4 ms·

Yes, the American focus of the internet is absolutely appalling. Assumptions of timezones - PST, CST and the others whatever they are. Northern hemisphere assu

Yes, the American focus of the internet is absolutely appalling. Assumptions of timezones - PST, CST and the others whatever they are. Northern hemisphere assumptions of seasons - fall, etc - in the southern hemisphere the seasons are the opposite and we don't use the word fall. Even Apple, known for its "sensitivity" to cultural matters has a big miss on this one.

sschueller 6y ago
Even worse is the continued lack of UTF-8 use yet offering services outside of the US. In fact even Apple had non ASCII character issues on their dev website not so long ago.
- salawat 6y ago
  Hey, as someone who does Quality Assurance, I want to point out that 99% of the time, those issues are brought up. They never get dealt with out the gate because business evolves via iterative value delivery, and most systems capable of creating value can work just fine with massively simplified assumptions to keep the lights on. Also, if you think timezones/calendars/seasons are bad, just understand that many people specifically have a difficult time with shifting their mind into a frame of reference where you can actually talk about time in the sense of "there is a moment in time $now, where I am, the clock displays X because formatting, the system clock is actually Y, and I want people in P to get experience Q which had relationship R to X and S to Y. I have libraries T, U, and V to work through the abstractive layers of. These same people are all inclined never to admit this difficulty or the complexity inherent thereto. Throw in the fact most folks in the U.S. don't even understand the written script of more than a handful of places, and you have a recipe for !quality. Again though, there's only so much political capital you have as a Quality person, and prioritization tends to be the Project Manager's shtick. Also throw in that the real optimization function in the market has been "the crappiest software that can still maintain usership" and it should be no surprise that the software packages that do localization right are far fewer in number than otherwise. It's a rather sad state of affairs, but it is what it is. Just... Wanted to point out there has been at least one person who brought up your points in design meetings everywhere they've been, and never ceases to end up receiving platitudes.
  - Jakobeha 6y ago
    This is why we need more really good string, date, and GUI accessibility implementations in standard libraries
dkdbejwi383 6y ago
Yes, big annoyance of mine is invites to events/streams/etc that start at 10:00 "mountain". What the fuck is that?
- burlesona 6y ago
  It’s the western time zone where Denver, Salt Lake City, Santa Fe, and El Paso are. The region is extremely mountainous and high elevation, and hence is often called the “mountain west,” as opposed to the Pacific Coast (which has a lower elevation and mostly smaller mountains by comparison).
  - dkdbejwi383 6y ago
    It's the assumption that everyone on the planet should know or care about this. "Mountain" could describe anywhere. The Himalayas, the Alps, Norway.
    - burlesona 6y ago
      Not trying to change your mind, just to answer your question.
      - ameixaseca 6y ago
        I think he already knows the answer, since googling this exact expression gives a very clear response. It looks more like an exclamation of "this doesn't mean anything to me", which I understand and partially share as well.
  - leadingthenet 6y ago
    Nobody should have to know this, frankly.
    - burlesona 6y ago
      I agree nobody should have to know this, but on the other hand what harm does it do to learn it? In the US in elementary school I studied world capitals, major cities, history, etc. and came away with a pretty decent primer on things overseas, which I really value. Later in life I’ve come to know a fair bit about European football, about daily life in Taiwan, about the systems of government in Australia and New Zealand. The list goes on. I’m not offended to learn about that stuff, I think it’s really interesting. I agree that knowing the names of time zones shouldn’t be required, but I’ve only ever seen them displayed with their UTC offset beside them. When I get calendar invites for “AEST” I just look for that offset. Just seems to me there are far worse things in the world to get worked up about /shrug.
silvestrov 6y ago
and 12-hour clocks. I can never remember if "am" morning or afternoon. Why is 12am before 1am? Makes no sense at all.
- framecowbird 6y ago
  I've lived my whole life in the UK where the 12-hour clock is commonplace and I also still can't remember this either...
- oblio 6y ago
  Gaaaaaah! I scheduled an exam for an online certification at 12 AM, I think. And then I found out that's midnight :-( Just make it 06:00, 13:00, already :-(
- technofiend 6y ago
  Yeah you're not wrong, but AM is ante meridiem and PM is post meridiem where meridiem is mid day. I'm not sure if that really helps?
  - benhurmarcel 6y ago
    It's more that if you reset to 0 at mid-day and midnight, then logically 12:30am should be 00:30am for example.
  - silvestrov 6y ago
    trouble is you easily remember it as "after" and "pre" midday.
- rypskar 6y ago
  I use am = after midnight, pm = pefore midnight to remember it
- paulnechifor 6y ago
  In middle school I often had to reset my plugged-in 12-hour alarm clock at night because I would switch plugs for some reason. I noticed a pattern that sometimes my alarm would refuse to ring in the morning but would ring at 8 at night. I eventually noticed that it only happened when I stayed up late and reset the time/alarm at midnight and figured out that my clock was broken because it thought that 11 PM is followed by 12 AM. It was more than a decade until I found out that it was correct.
billforsternz 6y ago
I just had a (probably stupid, but never mind) idea. Abolish time zones. Universal time everywhere in the world. 6 "hours" called red, green, blue, yellow, white and black. 100 minutes in an "hour", 144 seconds in a "minute". Night and day are different colours in different countries but so what? Someone would have to write a brand new "Falsehoods programmers believe about time" though.

sschueller 6y ago

Even worse is the continued lack of UTF-8 use yet offering services outside of the US. In fact even Apple had non ASCII character issues on their dev website not so long ago.

salawat 6y ago
Hey, as someone who does Quality Assurance, I want to point out that 99% of the time, those issues are brought up. They never get dealt with out the gate because business evolves via iterative value delivery, and most systems capable of creating value can work just fine with massively simplified assumptions to keep the lights on. Also, if you think timezones/calendars/seasons are bad, just understand that many people specifically have a difficult time with shifting their mind into a frame of reference where you can actually talk about time in the sense of "there is a moment in time $now, where I am, the clock displays X because formatting, the system clock is actually Y, and I want people in P to get experience Q which had relationship R to X and S to Y. I have libraries T, U, and V to work through the abstractive layers of. These same people are all inclined never to admit this difficulty or the complexity inherent thereto. Throw in the fact most folks in the U.S. don't even understand the written script of more than a handful of places, and you have a recipe for !quality. Again though, there's only so much political capital you have as a Quality person, and prioritization tends to be the Project Manager's shtick. Also throw in that the real optimization function in the market has been "the crappiest software that can still maintain usership" and it should be no surprise that the software packages that do localization right are far fewer in number than otherwise. It's a rather sad state of affairs, but it is what it is. Just... Wanted to point out there has been at least one person who brought up your points in design meetings everywhere they've been, and never ceases to end up receiving platitudes.
- Jakobeha 6y ago
  This is why we need more really good string, date, and GUI accessibility implementations in standard libraries

dkdbejwi383 6y ago

Yes, big annoyance of mine is invites to events/streams/etc that start at 10:00 "mountain". What the fuck is that?

burlesona 6y ago
It’s the western time zone where Denver, Salt Lake City, Santa Fe, and El Paso are. The region is extremely mountainous and high elevation, and hence is often called the “mountain west,” as opposed to the Pacific Coast (which has a lower elevation and mostly smaller mountains by comparison).
- dkdbejwi383 6y ago
  It's the assumption that everyone on the planet should know or care about this. "Mountain" could describe anywhere. The Himalayas, the Alps, Norway.
  - burlesona 6y ago
    Not trying to change your mind, just to answer your question.
    - ameixaseca 6y ago
      I think he already knows the answer, since googling this exact expression gives a very clear response. It looks more like an exclamation of "this doesn't mean anything to me", which I understand and partially share as well.
- leadingthenet 6y ago
  Nobody should have to know this, frankly.
  - burlesona 6y ago
    I agree nobody should have to know this, but on the other hand what harm does it do to learn it? In the US in elementary school I studied world capitals, major cities, history, etc. and came away with a pretty decent primer on things overseas, which I really value. Later in life I’ve come to know a fair bit about European football, about daily life in Taiwan, about the systems of government in Australia and New Zealand. The list goes on. I’m not offended to learn about that stuff, I think it’s really interesting. I agree that knowing the names of time zones shouldn’t be required, but I’ve only ever seen them displayed with their UTC offset beside them. When I get calendar invites for “AEST” I just look for that offset. Just seems to me there are far worse things in the world to get worked up about /shrug.

silvestrov 6y ago

and 12-hour clocks. I can never remember if "am" morning or afternoon. Why is 12am before 1am? Makes no sense at all.

framecowbird 6y ago
I've lived my whole life in the UK where the 12-hour clock is commonplace and I also still can't remember this either...
oblio 6y ago
Gaaaaaah! I scheduled an exam for an online certification at 12 AM, I think. And then I found out that's midnight :-( Just make it 06:00, 13:00, already :-(
technofiend 6y ago
Yeah you're not wrong, but AM is ante meridiem and PM is post meridiem where meridiem is mid day. I'm not sure if that really helps?
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  It's more that if you reset to 0 at mid-day and midnight, then logically 12:30am should be 00:30am for example.
- silvestrov 6y ago
  trouble is you easily remember it as "after" and "pre" midday.
rypskar 6y ago
I use am = after midnight, pm = pefore midnight to remember it
paulnechifor 6y ago
In middle school I often had to reset my plugged-in 12-hour alarm clock at night because I would switch plugs for some reason. I noticed a pattern that sometimes my alarm would refuse to ring in the morning but would ring at 8 at night. I eventually noticed that it only happened when I stayed up late and reset the time/alarm at midnight and figured out that my clock was broken because it thought that 11 PM is followed by 12 AM. It was more than a decade until I found out that it was correct.

billforsternz 6y ago

I just had a (probably stupid, but never mind) idea. Abolish time zones. Universal time everywhere in the world. 6 "hours" called red, green, blue, yellow, white and black. 100 minutes in an "hour", 144 seconds in a "minute". Night and day are different colours in different countries but so what? Someone would have to write a brand new "Falsehoods programmers believe about time" though.