Actually a day is slightly longer than 2π since our orbit shifts the point of the circle that faces the sun each revolution.

I still can't understand that the one thing the entire world agreed upon is DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME. I mean, there was someone or a group of people, with the skills to convince ever country on their point of view and they spend their expertise on this? Not on world peace or human rights or anything that would lift our species up? Seriously, why?

12:30 AM is 00:30 though?

They shouldn’t even have 12 on the clock, it should be 0 because the 12 hour clock is modulo 12.

Literally this. I was never in the military, and I'm glad they literally can't draft me unless they lower a lot of requirements really fast. But 24-hour time is just so much more sensible. There's no "AM or PM?" follow-up question, no guesswork. It just makes sense.

If they made metric time, I'd adopt that shit in a heartbeat.

12:30PM means 30 minutes after 12-noon.

Anyone saying that and meaning the middle of the night is just wrong, and if that's a genuine thing people do it would drive me quite mad.

30 minutes after midnight is 12:30AM

This teaches you the value of terms like “half past noon“ and “quarter to midnight“

12:30 pm is half-past noon.

12:30 am is half past midnight, or as you would say 00:30

The m is "meridian" which is noon (sun straight up)

The a is ante/before and the p is post/after

In olden days it was easier to look up and set your clock at noon than midnight.

It doesn't mean that.

Only inasmuch as I have to count from 12 because I don’t have the built-in instinct for that time format.

Nah, all you need is a little time to get used to it. It's my default setting on most of my devices. Once you get used to it, it's much easier to tell am vs pm at a glance, which is helpful when looking at timestamps (I work in IT, timestamps are important.)

Written as 1530, mostly only Americans who have been in the military and their friends will know what you mean.

15:30 they'll know it's a time.

No, it's just a familiarity thing and not even rare. It's like switching between metric and imperial units, if you're used to seeing something in one format it can be jarring to switch it in your head at a moments notice. A lot of people in the US use 24 hr time if they have a job relating to documentation or if their working hours can cause confusion.

For example, I have a client that has to document received material and they are open from 04:00 - 22:00. They use the 24 hr format because it is common to receive material at both 04:00 and 16:00 and having to make an extra column to type am or pm on their logs is stupid and is just another opportunity to make a mistake.

It's really not a big deal to anyone, if you get a job that uses it then you switch your phone and within a week or two it's second nature. Every blue moon someone will notice that all your clocks are set to a 24 hr clock and someone might ask why or what you do to need it, but that's it.

I grew up with a Betamax tape player under the family TV. It had a 24 hour clock and it was the timepiece in the house that was in the right spot to tell us all that it was bedtime. As a result I have an intuitive feel for the 24 hour clock. But if you haven’t used it regularly, which most ordinary Americans don’t, then yeah you just have to stop and do the arithmetic before you can connect 21:00 to your sense of time.

THAT'S 1530, PRIVATE!
NOW GIVE ME 20!

They think it’s military time. I don’t know why because it doesn’t even read the same. Military would be something like thousand five hundred and thirty hours, we (people with 24h clocks) read it like fifteen thirty or three thirty in the afternoon, or even three thirty and omit the morning/afternoon part because it’s assumed from context.

Yes, it angers and confuses them.

I think they see it as some kind of metric time, and therefore something to be avoided at all costs.

Pilot here, over been in the habit of using 12 hour for local time and 24 hour for zulu time. "12:45pm, 1745z"

No, we just have to do a little kindergarten (age 5) math, the difference between 12 and 15 is 3.

The 3rd-grade math (age 8) of figuring what time it will be 9 hours and 47 minutes later is equally difficult whether using 24h or am/pm. And may be easier using angles on an analog clockface, especially for an old fart like me.

The real problem with time isn't 12h vs 24h. It's the increments 12/24/60/30/15/5 when the rest of our system is base 10.

Oh and Daylight Savings. Jet lag without getting to go anywhere. Fuck that shit.

No, it's just associated with military time and those who don't have friends from across the pond don't necessarily know that other countries use that time format.

Just kidding we're all just stupid

Wow, never knew that was a thing

Are you talking about a watch with 24 different numbers on it?

I've been thinking for a while about getting a slow watch, a 24-hour watch that only has an hour hand

Also fewer wasted pixels on the am/pm text. 24h is just objectively superior in every way.

American here. I use 24h time, vastly favor roundabouts over traffic lights, and I would rather poop at home with my bidet attachment than get paid to poop at work. I'm not exactly your average American, but there are probably millions of us. The world mostly hears the loud dipshits because they are loud and their thoughts are dipshit enough that people who hear them feel the need to tell somebody about what a stupid dipshit take they heard from some loud dipshit.

hey we're getting better at roundabouts

no really they are installing them at a frightening pace and if you're under 60 you've figured them out, especially the toilet roundabouts what flush you out. over that... well... i'm not going to talk about my MIL i'm trying to wind down not get angry

There are countries in Europe that don’t use bidets. Not even a handheld bidet shower. In those countries they don’t even wash their ass or cooch the old school way unless they are from a migrant family.

My wife is from Colombia and not used to the 24 hour system.

Bidets are slowly growing in popularity in the USA. But only for home installation, I haven't seen them in public restrooms yet.