[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by rem736

i'd go one step further and would prefer to use a single universal clock for everyone on earth (and using military time as well). by default, this would be GMT. people will complain about it being confusing to say that noon in california is 20:00. but it's just a matter of getting used to it. the benefit of this is that there is no confusion and no clarification needed when someone in the u.s. mentions the time to someone in europe (or anywhere else to anywhere else for that matter).

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I don't see why military time should be necessary, though.

It isn't all that difficult to say "8:00 PM", which is just as unambiguous as "20:00".
People who say "8:00" are clearly just lazy.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Just seems exceedingly odd to me not to use the 24h clock for things like timetables. I travel all over the world, and US airports are the only ones I've ever been to where the departure screens show times as "am/pm" rather than in 24h time.

I agree that the 24hour clock would be less confusing, especially since:

• People are now working at all hours of the day, rather than the traditional 9 To 5 (I know has been the case for a while but to me it feels like it)
• People are now working at all hours of the day, rather than the traditional 9 To 5 (I know ythat hasn't been the case for a while but to me it feels like it)
• With 24 hour a day television and radio the use of the 24hour clock would be less confusing.

What I thought that should be done with time is to use two methods:

• For issues that are strictly local, use the standard local time.
• When communicating non-locally, use Universal Time to avoid confusion.

Originally Posted by glos

I've never understood (and remembered) if you (USA people) say 12AM or 12PM for noon. same for midnight. If i think about it it probably should be 12M for noon precisely.
still, i'm constantly confused by it. Just like I'm confused by the date system. 9/11 to me is november, it drives me crazy

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Conventionally, 12PM is midday and 12AM is midnight. But to avoid confusion(!) it's probably best to use 12 noon and 12 midnight instead of AM/PM.

For that reason I say either "12 Midnight" or "12 Noon" since I'm usually active at both times. Its the same reason I make sure to clarify "AM" or "PM" when mentioning time.

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

In most of the world 9/11/15 would be November 9, 2015
In the US, it means September 11, 2015.

I am not even going to try to figure times this week.
Other than to say it is 5 o'clock somewhere.

Originally Posted by rem736

since we are extending this to date formats, the most logical would be yyyy-mm-dd. this has been established as an international standard, by the way. i prefer yyyymmdd just because it is easily sortable as a plain and simple number. no need to designate it as a "date format" in excel or other spreadsheet programs. it is also logically layed out from largest unit to smallest unit. it simply doesn't make sense (numerically) to do set it as mmddyyyy or ddmmyyyy.

Originally Posted by theducks

The US Military uses the 24 hour clock

(back in the dark times, When I wore the Uniform )
dates were WRITTEN 27 Oct 2015
except for data processing forms which used a Julian date (sorts properly as ASCII)
I still use those forms on all my computers

I write my dates in two formats to avoid ambiguity:

• For dates that will be visually read, I write the date as DD/MMM (three letter month or the month fully written out)/YYYY to make sure there is no confusion. As an example, if I get an item due on "12/11/15" I have to call to find out if it is due on "11 Dec 2015" or "12 Nov 2015"
• For date that will be used in computing (and thus might need to be sorted), I write the date as "YYYY.MM.DD".