Today is June 20, 2006, or by some date formats 20-06-2006, or 20062006. A few weeks ago, it was 6-06-2006. No matter what date format you use, 6-6-6 is the same … June 6, 2006.
A pet peeve of mine is date formats that allow ambiguity. When you see 02/05/2006, what do you think it’s trying to say? Is it February 5th or May 2nd?
I know that the american system is mm-dd-yyyy. This has never made sense to me. Wouldn’t you want it to be in order of smallest time period to largest time period? If so, it would be dd-mm-yyyy. Maybe it’s because that’s how we say it … “June twentieth, two thousand and six”, and not “twenty june two thousand and six”.
As is often the case, I have a solution! If everyone just went to dd-mmm-yyyy notation, we would abolish ambiguity, there is a unique, accepted 3-letter abbreviation for all 12 months, and we could see an increase in productivity throughout the english speaking world in excess of 0.0006%. Today would be 20-Jun-2006. Do your part and make the switch today!
If we can resolve this one, it leaves only one grand problem for humanity to tackle before utopia is achieved: changerooms.
If the logic behind separate changerooms for the genders is that you want to avoid being seen in your birthday suit by the segment of the population who may find you attractive, then our 2 changeroom system is woefully out of date. Today’s world is filled with people of various sexual preferences, including preference for the same gender.
The solution to this is both simple and elegant: one changeroom for everyone. The 4 changeroom system doesn’t work – I’ve run the numbers. It turns into an infinite changeroom scenario, because once you separate into 2 genders, and further separate one of those genders into their gender preference, then you consider the group who prefers their own gender. They all can’t be in the same changeroom! They each end up needing their own individual changeroom. And that’s pretty tough for facility planners to take into account if you ask me. Do you follow?
So where do we go from here? We have the solution to the last great problem facing humanity! Well, you can help! Every time you see a gender indicator on a changeroom or washroom, take out an appropriately colored marker and turn it into an aardvark. Once we’ve reached critical mass with enough aardvarks, confusion will briefly reign. After confusion, acceptance. And after acceptance, rejoicement! All changerooms will be open to all people, and this tyranny will finally have come to an end. I’ve included a life-sized, photo-realistic image of an aardvark I have in my possession below for your reference. Feel free to print it out and carry it around in your wallet.
And then we’ll have to deal with the pants. Why does everyone wear pants … why aren’t shorts good enough all the … (drones off into the distance)
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mark - ooh… good rant. I hate that date BS too.
I’m not sure if I’m on-board for the aardvarkism of our current changeroom conundrum. I’ll give it some thought, though.
Gary - I think Dan needs something to do at work, seriously. I accepted the Ebay auction and attributed it to Dan’s quirkiness but back to back posts like this can’t be a coincidence.
dan - Entrapment! Entrapment! I will not play into your hands, imposter-Gary, agent of my employer. Fie!
You’ll not find any discussion of my work on this blog. See http://www.dooce.com for an example of a person who’s blogging about her annoying co-workers and bouts of Motivation Deprivation Disorder (MDD) cost her her job.