78
I call it “computer time” because I’m tired of people I’m talking with thinking its something to do with the military.
“UTC motherfucker! Do you speak it?!”
When I was a civilian, everyone called it military time, because only the US military used it.
When I joined the US military, they called it International Time, because the rest of the world used it and we were just meeting international standards so there's no confusion with our global allies.
no confusion with our global allies.
So trump made it possible for military to go to am/pm /s
Its just called time.
How many hours does it take the earth to spin? 24? Nah lets split it up into 2 12s because our people can't count higher.. And then lets make it have confusing AM PM tags depending on if its one or the other
Like fuck off you gonna have the 60 mins of the hour also be split into 4 so you dont have to count that high??
24h clock Is the norm
Military grade is defined as the lowest quality required to be used by the military, often resulting in the cheapest product that is still suitable for military use.
Not quite. It's anything that meets the minimum for the military. This, for most normal items, means getting the job done and lasting long enough, with an emphasis on low cost and bulk production. The result is "military grade" usually being the absolute worst that still works.
As someone that outdoors a lot, this shit is great for many items. If I base camp, all my water containers are military, and I have 120mm ammo boxes for food and stuff because animals, water, and air can't get in. Heavy and inconvenient as hell, but cheap af and works well—that's military crap for you.
...absolutely zero people that have been in the US military agree with your assessment. Doesn't matter the branch or MOS.
That's not an assumption lol. Literally what 810 is.
Shit to get the job done. If it didn't work for you, it did for 9 others, so it worked and the job was done.
Hahahaha.... no. It is the lowest quality highest expense piece of shit from a company that spent most of its money during the bid bribing those running the bid. Sorry not 'bribing,' simply giving gifts, dinners, and event invites.
Every single Harbor Freight tool is the same quality, and in many cases come from the exact same production line, as tools sold to the military that have a 100x mark up. This isn't even a controversial fact. This is something every single service member that was a mechanic knows. The military pays $115 for a single hammer that will break exactly as fast as a $5 special. But the $115 hammer was made by a company that was made in Congressman Fuckwitzberg's district and paid off the board members reviewing their app more than other brands.
Are you trying to say that army is equipped with shit to the same grade the Russian army was equipped when they invaded Ukraine? The US and Russia look lot more similar than one would think
I always saw it as "a ton of money is thrown at R-D on this one specific thing to make it do that ken specific thing really well"
Almost, it's "a ton of money is charged for this minimally useful thing made by the lowest bidder"
24-hour-clock being a military thing is kind of a USA-thing anyway, in many other countries it's just normal.
I wish there was a more practical way to have an analog 24-hour-clock, a clockface with 24 numbers is kinda hard to read.
There is, you have two sets of numbers for each hour marking like this:
or like this:
This requires no change to the time mechanism, so you can pretty easily modify the face of any standard analog clock to be like this.
That first one having "24" is making my eye twitch.
Having a 0'o'clock is something that delights me to no end. I'm from the US but moved a bit ago and I get unreasonably excited to see my clocks showing all 0s
Not much of an improvement over the standard design. I already know that the clockhand pointing to 1 means that it's either 1 am or 13 o'clock/1 pm, but it still doesn't tell me unambiguously which one it is.
Well yeah, functionally it is the standard design. In terms of making a readable clock, this is probably the most practical. Anything more would require some major changes to the mechanism.
Well, unless you're hanging out near one of the poles, it's pretty easy to figure out which one it is with minimal effort.
It's vexing from a design standpoint, and TBH my sleep rhythm is bad enough that I do have an issue with it sometimes.
In Brazil, the 24hr clock is standard for most people.
I have one and it isn’t that hard to read. The top is still 12 but the bottom is midnight with 6 and 18 in the 9 and 3 place respectively.
Don't hospitals use 24 hours too?
I think so. I work in EMS and we use 24 hr. All my clocks and devices are set to 24 hr and I am irritated when I can't change them off the 12 hr clock. It's safer, if I tell you a medication was last administered at 10:00 there's room for error, but if I tell you it was given at 2200 there's no confusion.
Not sure if this applies to you, but how does EMS work with time across timezones? Like if a patient is airlifted from one location to another and crosses timezones? Is that another source of error, or is generally things being an hour off by accident not an issue?
American consumers will buy anything. Why hasn't anyone developed a military clock for proud American households?
Fox News MAGA Trump Veterans for America First then Jesus then Guns 24-Hour Time
The US military also uses loads of metric things. "Real Americans" won't touch those, either. Apart from 9mm guns and ammo.
I believe its roots have more to do with the railways than with the military. I have never called it military time to be honest.
While trains were the big "clock unifiers" back then, here in Europe, the 24h clock is generally the local version of "time", without the "military" part.
Don't forget the klick. Most of them are not buying that either.
The people in all the countries that have no problem counting off another dozen past twelve don't always do that though. If you meet your friend at 15:00 most people will revert to "at 3" in their language. And they might "go to bed at 11." Economy of language and context clues. So colloquially the am/pm crowd and the 24h folks aren't far apart at all.
And any person claiming that it's too difficult to add or subtract twelve from at maximum a low two-digit integer ought to have their passport revoked.
I've used it since I was 12 🤷
You mean since you were 0?
Didn't get it at first, but scared my cat when I did XD
12-hour would only be somewhat decent if there wasn't noon/midnight confusion.
If you see a working clock say 12:00 and it's sunny outside and you're not above a certain latitude: it's noon
What if somebody says to meet at 12:30 AM? I would think that's an half hour past noon. Yet it often goes 11am -> 12pm -> 12:30pm -> 1pm. Absolute madness.
I agree with you up to the :30 part. 12:00am vs pm is nonsensical and seems like it could go either way.
But AM/PM means before noon/after noon, so 12:30 AM is unambiguously before the current day's noon, and 12:30 PM is definitely after the day's noon.
For determining 12:00AM VS PM I use the law of lease surprise. Basically it would be weirder for 12:01AM to be proceeded by 12:00PM since it would make sense for AM/PM to flip with the hour. Is this scientifically rigorous? Should we need this much philosophy to determine the current time: no, Hence the only real solution is to 24 hour time
Well since it goes like this 11:59am, noon 12:01pm and 11:59pm, midnight, 12:01am you have your am and pm figuring wrong.
What if someone tells you something is gonna happen at 12?
For example: you can turn in your assignments until 12 tomorrow.
That confusion could lead to you failing your assignment if they meant noon and you thought midnight.
Time is not only for the present, it's for the past and future too. You can't look at the sky in the past/future.
Something that's been growing on me, but that I'm still unsure of, is 24-hour time that goes beyond 24 to reference the next day. I was in Japan recently, and there were many restaurants that would write their opening hours as, for example, 18:00 - 25:30, to represent that they are open until 01:30 the next day. Was confusing at first, but makes maths easier and means that intervals of time never count backwards! From memory, OpenStreetMap use this system, too.
I find the 12-hour practical for daily life. But I put my phone on 24 hour time when I’m traveling and find that to be helpful.
Am American, use 24 hour time. It's only called military time here.
I'm not american and I too prefer the 12 hour clock. 24 hour clock has never been intuitive for me. I always have to put in brain power to convert it in my head.
Psst, confused American, let me give you a secret: Nobody uses the 24-hour clock in speech, we.just write with that and call 13:00 "1 PM" or something like that in our local language.
?
I wasn't confused before, but now I am. If you have to do the conversion to 12 hour to speak, what's the point?
We use them interchangeably in speech. Whichever one currently rolls off the tongue better. Idk about trashboy's "nobody".
24 hour thing is a new thing for us too man give us time
I be taking naps on accident like once a week. I need to know if I'm waking up at 8am or 8pm
this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
78 points (93.3% liked)
Showerthoughts
42196 readers
44 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS