with how it is spoken.. When someone ask when your birthday is, most American would reply "July fourteenth" and not "fourteen July". So, it is abbreviated left-to-right as it is read.

 

When I was in the USAF our standard was DD-MMM-YYYY or DD-MMM-YY, so today would be 14-JUL-2005. Month names were always the abbreviated name and not the number. Also, times for most operations-related things were always written in UTC (or, as the USAF puts it: Zulu).

 

That said...

 

I'm all for ISO dates. Geocaching.com should be ISO compliant. The default could be YYYY-MM-DD and then in your profile you can select if you'd like it displayed differently (MM-DD-YY, DD-MM-YYYY, or whatever). Many messageboard packages allow you to specify how you'd like the date displayed. They store it as ISO-compliant UTC and then modify it accordingly based upon your timezone and display preferences.

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About the only metricity that has crept into my everyday life is the two-liter bottle (for beverages) and the 10K running race.

Don't forget drugs, legal and illegal. Kilos of heroin, CC's of thorazine.

 

The only way to switch systems and make it stick is to flat out switch them; pull up the old signage overnight and replace it. Make it illegal to sell anything measured in imperial. Like Britain did. Even the old folks start losing their memory of the old system; Uncle Badger can no longer tell me what the local temperature is in Fahrenheit.

 

I'm happy to say I don't see that happening here any time soon. Though I'm a little mystified when Uncle B pines for the days of pre-metric British currency. That pounds, shillings and pence thing makes my brain smoke like a skillet fire.

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  • imperial units
  • paper checks
  • conservative government

I haven't used a paper check in... oh... eight years. do folks still use those?

 

As an engineering student, we use both SAE and SI units in our work. Frankly, while SI is easier for math, I find the concept of SAE units much better. Too much redundancy built into SI.

 

As for the government--our convernment was formed mostly by religious people trying to flee Europe, so I guess you can blame god. That's what I do.

 

Jamie

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I am curious about paper checks. How is that done elsewhere?

In Norway, everyone gets their salaries directly deposited into their bank accounts - it has been like that since the 1970s. Paper checks have been very scarce for the last 15 years. If I wish to send money to a company or a friend (domestic or abroad), I arrange an electronic transfer in my Internet bank. While paying in shops, I use my debit or credit card for everything but small amounts (less than, say, US$ 10). Trying to pay with a check or large amounts of banknotes is regarded as somewhat dubious...

 

I do some work for a US cutting-edge technology company, but for some very strange reason they are unable to pay me in any other way than paper checks. Cashing them in Norway is very impractical. I've found out that the best way to get any money from the checks is to sell them at eBay as souvenirs... ;)

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Since 1971, the agreed, international standard for writing dates (ISO 8601) has been yyyy-mm-dd. Why haven't geocaching.com adopted this standard?

I remember that agreement and I remember when the USA was starting to switch the highway signs to show both metric and imperial. The issue came down to costs. It was and is too expensive to switch out all the signs so that it is consistent across the country. The commercial industry however, has realized some folks prefer to use metric over imperial and has provided both on the same utensil in most cases.

 

I'll wager when we stop handing out billions to other needy causes we will then have the budget to unbewilder our European cousins. ;)

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I've been using YYMMDD as a filename convention for years, because it sorts better in a directory listing.

Didnt YYMMDD give you some sorting problems when transitioning from 1999 to 2000? Of course, YYYY-MM-DD is vulnerable to the 9999->10000 (y10k) problem, but if our dating conventions survive until then, the ISO standard actually has a way of handling it... ;)

 

Of course, the proper way of making a calendar would be to have 13 months with 28 days each, and one leap day at the end of each year (and an extra leap day every four years, like today). :D

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Hi,

<snip>

Since 1971, the agreed, international standard for writing dates (ISO 8601) has been yyyy-mm-dd. Why haven't geocaching.com adopted this standard?

<snip>

Having lived in Europe for many years, mostly Italy. I know for a fact that yyyy-mm-dd is a standard that isn't widely used there either. I saw dd-mm-yyyy and dd-mmm-yyyy more often than not. It made for a somewhat funny story after moving back to the US and depositing a paper refund check from the italian electric company in a US bank.

 

It would be nice to be able to switch the date to your local language standard, but it is far from crucial. Even though they rarely like change, humans are good at adapting to different things.

 

BTW: There is paper checks and conservative government in Europe and I'm not going to comment on Great Britians weight system.

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My dates tend to look like 14 Jul 05, though I don't have a problem with ISO date standards. I'm smart enough to figure our YYYY MM DD, and if I live long enough YYYYY.

 

As for SI, no problem switching. Some SI units are not very convenient. SI math though is much much simpler.

 

Cash and Checks are king. All electronic money is nothing more than a crash waiting to happen. *poof* I'm sorry Mr. RK our records don't show you as having any savings with us.

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It would take years (more like, a couple of decades) of the schools teaching metric for it to start taking hold in our culture.

It HAS been decades since they've been teaching the metric system in US schools. They were teaching it in the 1970s!

 

About the only metricity that has crept into my everyday life is the two-liter bottle (for beverages) and the 10K running race.

As a former math teacher, I would like to make a comment on the teaching materials that were supplied to us in the 70's when it was a national mandate that the US would change to metrics in ten years. The stuff we were given was almost entirely doing conversions from one system to the other. I can think of nothing more designed to turn kids off of metrics. Those calculations that had to be done (by hand) were horrendous. The kids hated it. I tried, as best a lone voice in the wilderness can, to teach the ease of use of metrics, but that fell on very deaf ears. The bottom line is that because kids and parents were so turned off by the idea of what was described by some as a communist plot that the whole idea was dropped by congress.

 

I would also like to comment that in the UK, which has adopted the metric system, all road distances and speeds are still in miles not kilometers. That would also be my preference. I have driven in Canada which uses km and it is hard for me to convert distance to go into time to go. With miles, it is a snap, since one mile = one minute or therabouts for most highways. For secondary roads one mile = two minutes or thereabouts. Easy to do. I was also speakin with some british friends about this issue some years ago and they actually made the switch gradually with food items. Some things were being sold in pounds while others were being sold in kilograms. The older brits still use imperials units from time to time.

 

There was also a comment in this thread about a 10k road race. All distances in track and field (athletics for the rest of the world) are measured in the metric system except for field events in the US high schools. This is true in all countries that I know about

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My dates tend to look like 14 Jul 05, though I don't have a problem with ISO date standards. I'm smart enough to figure our YYYY MM DD, and if I live long enough YYYYY.

My newer code uses this format, or spells out the entire date. For example, the search result page uses 05 JUL 09, while the individual log page uses Saturday, July 09, 2005.

 

No offense but I think ISO sucks because of the switching of month and day. I'd prefer to use either of the above options for better readability.

 

However, there are some interesting internationalization features of .net. When I was recoding the site in the early days I figured out how to detect the browser origin and show the correct dates, number formatting and such. Unfortunately the server didn't like the different date formats and there were some other odd issues so I scrapped it so I could look into it later. It is getting to be that time.

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As a former math teacher, I would like to make a comment on the teaching materials that were supplied to us in the 70's when it was a national mandate that the US would change to metrics in ten years. The stuff we were given was almost entirely doing conversions from one system to the other. I can think of nothing more designed to turn kids off of metrics.

I took those classes in the 60s and 70s. They did make me hate the metric system. Then as a Physics major in college where everything was done in the metric system I saw how easy and great it really is.

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I am curious about paper checks. How is that done elsewhere?

In Norway, everyone gets their salaries directly deposited into their bank accounts - it has been like that since the 1970s. Paper checks have been very scarce for the last 15 years. If I wish to send money to a company or a friend (domestic or abroad), I arrange an electronic transfer in my Internet bank. While paying in shops, I use my debit or credit card for everything but small amounts (less than, say, US$ 10). Trying to pay with a check or large amounts of banknotes is regarded as somewhat dubious...

Being on the cutting edge here in the USofA. When EFT (Electronic Fund Transfers) first came in to existence it cost money (usually a percentage of the amount to be transfered) to cover the cost of this new technology. Now most EFT are free or the fees are hidden.

 

In fact, WAL*MART (a very large chain of store across the US) now don't do paper checks. They will accept them at the cash registeres but they are then "scaned" in and everything is done electronically from that point on.

 

I do some work for a US cutting-edge technology company, but for some very strange reason they are unable to pay me in any other way than paper checks.  Cashing them in Norway is very impractical.  I've found out that the best way to get any money from the checks is to sell them at eBay as souvenirs... ;)

 

I think the issue here might be who is paying the tax. If the US company wires you the money I think they would responsible for some or all of the taxes, tariffs, import duties, other fees, reporting, converting, etc. But if they send the money to you in a check then you are responsible for all of that.

 

Don't base your impression of the US by the way companies deal with their overseas employees. If this company has more than a couple hundred employees then I would be surprised to learn they didn't offer direct deposit to their US employees.

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I was also speakin with some british friends about this issue some years ago and they actually made the switch gradually with food items.  Some things were being sold in pounds while others were being sold in kilograms.  The older brits still use imperials units from time to time.

It depends on how you define "gradually." They may do imperial measures in their heads, but it is a criminal offense for a shopkeeper to trade in pounds and ounces. Google "metric martyrs" for an afternoon's irritating light reading.

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My dates tend to look like 14 Jul 05, though I don't have a problem with ISO date standards.  I'm smart enough to figure our YYYY MM DD, and if I live long enough YYYYY.

My newer code uses this format, or spells out the entire date. For example, the search result page uses 05 JUL 09, while the individual log page uses Saturday, July 09, 2005.

 

No offense but I think ISO sucks because of the switching of month and day. I'd prefer to use either of the above options for better readability.

 

However, there are some interesting internationalization features of .net. When I was recoding the site in the early days I figured out how to detect the browser origin and show the correct dates, number formatting and such. Unfortunately the server didn't like the different date formats and there were some other odd issues so I scrapped it so I could look into it later. It is getting to be that time.

and depending on how the detection is done you could come up wrong. I was living in Italy when google started offering google in italian. Ever time I went to google at home I was redirected to google.it. Even though I was use an english language browser and my browser was reporting my language as EN. The Italian search menus would have been fine but the searches weighted italian language sites higher in all my searches, even when I did my searches in english. ;) When I was at work google came up on their computers like it does in the US. So I assume their method of detection was based on IP addresses.

 

Automatic detection of language preference without some way to override can be troublesome for people living abroad. The best way to try to detect the language preference from the browser, but that isn't 100% correct in all cases. :D

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As a former math teacher, I would like to make a comment on the teaching materials that were supplied to us in the 70's when it was a national mandate that the US would change to metrics in ten years.  The stuff we were given was almost entirely doing conversions from one system to the other.  I can think of nothing more designed to turn kids off of metrics.  Those calculations that had to be done (by hand) were horrendous.  The kids hated it.

This is because they wern't thinking about it from a childs perspective. Adults were taught the standard system as children and had used that most of their lives. They had to learn to convert from standard to metric. Children on the other hand didn't know either system and could learn both systems side by side. Or, because they had the time. Just learn the metric system. Instead, children were taught the standard system then how to convert to meteric. Talk about setting someone up for failure.

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Of course, the proper way of making a calendar would be to have 13 months with 28 days each, and one leap day at the end of each year (and an extra leap day every four years, like today).

Now you're contradicting yourself. The proper way to make a calender would be to have 10 months of 10 days each.

 

Oh wait... I mean, 10 months, with ten weeks each, of ten days per week.

 

No.. that's no good either.

 

I'm not a big fan of using SI because base-10 is really dumb, and using redundant units doesn't convert well to real-life use.

 

But I would like that there be a standard... and for better or worse, SI is the standard.

 

Jamie

Edited by Jamie Z
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I was also speakin with some british friends about this issue some years ago and they actually made the switch gradually with food items.  Some things were being sold in pounds while others were being sold in kilograms.  The older brits still use imperials units from time to time.

It depends on how you define "gradually." They may do imperial measures in their heads, but it is a criminal offense for a shopkeeper to trade in pounds and ounces. Google "metric martyrs" for an afternoon's irritating light reading.

As I recall, I was speaking with a gentleman while in the north of England in about 1999 and he was saying that some item, I forget which but it may have something like sugar, was just then finally being sold in kilograms instead of pounds. That is what I meant by gradually as the US is currently in a very slow gradual change with the two liter bottles. In the case of the US gradual would be slow compared to, say, a glacier.

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As a former math teacher, I would like to make a comment on the teaching materials that were supplied to us in the 70's when it was a national mandate that the US would change to metrics in ten years.  The stuff we were given was almost entirely doing conversions from one system to the other.  I can think of nothing more designed to turn kids off of metrics.  Those calculations that had to be done (by hand) were horrendous.  The kids hated it.

This is because they wern't thinking about it from a childs perspective. Adults were taught the standard system as children and had used that most of their lives. They had to learn to convert from standard to metric. Children on the other hand didn't know either system and could learn both systems side by side. Or, because they had the time. Just learn the metric system. Instead, children were taught the standard system then how to convert to meteric. Talk about setting someone up for failure.

That is exactly how I felt the metric system should have been taught. It is not hard to use both systems independently. I do it all the time. As a person who does weights and measures for track meets, I measure lengths in whatever unit is easiest for the application. I don't ever do conversions and, as I said at the time, nobody need do conversions once the change is made. My scale does do conversions because some weights are still specifed in imperial units, but that is just a press of a button.

 

I agree that the adults were most resistant to a change since they had grown up with imperial units (we called them English units at the time) and did not want to change. There are too many people in the US that simply don't ever want to change anything ever. The argument I used then and still do today, is that if the US did not use imperial units there would be little need to understand and use fractions. As a former math teacher fractions were just about the hardest thing for most students. Yes, there would still be some need to understand simple fractions, but calculations would not be necessary for normal use.

 

Edit: To bring this discourse back on topic, the date is not that important. Many of us use whichever format works for the application. It would be easier if the month were abbreviated and not numbered so that anyone could tell the format being used.

Edited by WeightMan
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I'm astonished. What base do you consider "not dumb".

Base ten is good for math, since we use a base ten numbering system. But for measurements, base ten is a bad idea. It is only divisible by 2 and 5, and does not translate well to fractions.

 

12, 24, 64 are highly flexible numbers which make for good unit divisions.

 

Measurements should be in fractions, because any rational number can be written as a fraction. Not all rational numbers can be written as a decimal. We only use decimals because it is convenient.

 

Life would have been much better if we all had six fingers on each hand.

 

Jamie

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Here in Canada everything goes. We've had 30 years of forced metrification, and people still talk in pounds, inches, miles per gallon, etc. As for dates, I can't tell you how much fun it is to look at a receipt dated 05/04/03 and have to try and figure out if I bought that item on April 3, 2005, or May 4, 2003, or March 4, 2005, or...

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It would take years (more like, a couple of decades) of the schools teaching metric for it to start taking hold in our culture.

It HAS been decades since they've been teaching the metric system in US schools. They were teaching it in the 1970s!

 

About the only metricity that has crept into my everyday life is the two-liter bottle (for beverages) and the 10K running race.

Uh...maybe your school, but not all. Mine taught pounds, ounces, feet, inches, miles, etc.

 

That's kinda my point though, it would take a couple of decades of ONLY teaching metric for it to start catching on.

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12, 24, 64 are highly flexible numbers which make for good unit divisions.

12 is good. 1/2 is 6, 1/3 is 4, 1/4 is 3.

 

24 is good. 1/2 is 12, 1/3 is 8, 1/4 is 6, 1/6 is 4, 1/8 is 3.

 

64 is only good if you only divide by powers of 2.

 

60 is very good 1/2 is 30, 1/3 is 20, 1/4 is 15, 1/5 is 12, 1/6 is 10.

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Actually - do you all realize that the merchant (store) pays an extra 1 to 3% of each sale for folks using debit cards. Money that goes to the issuer of the card - you can bet that extra cost goes back into all the products being sold.

 

Of course, paying an employee to handle checks costs money too...........

 

I perfer MM/DD/YYYY - but I'm American. I have some european software that dates everything with DD.MM.YYYY an I always get confusd.

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Have you folks overseas ever considered that to us, how we do things is not wrong? That your way is strange & backwards? That to change everything to suit the whole world is a strange concept, due to the world being a long ways away from our daily lives? That to push your ways onto others is rude? (We were taught as children to share But to not make others always conform to your lifestyle, because there are a lot of different backgrounds & religions in our diverse country) When the 'international community' needs our assistance with anything (usually money given to them) it does not mind that we are based on Silver & Gold yet, not plastic.

 

We do not have a different country touching all of our state boarders, many states are bigger than your little countries...shoot all of Europe could fit into many of our single states. Canada & Mexico are our neighbors but, they have never demanded that we have to do things "their ""Better"" way" or use their monetary system.

 

I still cache my payroll check & have real, dirty, paper bills handed to me, then I get to see how much (or little) I make & pay bills locally, buy groceries, go out to eat, just go shopping & put the rest into the bank. Where I work (in a grocery store) it is a running joke...."Yes, we still accept Money"....I never really understood before now just how much that means to us. I hope to heaven that we Never see the day come when we cannot use our money anymore....

 

Besides it may be "Better" for you but, not for us. I agree with my husband on this one....If it is not broken, do NOT try to fix it.

 

Shirley - a United States citizan, Mom, Grandma - & proud of it!

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Ever since Y2K I have switched from MM-DD-YY to MM-DD-YYYY when I write a check. So if the liberals are ever in charge again, :lol: and come after me for more money, I can show them my canceled check I used to pay my taxes, dated 2005, and they can't pull that "we need something more recent, this is from 1905" crap, like they would if I had just put '05. :laughing:

 

Frankly I get tired of eurothis and eurothat. Next you will want us to do some equally stupid thing like changing the dashes in our phone numbers to dots. :)

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Examples of strange things at geocaching.com:

 

Calenders starting with Sunday each week. A week starts with Monday according to us.

 

mm/dd/yy - no, it should be yy-mm-dd according to us.

 

am/pm - Nope, a clock has 24 hours and there is no need for am or pm.

 

miles - Hmm, even the british people are changing the miles into km's nowadays...

 

And I haven't mentioned that we can place caches at places you are not allowed to :)

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Actually - do you all realize that the merchant (store) pays an extra 1 to 3% of each sale for folks using debit cards. Money that goes to the issuer of the card - you can bet that extra cost goes back into all the products being sold.

It is the other way around in Norway. Merchants who wish to accept cards rent (or buy) a point-of-sale terminal from their bank, and pay a monthly fee for having the terminal. Most transactions are done via the nationwide "BankAxept" system (usually, this is a direct debit towards the customer's account), such transactions do not incur any fees or commision for the merchant. Some banks (but not all) charge the customer the equivalent of 25 cents per card transaction.

 

Paying with a international credit card forces the merchant to pay his bank a commision of 1-5 %, depending on the merchant's transaction volume. This cost is (of course) passed on to all the customers, unless the merchant has taken steps to prevent this:

  • passing on the commission costs to the particular customers who insist to pay with a credit card (adding the commission to the sales amount), or
  • handling the transaction as "cash withdrawal", which means that the merchant gets all his money and the card holder pays the cash withdrawal fees

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Frankly I get tired of eurothis and eurothat.

So go back to sleep.

 

When I'm traveling, I usually tend to find out which language, currency, units, voltage etc. are in use in the country where I'm going. I also want to know which kind of wall sockets they have, if they drive on the left side, and am I allowed to drive a car with my driver's licence. And so on. Then I try to orientate myself to those conditions to be able to enjoy my trip as much as I can. Most people in the foreign places are very friendly with the conversions. Nobody tells me to go back to my own country to use my wrong units. On the contrary, folks are really helpful telling the distances, good prices, times, etc.

 

My friend sends me Kool-Aid from the US. The instructions tell me to add water to make two quarts of beverage. Quarts? Did I call to Kool-Aid HQ to tell them to print the metric equivalent to their bags? Nope, I found out how much is a quart, and now I actually have a perfect pitcher for one little bag of Kool-Aid. One cup of sugar is definitely too much! More like one dl. :)

 

The OP asked for an option to use another date format instead of the current default, just like there is an option between imperial and metric units. No one's asking anyone to use an option they don't want to use. You want imperial? So check the right box at your preferences. I pick my choice individually and won't tell you to use the same.

 

All I'm asking is an option for my preferences for me to use, and I fail to see how that is rude.

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The OP asked for an option to use another date format instead of the current default, just like there is an option between imperial and metric units. No one's asking anyone to use an option they don't want to use. You want imperial? So check the right box at your preferences. I pick my choice individually and won't tell you to use the same.

Well, the OP made the tactical error of referring to our date format as "odd & peculiar" and asking why we didn't conform to the agreed international standard. As it happens, I personally don't like the traditional US date format and would prefer the international standard, but you'll never get an American to do what you want simply by telling him the whole rest of the world disagrees with him. Our first settlers were religious nutjobs fleeing a world that disagreed with them; our system of government was an artificial construct the whole rest of the world disagreed with. In his secret heart, an American thinks if the whole world disagrees with him, he must be doing something right.

 

Now, it may be pretty silly of us to think this way. On the other hand, after years of trying and failing to get us to do certain things by telling us we aren't conforming to international norms, how silly is it of the whole rest of the world not to have figured out this obvious fact about us?

 

(N.B. Of course, when a European speaks of "international" he means essentially "Europe" -- a political entity roughly the same size and population as the US. He doesn't actually give a flip how they do things in New Guinea or Uruguay or Viet Nam).

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I've been using YYMMDD as a filename convention for years, because it sorts better in a directory listing. MMDDYY is one of the few American habits I'll concede is wrong and confusing.

 

On the other hand, hearing that its persistence astonishes and confounds Europeans makes me want to revert to it immediately. I live to be out of step with the international community.

 

And remember, everybody, there are four bushels in a peck!

No, Auntie--four pecks in a bushel--eight dry quarts in a peck.

 

As for the dates, I agree with the OP. I work for a large, international corproration, where I used to be a technical writer. We used international standards for many things, including dates. There are several non-confusing formats for dates. My favorite in text is 15-July-2005, although I agree with AuntieW that in any data that must be sorted, YYYYMMDD is the way to go (all numerical with significant digits first)

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Many europeans are quite anstonished of all the archaic stuff US people don't seem go want to get rid of:
  • imperial units
  • paper checks
  • conservative government

...

Yes...well, of the three, I'd vote to get rid of the government first. The paper checks are on the way out. I do all my banking on line now, and even my granddaughter's day-care accepts electronic payments.

 

As for the archaic units of measure, one industry--the liquor industry--embraced the metric system with open arms. The most popular size for liquor bottles was the "fifth" (one fifth of a gallon). It turns out that 750 ml is just a bit smaller, but close enough that you can sell it at the same price. So now, the most popular size is 750 ml. I haven't seen a fifth in years. The most popular large bottle is still the quart, because it is just a bit smaller than a liter.

 

In America, it's all about money. Show business a way to profit by going metric, and they will do it.

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