John,
Probably she thinks that she should accommodate a US citizen with whom she
was corresponding. She should be convinced to stop doing that and to set her
computer to the international settings. Ask her why she uses AM/PM. Any OS
(except BEos) can be localized or set to ISO 8601.
Local Windows OS default to the settings that apply for the country. My
Windows defaulted to the Dutch settings. I only had to change the date
dd-mm-yyyy by hand to ISO 8601; setting a computer to Swedish yields ISO
dates. My Amiga 1200's Workbench (its Windows) defaulted to US settings, but
I changed them to Swedish.
I suspect that US settings keep lurking in the DOS and sometimes they
suddenly leap out of the dark. While my computer was not set to them, I
found them in the heads of some of my e-mails. More, I saw a curious head of
an e-mail from John once:
2000-mm-dd hh:mm AM!!! I do not dare yet to go down in the deep of DOS to
flush them out.
There are many electronic devices (clocks, watches, etc,.) that default to
US settings here when you buy them. This sucks!!! Those who produce them
don't bother to set them to local or international standards. The buyer is
left to
change them. But imagine, when a battery in a watch runs out and the manual
is
lost. With the new battery he will be stuck with AM/PM. I had such a watch!
I set it to the 24h clock, but in the end the battery ran out and the
instructions were gone.
(John: The photograph is with my friend now for scanning. I will go there
next
Thursday and then I will send it to you.)
Han
----- Original Message -----
From: "kilopascal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: zaterdag 25 november 2000 00:14
Subject: [USMA:9340] Time and dates
> 2000-11-24
>
> The other day I got an e-mail from a woman in France (Metz) looking
> genealogical information, who it turns out is a fourth cousin. She is a
> journalist and commutes back and forth by train from Metz to Paris. What
I
> found of interest, is that her time/date stamp, which I copied below, is
in
> English and uses both the American date format and the am/pm time format.
>
> From: kilopascal
> To: CBC Communication
> Sent: Friday, November 24, 2000 5:40 PM
> Subject: RE: Schweisthal links
>
> Even though it shows as coming from me to her, it is her machine that
prints
> it this way for use. When she responds I see the date/time stamp that her
> machine generated. Mine prints as so:
>
> From: CBC Communication
> Sent: Thursday, 2000-11-23 19:21
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Schweisthal links
>
>
> I don't know if she is sending this from Windows or something else. She
> wrote in one of her e-mails: "...I am more Apple and Mac Os than Windows,
> even if I used the 2 for my job (but more Mac for graphic creation).".
But,
> that shouldn't make a difference, or does it? I haven't asked her yet if
> she set it up for this format, or if that is the default setting.
>
> Does anyone know if operating systems sold in France (or elsewhere)
default
> to US English systems.
>
> In another e-mail she asked: "just a blink from France! what hour ist it
in
> Ohio? and what day? here it's fryday 24, and the end of the day of work
> :6.10 PM !
> Sylvie
>
> Here she distinctly wrote 6:10 PM instead of 18:10 h. I didn't think
am/pm
> was known in France.
>
> This makes me feel that the promotion of US "culture" is having an effect
> outside of the US.
>
> Maybe Louis can explain what might be happening here.
>
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
