100% tariff on the MM/DD/YY date format.

@Natasha_Jay yes please

@Natasha_Jay the MM/DD/YY format always seemed the dumbest way to write the date and really irritates me when something defaults to it

There is no logic to it as far as I can see

DD/MM/YY and YY/MM/DD at least have logic to their layouts

@Natasha_Jay That actually makes sense and therefore will never happen in today’s crazy world.

@Natasha_Jay YES!!!!! It is so confusing. DD/MM/YY is totally logical.

@Natasha_Jay

@thanius

Start it on 26/01/26. In longer date formats it is expressed as the day after Haggis Day. (-:

@Natasha_Jay
#BurnsNight

@njsg

The fun part of that is that a necessary pre-cursor would be going back to get ISO 8601:1988 ratified almost a decade earlier than it was in our universe.

The sad part is that, conversely, in our universe ANSI X3.30-1971 and FIPS PUB 4 had standardized YYYYMMDD years before the IBM PC was invented.

@Natasha_Jay

#ISO8601 #DateFormats #TimeTravel #retrocomputing #FIPS #ANSI #FIPSPub4

@JustinH

ANSI X3.30-1971 (YYYYMMDD) was indeed ratified during the administration of that well-known Commie radical, #RichardNixon.

(-:

@Natasha_Jay
#USPolitics #ISO8601 #ANSI

@zed @vonxylofon
Math?
18:00 is 6PM. I don't know anyone who can't auto subtract 12 from a number over 12.
14:00 = 2pm. 23:35 = 11:35pm .

Then most people in the UK / Europe have probably been doing this since the 1980s (didgital watches became cheap enough for most people to have one).

@renwillis

In seriousness: We mostly are metric in the U.K.. It's just that people *loudly* point to road signs and beer. Those are, though, the only 2 things left.

Even then, it's not even all road signs. The Driver Location Signs, a system introduced fast approaching a quarter of a century ago, on our motorways are in #metric. New/replacement low bridge signs have to give metric primacy now. (Some private signage, such on some filling station forecourts built within recent decades, give clearances *only* in metric.)

Wines, spirits, soft drinks and of course the (fossil) fuels for our cars are in millilitres and litres. D-I-Y is in millimetres and square metres. Most of life from spanners and USB cables through tyre tread depths and light bulb luminescences to medicines and butter is metric.

@u0421793 @Natasha_Jay @stux @amiserabilist @wendinoakland

@Natasha_Jay
Just start phasing it out over the next few years.
DD/MM/YYYY or YYYY/MM/DD I can get behind.
Never did understand the month first nonsense.

@JdeBP @renwillis @Natasha_Jay @stux @amiserabilist @wendinoakland in a Hard Metric nation such as the UK, measurements may well be given in both forms, SI units and the older Imperial, but the metric indication will be given first, and the outmoded indication will be given in brackets, afterwards. For example, the English measurements might be:
250ml (1 household utensil you might randomly have in your cupboard)
1l (42 hands)
750mm (56.3 horses)
56.3km (750 ankle chains)
720nm (1 sunny day)
0.5cm (your dick)
600kg (42 cats)

Then we get onto the proper stuff – paper sizes
A1 folds in half to give you A2 which folds in half to give you A3, which folds in half to give you A4, which folds in half to give you A5, which etc.
Do you really want to see the absurdity of the old paper sizes invented by basically cretins? Yes? Here then:
baph.org.uk/resources/reference-material/old-english-paper-sizes/
(Admittedly a lot of those sizes were for books rather than actual reams you’d encounter casually, but still…)

@Natasha_Jay to avoid any confusion, we will be implementing this tariff on 02/02/2026 (or 02/02/2026).

@Natasha_Jay just force them to use the new normal DD/YY\MM format. That's going to hurt.

Obviously accompished by SS:HH-MM

@Soldusty @vonxylofon minus 2 or plus 2 is easy, yes. But it is still an extra step. Also complicated when 100% of things are not discussed with 24h time, and so if you’re recalling an event time or departure time from memory, you not only have to remember if it was 6pm or 16h, but then if it was 16h and you use a wristwatch (I do), then you have to subtract the 2 hours.

I’m not saying it’s not doable, but it is needless friction.

@zed @vonxylofon
I guess it's what you're used to. In the UK it's pretty interchangeable. Unless it's obvious from context if someone says meet at 9:30 I'll ask if AM or PM so I know what to put in my calendar which is set for 24hr time. If everybody used 24hr time I wouldn't have to ask for clarification, I would just know that, meet at 9:30 meant the morning, no matter the context.

@JdeBP

I still weigh myself in the morning as N stone X pounds.

Making bread it's lb/oz for the flour, ml for water, teaspoons and table spoons for the other ingredients. Oh and sometime a dollop.

@Natasha_Jay

@JeffGrigg @bsdphk @Natasha_Jay Unfortunate misunderstanding. "Fix it on the first day of the week!" means Monday, not Sunday.

@vonxylofon @zed 3rd grade in Germany. So nine years old is about right.
12:00 isn't a special time for anybody anymore, like highest point of the sun, time for lunch or anything. So am/pm is just as artificial and learned these days.