Swatch Internet Time (1998)

Re:Swatch Internet Time (1998) by rhapsodic on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @08:34AM (#16316101)

>So maybe one problem it solves, is the American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock.

I'm an American, and I was not aware of the "American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock." Please elaborate further.

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Re:Swatch Internet Time (1998) by eddieroger on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @09:14AM (#16316298)

I'm an American who chooses to use a 24 hour clock for all my digital ones, anyway, and didn't realize that American assumed anything about time like that. Instead, I assumed that it's up to the user's discretion, and they would set their computer settings appropriately (or not at all, since it's probably fine as localized), and in the case of Google, the computer would rely on those localization settings, as it did for "17:30 in Denmark."

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Re:Swatch Internet Time (1998) by Symbiote on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @12:22PM (#16317709)

> I assumed that it's up to the user's discretion, and they would set their computer settings appropriately

My computer is configured correctly, but it's rather common for an application (especially a phone app) or website to ignore those settings, or to think it knows better.

04:30 UTC means 04:30 UTC, or 05:30 in Denmark. Not 17:30!

The same can happen if I type something like "04:30 Catch flight" into an appointment in my Google Calendar. It is converted into a new appointment "16:30 Catch flight".

It's not just Google. "Your Office 365 subscription will automatically renew on 1/19/2018." and the admin interface is a mix of date and time formats.

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Re:Swatch Internet Time (1998) by ams6110 on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @08:39AM (#16316120)

In Europe, most "official" times use a 24-hour clock (train schedules, etc.). This is almost never seen in America outside of the military and many Americans would need to stop and calculate what time "17:30" is.

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Re:Swatch Internet Time (1998) by rhapsodic on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @09:02AM (#16316241)

>In Europe, most "official" times use a 24-hour clock (train schedules, etc.).

Uh, yeah, I'm well aware of that, as are most Americans I know. That's why I asked about "the American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock". That must be a myth that non-Americans believe in.

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Re:Swatch Internet Time (1998) by znpy on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @08:56AM (#16316200)

Sidenote: AFAIK, UK also uses an AM/PM format for time, instead of the unambiguous 24-hour format.

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Re:Swatch Internet Time (1998) by pbhjpbhj on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @09:05AM (#16316251)

In typically British fashion we use both quite readily.

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Re:Swatch Internet Time (1998) by stordoff on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @10:04AM (#16316613)

Both are used, and it's fairly arbitrary which is used - bus/train times are usually 24-hours, general speech is usually 12-hour unless referring to something that is already in 24-hour time (but even then some people will switch them to 12-hour), and I see appointment cards, invoices etc. using both.

It's definitely in keeping with how we mix meters/feet and pints/litres.

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Re:Swatch Internet Time (1998) by howard941 on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @12:30PM (#16317777)

From what I gather watching UK TV there's also the charming and efficient use of "half X" to refer to thirty minutes after hour X.

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