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Minor things that bother you

Started by planxtymcgillicuddy, November 27, 2019, 12:15:11 AM

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ZLoth

Quote from: webny99 on September 29, 2022, 06:36:57 PMAnd, importantly, there can be tornadoes associated with hurricanes too, as was the case in Florida over the past few days.

Right. For the five year average of 2017-2021, Floria had 7.815 tornadoes per 10k square miles, which is slightly above Kansas 7.797 tornadoes per 10k square miles.

You pick your state, you pick your hazards.
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Scott5114

#5026
Quote from: kphoger on September 30, 2022, 11:56:23 AM
I do find it ironic that such busing is described in left-wing media as wreaking havoc on the northern and eastern cities to which the migrants are being bused.  For some reason, that shouldn't be those states' problem, but it should be Texas' problem.  WTF?  If Texas doesn't want the influx, then we're supposed to believe it's because of racism and xenophobia;  but, if New York or DC doesn't want them either, then we're supposed to be sympathetic.  Well, I guess, maybe Texas should have thought of that before they went and put their border next to Mexico...

I haven't seen anything saying the destination cities were claiming to have havoc wreaked on them, or that they claimed they didn't want them, and I don't think any of that is true.* The depiction I have always seen was more of a reaction of "what the heck, we can help these people, but why is Texas not taking care of their own people?" I've also seen some state and local officials express a desire to be the recipient of the next busload of migrants, seeing it as an elegant solution to labor shortages.

Were I a Texas resident, I would staunchly oppose these policies not only on humanitarian grounds, but also on the fact that it simply isn't a good use of tax money to be paying for transportation to rid itself of a potential contributor to the economy. (Even if a migrant were to send 100% of their savings back to their country of origin, they still must acquire food and housing in the US, and the value added to a product by the migrant's labor will be retained by the US company that employed them.)

Quote from: kphoger on September 30, 2022, 11:56:23 AM
But, anyway, that's all tangential to race.  Are white Venezuelans and Mexicans being given preferential treatment over black Haitians and indigenous Guatemalans?  Or do you just think of everyone from south of the border as "not white"?

I'm not going to get into this too deeply because it is not a subject where (not experiencing it myself), I know enough to confidently give a summary of the situation with any accuracy. But in short, yes, there are distinctions between migrants from differing countries. But they are sort of irrelevant for the sorts of social problems being discussed, because the starkest division line is really "majority/not in majority". Put simply, I wouldn't expect anyone who feels strong animosity against Mexican immigrants to suddenly change their tune and go "Oh, you're a Guatemalan immigrant? Well, why didn't you say so? Sorry about that!"

Quote from: kphoger on September 30, 2022, 11:56:23 AM
You also claim that not being a Christian has "major downsides" in Texas.  Would you please go into more detail about that?  I'm scratching my head, trying to figure out what disadvantages non-Christians in Texas might have–you know, in a state where a full one-fourth of adults 'seldom' or 'never' attend any religious services, Christian or otherwise.

I'll shift here to speak about my personal experiences as a non-Christian in Oklahoma, which I would expect to be more or less the same as in Texas due to the cultural similarities between the two. The chief problem here, which as far as I can see is shared by Texas, is that there is a base assumption that the only acceptable source of morality is the Christian faith, and that government policy must therefore necessarily be based on what is generally assumed to be Christian doctrine. (Whether this is actually true or not. The most devout Christians I know personally are typically quite acutely aware that what God's word actually is tends to be quite open to interpretation in practice, and what gets cited politically as "Christian values" are sometimes not actually present in the text of the Bible.) 

And so the Christian way of doing things becomes the government way of doing things, when it comes to policies like:

- marriage (in Oklahoma one cannot get married without the signature of an ordained minister whose credentials are on file with the state)
- abortion (so much has been written about it elsewhere there's scarcely any point to debating the merits for and against it here, but it is included because the authors of the most recent bills on this subject have explicitly cited the Bible as the source of their beliefs for why the legislation is necessary)
- school prayer (a pastor always gave a prayer over the PA system at football games, either immediately before or after the Star Spangled Banner and school fight song, and I seem to recall having them even at non-football marching band events; the problem with this is there is no way to respectfully excuse oneself from participating in one of these without calling attention to one's lack of faith and thus presenting oneself as a target for bullying and social shunning)
- liquor policy (it is illegal to operate a liquor store on Thanksgiving or Christmas, or between midnight and 8 am any other day; there are some complicated restrictions on what grocery stores are allowed to sell that I don't quite understand fully as I don't drink)

These are just the first issues that come to mind; there are assuredly others. Now, you may say that these policies are enacted by the democratically-elected Legislature, and thus Oklahoma is getting the government its voters want. And that's a valid argument. However, the practical effect of it is to bind those to Christian morality those who have never agreed to and don't believe in it. The 25th of December has no religious significance to me at all, yet if I have a few friends over and we decide we want to have a few drinks, we are not granted the freedom to purchase any because of the doctrine of somebody else's religion.

All of this is apparently seen by the electorate here as a feature, not a bug. To be nominated for office, a candidate must underscore their Christian faith in every advertisement they run. The winner is generally the one who manages to illustrate that they are a better Christian than the opponent. Little is said about issues actually facing the state, unless the proposed solution to them can be used to illustrate the soundness of the candidate's Christian faith.

And so if someone is not Christian, the only real way to avoid being bound by Christian morality is to avoid being bound by Oklahoma law altogether. The only way to do that, of course, is to leave the state.

This is before we get into the non-governmental implications of not being of the majority religion. One example is that my wife has had extreme difficulty finding a competent therapist that does not use Christianity as part and parcel of their therapeutic practice; she outright had one therapist tell her that her professionally-diagnosed clinical depression was due to her being "mad at God" and essentially that she needed to get right with a God she didn't believe in before the therapist could help her. This has left her with little progress in actually getting treatment for her condition.

This is all just what someone who is not religious would experience. People who have non-Christian religious beliefs face an additional constellation of issues on top of these. I can't imagine any of the employers here would be too accommodating of an observant Jew that wants time off for Yom Kippur, other than to the extent that federal law requires it. (And maybe not even to that extent. Employers in all 50 states sometimes employ the tack of "Yes, what we're doing is blatantly against federal employment law, but what are you going to do about it? You need us to keep your house, do you really want to risk that to raise a stink?")

In summary, were I to advise a non-Christian as to which state they should live in, I wouldn't recommend moving to Oklahoma or most of the states that border it.



* This is especially true of Massachusetts. I have, in a few places online, mentioned that I am thinking about moving to another state, and without fail someone from Massachusetts will immediately respond saying that I would be welcome there and asking me to consider it as an option. It would certainly be tempting, if I weren't concerned my southern-Californian wife would freeze to death in the winter.
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kphoger

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 30, 2022, 07:35:47 PM
I can't imagine any of the employers here would be too accommodating of an observant Jew that wants time off for Yom Kippur, other than to the extent that federal law requires it.

We used to have a field tech at my work who was a Moroccan immigrant, and he was a sort-of-non-practicing Muslim.  At that time, Cox (the market he worked in) didn't schedule appointments on Sundays, so we ran routes Monday through Saturday.  I remember that he tried rather unsuccessfully to get off work early during Ramadan, because he observed the fast during that month and wanted to get home not long after sundown to eat.  He only halfheartedly tried, but it was an awkward situation that everyone kind of knew was unfair.  But, on the other hand, our company wasn't in a position to be able to tell Cox quota to drop the number of evening appointments they could schedule, just because one of the techs at one of the contracting firms was Muslim.  No:  the routes they gave us were the routes that needed to be run.  And so, awkward it remained.

I once had a college professor who grew up in a Christian family in Kuwait–a religious minority there.  In Kuwait, the "off" day during the week is Friday.  And yet, she said, Christian students could be excused from school every Sunday for a "holiday".  Can you imagine if someone suggested that Muslims in the US be given every Friday off from school as a "holiday"?  That would never fly!

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 30, 2022, 07:35:47 PM
I'll shift here to speak about my personal experiences as a non-Christian in Oklahoma, which I would expect to be more or less the same as in Texas ...

Some of those laws do sound awfully archaic, especially the one about marriages requiring an ordained minister to be the officiant.  (By the way, I'm looking at Statute 43-7, and Section A also permits "a judge or retired judge of any court in this state" to officiate, so I'm not so sure you're correct about that one.  This is similar to Texas law, except that in Texas the minister or rabbi or judge or whatever doesn't even need to register with the state.)

Are there still public school prayers in Texas (or Oklahoma, for that matter) being led by coaches, teachers, or pastors?  I thought this wasn't a thing anymore.

Some of the issues you raised aren't specific to Christianity or being non-Christian.  Shiite Muslim doctrine forbids abortion.  Sikhism, Jainism, and the Baha'i all forbid the consumption of alcohol.  It isn't because you aren't Christian that you can't buy a bottle of schnapps on Thanksgiving or Christmas:  I, as a Christian, would be just as ticked off as you about that–perhaps even more so, because religious holidays are when I'm most likely to want to buy schnapps.  My mother is a Christian who taught for the last several years at a classical/Christian school, and she hated school prayer time too, wished she could just skip it, but felt obligated to endure it for the sake of propriety.
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CoreySamson

#5028
Quote from: kphoger on September 30, 2022, 09:09:38 PM
Are there still public school prayers in Texas (or Oklahoma, for that matter) being led by coaches, teachers, or pastors? 
I know that in Texas where I was (exurban area for context) you couldn't talk about the Bible in public schools and I'm fairly sure that school-sanctioned prayer was nonexistent. I would guess that unless one was at a Christian private school or way out in the sticks that prayer is not done at schools very much anymore.
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At some point, the topic of this thread changed from "Minor Things that Bother You"  to "Major Things that Threaten the Continued Stability of the Republic."
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Scott5114

Quote from: kphoger on September 30, 2022, 09:09:38 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 30, 2022, 07:35:47 PM
I'll shift here to speak about my personal experiences as a non-Christian in Oklahoma, which I would expect to be more or less the same as in Texas ...

Some of those laws do sound awfully archaic, especially the one about marriages requiring an ordained minister to be the officiant.  (By the way, I'm looking at Statute 43-7, and Section A also permits "a judge or retired judge of any court in this state" to officiate, so I'm not so sure you're correct about that one.  This is similar to Texas law, except that in Texas the minister or rabbi or judge or whatever doesn't even need to register with the state.)

You're probably right, but this wasn't given to me as an option whenever I inquired with the Cleveland County courthouse as to how to go about the legal process of getting married in 2016. Our original plan was to have a judge do a courthouse wedding of the type you see in TV shows and such; we were told that this was categorically not an option in Oklahoma.  (Given that Cleveland County is one of Oklahoma's more urban counties, it is sort of surprising if they were misinformed or intentionally trying to deter us from using that option. Perhaps that wasn't yet part of the law in 2016.)

The end-run we made around this process was to have a (non-Christian) friend be ordained by an online ministry for a nominal fee, and then register that ordainment at the county courthouse. The most onerous part of this process was that Cleveland County refused to accept the first copy of the certificate we presented to them because it wasn't printed on certificate paper. We had to hit up an office-supply store, reprint the certificate on fancy paper, and run it up to the courthouse the morning of the ceremony before they would finally accept it.

Quote from: kphoger on September 30, 2022, 09:09:38 PM
Are there still public school prayers in Texas (or Oklahoma, for that matter) being led by coaches, teachers, or pastors?  I thought this wasn't a thing anymore.

I don't have any interaction with the Oklahoma public school system anymore, but a pastor was leading prayers before football games as late as my senior year in 2007.

Quote from: kphoger on September 30, 2022, 09:09:38 PM
Some of the issues you raised aren't specific to Christianity or being non-Christian.  Shiite Muslim doctrine forbids abortion.  Sikhism, Jainism, and the Baha'i all forbid the consumption of alcohol.  It isn't because you aren't Christian that you can't buy a bottle of schnapps on Thanksgiving or Christmas:  I, as a Christian, would be just as ticked off as you about that–perhaps even more so, because religious holidays are when I'm most likely to want to buy schnapps.  My mother is a Christian who taught for the last several years at a classical/Christian school, and she hated school prayer time too, wished she could just skip it, but felt obligated to endure it for the sake of propriety.

Right, by all means Christians can be negatively affected by these sorts of issues as well. (And I would imagine non-Baptist Christians would likely have some problems here as well!) If a Christian liquor store owner wishes to close for Christmas on their own initiative, or if a Christian chooses to honor the holiday by not buying alcohol that day, that is their right and I don't begrudge them for it. My issue is with that being enshrined in law. I would object just as much an attempt at instituting practices enshrining any other religion's practice in law as well, because it results in the same problem that I have with that being done with Christian practices (i.e. requiring me to be bound by religious doctrine I don't subscribe to).

The key point here is that being in an overwhelming minority sucks.
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Scott5114

The fact that, when using two-digit month codes, there are more months starting with 0 than 1. So I go 9 months writing the month starting with a 0 (the entire year up to 09-30), and have to change to starting the month with a 1 at the beginning of October (on 10-01). Then by the time I get used to doing that, it's already January 1st (01-01).
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jeffandnicole

Quote from: Scott5114 on October 01, 2022, 09:33:54 AM
The fact that, when using two-digit month codes, there are more months starting with 0 than 1. So I go 9 months writing the month starting with a 0 (the entire year up to 09-30), and have to change to starting the month with a 1 at the beginning of October (on 10-01). Then by the time I get used to doing that, it's already January 1st (01-01).

Scrapping the bottom or the barrel here on what constitutes a minor thing that would bother someone.

webny99

Quote from: jeffandnicole on October 01, 2022, 10:05:57 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on October 01, 2022, 09:33:54 AM
The fact that, when using two-digit month codes, there are more months starting with 0 than 1. So I go 9 months writing the month starting with a 0 (the entire year up to 09-30), and have to change to starting the month with a 1 at the beginning of October (on 10-01). Then by the time I get used to doing that, it's already January 1st (01-01).

Scrapping the bottom or the barrel here on what constitutes a minor thing that would bother someone.

That doesn't bother me, but I do find it mildly bothersome when people omit the 0's in front and just write or type 1/1/22. I know the 0's are meaningless, but it looks oddly informal without them for some reason.

jeffandnicole

Quote from: webny99 on October 01, 2022, 11:58:52 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on October 01, 2022, 10:05:57 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on October 01, 2022, 09:33:54 AM
The fact that, when using two-digit month codes, there are more months starting with 0 than 1. So I go 9 months writing the month starting with a 0 (the entire year up to 09-30), and have to change to starting the month with a 1 at the beginning of October (on 10-01). Then by the time I get used to doing that, it's already January 1st (01-01).

Scrapping the bottom or the barrel here on what constitutes a minor thing that would bother someone.

That doesn't bother me, but I do find it mildly bothersome when people omit the 0's in front and just write or type 1/1/22. I know the 0's are meaningless, but it looks oddly informal without them for some reason.

It depends how I'm writing it.  If I'm writing it in a paragraph, then I omit the 0's.  But if I'm writing a list, then I tend to use the 0 as a placeholder to keep the list consistent.

mgk920

Quote from: jeffandnicole on October 01, 2022, 12:05:29 PM
Quote from: webny99 on October 01, 2022, 11:58:52 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on October 01, 2022, 10:05:57 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on October 01, 2022, 09:33:54 AM
The fact that, when using two-digit month codes, there are more months starting with 0 than 1. So I go 9 months writing the month starting with a 0 (the entire year up to 09-30), and have to change to starting the month with a 1 at the beginning of October (on 10-01). Then by the time I get used to doing that, it's already January 1st (01-01).

Scrapping the bottom or the barrel here on what constitutes a minor thing that would bother someone.

That doesn't bother me, but I do find it mildly bothersome when people omit the 0's in front and just write or type 1/1/22. I know the 0's are meaningless, but it looks oddly informal without them for some reason.

It depends how I'm writing it.  If I'm writing it in a paragraph, then I omit the 0's.  But if I'm writing a list, then I tend to use the 0 as a placeholder to keep the list consistent.


ell, we COULD go to using 'hex' numbers in the accepted ISO format for dates.

:nod:

Mike

7/8

Quote from: webny99 on October 01, 2022, 11:58:52 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on October 01, 2022, 10:05:57 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on October 01, 2022, 09:33:54 AM
The fact that, when using two-digit month codes, there are more months starting with 0 than 1. So I go 9 months writing the month starting with a 0 (the entire year up to 09-30), and have to change to starting the month with a 1 at the beginning of October (on 10-01). Then by the time I get used to doing that, it's already January 1st (01-01).

Scrapping the bottom or the barrel here on what constitutes a minor thing that would bother someone.

That doesn't bother me, but I do find it mildly bothersome when people omit the 0's in front and just write or type 1/1/22. I know the 0's are meaningless, but it looks oddly informal without them for some reason.

I hate when date formats aren't written as ISO8601 (YYYY-MM-DD). There's nothing worse than seeing a date like 1/2/22 and not knowing if it's January 2nd or February 1st. :angry:

J N Winkler

I also prefer to write dates in year-month-day order with zero fills, but don't follow ISO 8601 exactly in all cases--for example, when naming script run folders I typically begin with the launch date and time as YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS (no delimitation of year, month, and day number groups).  I haven't seen that many situations where there are absolutely no contextual clues that dates are day-first or month-first, even if it is something really subtle like diction, register, or dialect.
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ZLoth

Quote from: 7/8 on October 01, 2022, 01:42:57 PMI hate when date formats aren't written as ISO8601 (YYYY-MM-DD). There's nothing worse than seeing a date like 1/2/22 and not knowing if it's January 2nd or February 1st. :angry:
When I mentor a new technician, I always tell them that you write out the full name of the month, never just the number, in both your case documentation and your communications with the customer. I emphasize that 2/3/yyyy.... is that February 3rd (United States) or March 2nd? That can lead to confusion.

If I'm listing log files or data captures, I start the name as yyyy-mm-dd for sorting reasons. My screen shots are auto-named to yyyy-mm-dd hh-mm-ss format with hours in 24 hour format, not AM/PM. (I love you, ShareX, you Swiss-purpose of a free Windowsscreen capture program).
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thspfc

There are things the US does differently from the rest of the world that make little sense (i.e. imperial system, Fahrenheit), but if there's one thing we got right, it's how we write dates.

Putting the month before the day makes sense because the month adds more context than the day does - there's 12 "1sts" of the year but only one October. And putting the year last makes sense because in many situations it's not necessary to write the year, so the date can easily be shortened to just MM/DD.

GaryV

#5040
Quote from: jeffandnicole on October 01, 2022, 10:05:57 AM
Scrapping the bottom or the barrel

That bothers me. Scrapping out the bottom of a barrel would make it useless for holding anything.

kkt

#5041
Quote from: ZLoth on October 01, 2022, 02:50:44 PM
Quote from: 7/8 on October 01, 2022, 01:42:57 PMI hate when date formats aren't written as ISO8601 (YYYY-MM-DD). There's nothing worse than seeing a date like 1/2/22 and not knowing if it's January 2nd or February 1st. :angry:
When I mentor a new technician, I always tell them that you write out the full name of the month, never just the number, in both your case documentation and your communications with the customer. I emphasize that 2/3/yyyy.... is that February 3rd (United States) or March 2nd? That can lead to confusion.

If I'm listing log files or data captures, I start the name as yyyy-mm-dd for sorting reasons. My screen shots are auto-named to yyyy-mm-dd hh-mm-ss format with hours in 24 hour format, not AM/PM. (I love you, ShareX, you Swiss-purpose of a free Windowsscreen capture program).

At work and many times socially, I write date - month in three letter abbreviation - year.
Makes it clear what's going on, no matter where you're from.

And the American system is just the U.S. customary system, NOT the Imperial system.  The Imperial system was created in the 1820s after the Houses of Parliament burned destroying the reference pound from their old system of measurement.  Some of our measurements are a lot like Imperial, other (volume especially) are very different.

J N Winkler

Quote from: Scott5114 on October 01, 2022, 01:25:17 AMYou're probably right, but this wasn't given to me as an option whenever I inquired with the Cleveland County courthouse as to how to go about the legal process of getting married in 2016. Our original plan was to have a judge do a courthouse wedding of the type you see in TV shows and such; we were told that this was categorically not an option in Oklahoma.  (Given that Cleveland County is one of Oklahoma's more urban counties, it is sort of surprising if they were misinformed or intentionally trying to deter us from using that option. Perhaps that wasn't yet part of the law in 2016.)

The end-run we made around this process was to have a (non-Christian) friend be ordained by an online ministry for a nominal fee, and then register that ordainment at the county courthouse. The most onerous part of this process was that Cleveland County refused to accept the first copy of the certificate we presented to them because it wasn't printed on certificate paper. We had to hit up an office-supply store, reprint the certificate on fancy paper, and run it up to the courthouse the morning of the ceremony before they would finally accept it.

I would have thought all 50 states (and equivalent jurisdictions) in the US would have had some provision for secular marriage, since it is increasingly understood that religious freedom includes the freedom not to be of any particular religion.  (Since the Obama administration, the US ambassador for religious freedom has been required to promote the interests of the non-religious as well as religious minorities.)  However, it is surprisingly difficult to research this topic without digging up the statute book for each jurisdiction.

In Kansas, both current and retired judges can perform weddings, and the Wichita Eagle recently ran a reported obituary for a district court judge who died aged 100 after becoming known as the "Marrying Judge" for carrying out about a hundred weddings statewide after reaching mandatory retirement age (70 at the time; it is now 75).
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CNGL-Leudimin

I hate the MM/DD/YYYY date format, especially on the 12 first days of every month (It's Independence Day or my birthday?). It is unordered as well. Therefore I'll write either DD/MM/YYYY or YYYY/MM/DD. OTOH I don't have any problem with either 12 or 24 hour clock, as I speak with the former format and write with the latter (i.e. I'll write "at 19:00" but say that as "at seven").
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Well, here's one that just came up. When local news places, like NBC, don't know the difference between local state routes and US routes. There have been times where there was some kind of incident somewhere on US Route 97 here in Washington, and our local NBC station or website referred to it as SR 97. There is no local state route called Washington State Route 97! We have a local state route called Washington State Route 397, but that is totally difference! If you don't know the difference or you're just blanking, just use the generic highway route phrase. For example, Highway 97.

About 30 minutes ago, iFiber One News reported on a semi crash near Ritzville that happened earlier around 12:00 AM and mislabeled US Route 395 as SR 395. Again, there is no local state route called Washington State Route 395! If you're not sure, just say or write Highway 395.
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Bruce

Quote from: Amaury on October 01, 2022, 04:09:52 PM
Well, here's one that just came up. When local news places, like NBC, don't know the difference between local state routes and US routes. There have been times where there was some kind of incident somewhere on US Route 97 here in Washington, and our local NBC station or website referred to it as SR 97. There is no local state route called Washington State Route 97! We have a local state route called Washington State Route 397, but that is totally difference! If you don't know the difference or you're just blanking, just use the generic highway route phrase. For example, Highway 97.

About 30 minutes ago, iFiber One News reported on a semi crash near Ritzville that happened earlier around 12:00 AM and mislabeled US Route 395 as SR 395. Again, there is no local state route called Washington State Route 395! If you're not sure, just say or write Highway 395.

Technically all Interstates and US Routes in Washington are also state highways. See the RCW Chapter.

The distinction between US and state highways matters less in states that avoid overlapping numbers.

Scott5114

Quote from: thspfc on October 01, 2022, 03:11:30 PM
There are things the US does differently from the rest of the world that make little sense (i.e. imperial system, Fahrenheit), but if there's one thing we got right, it's how we write dates.

Putting the month before the day makes sense because the month adds more context than the day does - there's 12 "1sts" of the year but only one October. And putting the year last makes sense because in many situations it's not necessary to write the year, so the date can easily be shortened to just MM/DD.

There are things the US does differently from the rest of the world that make little sense (i.e. imperial system, Fahrenheit), and one of them is how we write dates. The customary way of writing dates is MM/DD/YYYY, which goes medium size unit/small size unit/large size unit, which is dumb.

My preferred date format is that specified by ISO 8601, which is 2022-10-01 (YYYY-MM-DD). This date format is instantly recognizable as what it is (no other date format puts the year first; nobody uses YYYY-DD-MM), making it unambiguous, and because the units go large-medium-small, an alphabetical sort will also sort the dates. ISO 8601 also specifies formats for dates with no year (10-01) and weeks (2022-W39).

There is really no rational argument against ISO 8601 date formats other than "I just don't want to get with the program".
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J N Winkler

Quote from: Scott5114 on October 01, 2022, 06:46:04 PM
. . . nobody uses YYYY-DD-MM . . .

(Cough) (cough) Kazakhstan (in Kazakh).
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mgk920

I use YYYY-MM-DD when writing checks.

Mike

hbelkins

Reading Scott's tale of the hoops he had to jump through to be married in Oklahoma reminds me of what used to be a frequent occurrence in Kentucky. Kentucky used to require a blood test before marriage. I don't remember when that requirement was scrapped (or scraped, if you will, in accordance with a post upthread) but before it was removed, a whole lot of Kentuckians traveled to Tennessee to get married, where no such requirement existed. The practice was so popular that a whole lot of people got married in Jellico, which sits on the border of Kentucky but is not a county seat. Quite a few marriages were also performed for Kentuckians in Harrogate, across Cumberland Gap from Middlesboro.

Here, a number of lay elected officials can perform wedding ceremonies, including judges and supreme court justices, county judges-executives, and possibly even legislators. I've seen legislators perform ceremonies, but I don't know if that's due to their elected status or if they are also ordained.

It's also not required that you be married in the county where you obtain your license, as I understand is the case in some states. Our county clerk's office is not open on Saturdays. When my wife and I got married, i worked out of town during the week and so did she, including every other Saturday. In an adjoining county, the clerk's office was open on Saturday mornings. So we went there to get our license, were married in our hometown, and then I either took the license to the clerk's office to be recorded or mailed it back to them. I can't remember which.

All of this makes me wonder if it might not have been easier for Scott and his bride to get married in another state.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.



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