Date and Time or Time and Date

As I was waking up this morning, I was thinking about writing a blog. It has been awhile since I last wrote one and I searched my brain for a topic. I could write about the weekend, the kids or recent trips I have taken. I began writing the blog with no clear topic in mind. I tackled what I call the housekeeping first - the updating of dates, history and lists. One of my favourite chores of blog writing is up dating the section on This Date in History. I use Wikipedia and cross reference it with the NY Times to verify. So here I was reading along the wikipedia section on 28 April and see the following entry:

1902 - Using the ISO 8601 standard Year Zero definition for the Gregorian calendar preceded by the Julian calendar, the one billionth minute since the start of January 1, Year Zero occurred at 10:40 AM on this date.

Huh? No clue on this end! What did this mean? Of course I followed the link to ISO 8601. Who knew that there were people who standardized time and date. Here was something to write about - however small a topic it may seem.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) set the international standard for date and time representations. One of the problems I encounter with being bi-lingual (speaking American and English) is the date. It is often confusing to figure out the numerical date. Here in England the date is 28 April and in the USA the date is April 28, so it can be 28/04/08 or 4/28/08. Today is easy because you know that the number 28 is too large to be a month!

A notation like 01/02/03 could mean 1 February 2003 or 2 January 2003. I can usually figure it out but it gets confusing trying to remember who uses what notation system. Someone has the wrong end of the stick again and needs to get with the program!

ISO 8601 is a standard with a view to achieving one simple, logical and coherent format for all dates, times, and periods of time requiring to be represented so their website states. I appreciate time. I never seem to have enough of it or I am wasting it away. I hate wearing a watch. Jeff time is a whole other blog. Ok, I am with the ISO on standardization;now if they could add more hours to the day.