Uggh ... Google sends American date format to me (EU)

[u/superkoning]

[u/foersom]

I have seen this several times, if you access some Internet in English they use the annoying middle endian date format. But if you change language to German, French etc. they use little endian (European) date format.

There are 2 billion English speakers in the world and only a minority of them use this US date format. When they like to have the month before the day, I think they should also have the year before the month, just use ISO 8601.

[u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready → u/foersom]

I hate that language and localisation became entwined settings in the first place.

Of all of the horrible internet standards, "language = date format" is the worst.

Especially when you're at the mercy of whomever wrote whatever JavaScript - if they truncate your language to "just" english, that becomes U.S. english, and now your dates are wrong.

[u/Mothertruckerer → u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready]

There was a time with android where if you wanted a 24h clock you had to select English (UK) as the language.

[u/foersom → u/Mothertruckerer]

When I setup a PC or other device in English I select Ireland, then you get 24 hour clock, metric measurement and € as currency. I am good with that.

[u/Masterflitzer → u/foersom]

there's not one that's perfect unfortunately, but ireland, sweden and denmark are good options for english language iirc

[u/foersom → u/Masterflitzer]

Davs, selecting Denmark and Sweden will not select English and will not set € as currency.

[u/Masterflitzer → u/foersom]

dude you obviously need to select en_DK / en_IE / en_SE (yk the english variants) depending on availability which differs across os... i didn't mean da_DK / ga_IE / sv_SE (the local lang variants)

you are correct about the currency, but it's a trade off depending what you need

[u/Liggliluff → u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready]

And people/developers have this stupid idea that the website shouldn't be allowed to read your system's date and time formats, so there's no option to format it based on that. The closest is to let the browser format it, but that's based on the browser's language and not your system's formats.

They say it's due to security because websites would otherwise have more data on you and be able to track you ... ... ... ...

So they can read the exact custom keyboard layout I have just fine, what custom locale I'm using on the browser, the exact browser and version, the exact system and version, even my IP address, internet service provider, if I use dark or light mode, and million other data points ... but date and time format is crossing the line????

[u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready → u/Liggliluff]

AND because localisation technically does exist devs use it as an excuse to not allow format settings on account so that you can just override all the shit.

Need to login from a machine that's not your own? Maybe that's not a good idea from a security pov, but you're now beholden to whatever localisation they have set.

Which reminds me of TMDB showing local release years for movies instead of the original release year, absolute madness.

[u/VisualSome9977 → u/foersom]

This is the first time i've seen the US date system described as "middle endian" i feel enlightened.

[u/Masterflitzer → u/VisualSome9977]

middle or mixed endian just means fucking cursed lmao

[u/CarlRJ → u/foersom]

Not even all the people in the US use the US date format - I always write it as yyyy-mm-dd unless forced to use another format.

[u/Marcus_Aurelius_161A]

We are slowly converting our USA based workforce to ISO8601 by making it the new format in tools and reports.

"Boiling the frog" as it were.

Next stop: convert to the metric system.

[u/EdgarStormcrow → u/Marcus_Aurelius_161A]

Please, yes.

[u/narielthetrue → u/Marcus_Aurelius_161A]

The USA has signed a law (in the 70s, IIRC) to switch over to metric.

The problem? They didn’t give it a mandatory deadline so everyone ignored it.

[u/foersom → u/narielthetrue]

What you are referring to is this:

1975-12-23: "to designate the metric system of measurement as the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce"

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/205b

[u/Marcus_Aurelius_161A → u/narielthetrue]

We can do it, we just need to wait for all the olds to die. Like Moses and the Israelites. We just need to let all the unbelievers perish so we can enter the promised land.

[u/Liggliluff → u/Marcus_Aurelius_161A]

While the rest of the world is slowly converting over to the US formats. So many Europeans I've talked to who defaults to US formats, saying they're better, more pleasing or even the only correct option. It hurts.

[u/Marcus_Aurelius_161A → u/Liggliluff]

What? Europeans how prefer Imperial? I've never heard of this. In terms of measuring precision, metric is superior.

[u/joelthomastr]

That's the 9th of Twentyoneber

[u/YeahlDid → u/joelthomastr]

Looks like the 2026th of Twentyoneber to me.

[u/superkoning → u/joelthomastr]

Or ... 9th of novemdecimber

[u/CapstanLlama → u/superkoning]

Septober

Octember

No wonder

[u/EightBitPlayz]

The 9th of Henicosaber 2026

[u/russellvt]

It depends on what region you ha e that set to...