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With apologies to J. E., it seems to me that this is like
which side of the road it is lawful to drive on. Gu'mint has a right,
indeed a responsibility, to 'legislate' a rational, acceptable modus
here.
Duncan
-----Original Message-----
From:
Stephen C. Gallagher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
U.S. Metric Association <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date:
February 12, 2002 07:55
Subject: [USMA:18166] Re: The day begins
at midnight -- or does it? An adventure in TV land.
I experienced something similar when I arrived at an airport
just
after midnight. I had reserved a limo to pick up my
family and me
at 12:40 AM on 6 April. (doing this with the knowledge that
the
day begins at midnight). Of course, we all waiting at
the airport,
and no limo shows up. When I called the company, they
said
that my reservation was for "tomorrow night, 6 April".
When I
replied that 6 April began 45 minutes ago, they
just said
that "we don't do it that way".
----- Original Message -----
Sent: February 11, 2002 22:12
Subject: [USMA:18160] Re: The day
begins at midnight -- or does it? An adventure in TV land.
ludicrous!
D.
I signed up on The Learning Channel's
site to receive reminders of TV shows I want to see but might forget
about. On the sign-up page I noted a couple of things and sent in
these comments:
>1. When I signed up, I entered my zip code:
20877-3501, but this was
noted as invalid. It only accepted
20877.
>2. I looked up the schedule for the World Trade
Center special. It
>indicated:
>Wednesday, February 6,
10:00 pm
>Wednesday, February 6, 1:00 am
>Sunday, February
10, 6:00 pm
>It seems that the first two are out of
order.
And quickly came a cheerful and rather interesting
response:
Thanks for your note and feedback! At the present
time, our registration
process is only set up to take a 5-digit zip,
not the full 5-plus-4. That
may change soon,
however.
Regarding the program broadcast times -- Sometime back
in the early days of
television, the standard broadcast day was set
at 6am to 6am, instead of
12midnight to 12midnight. This
standard has been used by television
networks ever since, even
though we now have 24-hour programming. I'm not
sure why the
industry doesn't change the system, but I guess some
traditions are
harder to break than others. If you check other networks,
like
History Channel, A&E, HGTV, etc., they all use the 6am to 6am grid
since the online folks get their programming information directly
from the
TV scheduling departments. It's confusing, I know,
and I hope that one day
soon everyone will switch over. At any
rate, when you look at one of our
daily TV program grids, just know
that it *is* chronological, so anything
at the bottom of the grid
after midnight is actually the next calendar
day.
Fighting tradition is a never-ending battle on
many fronts.
Carleton
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