3 ms·
In my country, 30-40 years back, people who needed a watch were those ones who travel regularly. And travel was mostly using public transport, trains and planes
by RoadieRoller 1mo ago
In my country, 30-40 years back, people who needed a watch were those ones who travel regularly. And travel was mostly using public transport, trains and planes. Most or all of it operated using a 24h time. That button was very useful.
Compare that to the mute/silence/DND physical button in iPhones today.
Also people who worked in confined spaces who wouldn’t know if it was day or night outside after a days job. My father who worked in an oil rig in Abu Dhabi used one. He gifted me one.
This was 1998.
- CorrectHorseBat 1mo agoHow about just leaving it on 24h time all the time?
- addandsubtract 1mo agoI just use 24h time in the afternoon.
- tass 1mo agoYes but why not just always use 24h time (or 12h if that’s what you like). It’s a little strange that a dedicated button would be needed to switch between them, especially when the math to convert between them is so simple.
- whizzter 1mo agoExactly, my kids knew how to convert between the formats at a fairly young age.
- bestouff 1mo agoOK, but who would use 12h time ? I never understood, this seems so backwards.
- themadturk 1mo agoHow about someone who was raised on 12h time and has used it for 70 years? Sure, the math to convert is pretty easy, but why?
- m000 1mo agoI.e. boomers holding everyone else back again.
- bestouff 1mo agoOk right. I didn't know people were used to that.
- yepyeppers 1mo agoYou didn’t know about 300 million Americans?
- afandian 1mo agoI doubt that anyone knows 300 million people let alone that many Americans.
- williamdclt 1mo agoI'd guess that the very large majority of people don't know that americans use 12h time, no. Why would they?
- Dilettante_ 1mo agoIt is a bit strange, like being surprised some countries drive on the left side. xkcd 1053 of course, but people are still allowed to be surprised when someone went their entire life without picking up a fairly common factoid.
- lproven 1mo agoI am grappling with this but I can't. You did not know that large parts of the world default to 12h time? This is absolutely NOT an American thing. I am not American and have never lived there. I am 58 years old, British and Irish, and lived a decade in Nigeria and a decade in Czechia. I have travelled widely around Europe and can get by in 6 foreign languages. 12h time in real daily life is more common everywhere I have ever been. Only minor subsections of humanity -- military people, maybe -- work on the 24h clock.
- cmoski 1mo agoPeople who can't reliably subtract 12 from numbers. They're out there.
- Retr0id 1mo agoIt's me! (But I solve it by using 24h for everything)
- bigfatkitten 1mo agoAmericans. The U.S. has a lot of people who are unaccustomed to 24 hour time.
- bestouff 1mo agoI knew for the imperial units but not this. This country ... let's say it always amaze me.
- farlight 1mo agoThey use US customary, not imperial, they're slightly different sets of units. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units
- bestouff 1mo ago> Some advocates of the customary system saw the French Revolutionary, or metric, system as atheistic. The president of an Ohio auxiliary of the Institute wrote that the traditional units were "a just weight and a just measure, which alone are acceptable to the Lord". His organization later went so far as to publish music for a song proclaiming "down with every 'metric' scheme". Ooh that explains a lot.
- kridsdale1 1mo agoIt’s the whole Anglosphere. We do it, as well as imperial measurements, to give the finger to Napoleon and his metric 10 hour long day system.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]