Showerthoughts

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[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 3 points 10 months ago

Historically, the style manual of the United States Government Printing Office used 12 a.m. for noon and 12 p.m. for midnight, though this was reversed in its 2008 editions.

I also remember there were some countries that have 12 AM mean noon, but I may be mistaken as I can't find a source

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[–] biofaust@lemmy.world 1 point 10 months ago (10 children)

You could just as well say the opposite.

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[–] Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub 1 point 10 months ago (9 children)

Why?

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[–] biofaust@lemmy.world 1 point 10 months ago (8 children)

Everything before midday is AM, etc. etc.

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[–] Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub 1 point 10 months ago* (7 children)

Yeah. Which is what I said. 11:59:59.9999999 is indeed AM, jos like you said. And then comes a tiny sliver of time that is precisely at the border, but a trillionth of a picosecond after that, you're in the PM world. After the infinitely short moment that is the actual precise noon.

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[–] biofaust@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Sorry, I answered without giving enough thought. You are right in your reasoning of course.

Still, I find it confusing to have 2 completely different moments of the day represented by the same number.

In phrases like "After 12 PM on Monday", "Before 12 AM" etc. I always need to think an extra second.

Another example is setting automatic responder on the mail, where I need to rely on 11:59, because the date is selected before the time of day.

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[–] Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub 3 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Have you noticed how common it is for buses and trains to leave at 23:59? The idea is to make it clear what evening the train is really running.

In Finnish we call noon "12 o'clock" and midnight "0 o'clock". Makes things a lot more clear.
And the first hour of a calendar day is indeed 0:00 until 0:59:59.99.. Since there are only 24 hours in a day, there cannot be a "24:30". (Except in internal timetables of bus companies, that typically run until 30 o'clock, as it still officially counts as the same working day)

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[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Since there are only 24 hours in a day, there cannot be a "24:30".

Japan has something to say about that: 30-hour day time — clock doesn't wrap if it's a continuation of a previous day

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[–] Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

So does Finland:

(Except in internal timetables of bus companies, that typically run until 30 o’clock, as it still officially counts as the same working day)

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[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 2 points 10 months ago*

Cool, I think past midnight timetables is where this really helps a lot of people

Edit: also I completely missed the point of what was in parentheses in the original comment 😅

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[–] biofaust@lemmy.world 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

So you call them 2 different things. Good. Now imagine doing the same for all the other numbers in between. That is what I get by "speaking 24 hours". And it takes less sillables.

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[–] Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub 2 points 10 months ago

Sorry, I did understand all of the words in your comment, but not what you actually meant with it. Could you paraphrase, please?