• biofaust@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    What is the logic for distinguishing 12AM vs 12PM? Also, you have double of every element and need 2 more sillables each to distinguish.

    It’s confusing and inefficient.

    • Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub
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      11 hours ago

      Everything after midday is PM. 12:00:00.00000001 is after midday. Therefore it can only be PM.

      That’s the logic I use :)

            • Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub
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              4 hours ago

              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.

              • biofaust@lemmy.world
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                3 hours ago

                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.

                • Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub
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                  2 hours ago

                  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)