Partial list of my grievances

  • Dates should be displayed like this
    2002/04/23 – that is, most significant numbers to the left, least significant to the right. This change is consistent with the numbering system (100,100,001) and time display (18:30:23). In these cases the established convention is to place least significant numbers to the right and most significant to the left, in order.
  • We should do away with the silly AM/PM bs in time display. Just use what is often called military time, or 24 hour format. I.e. 5pm is more concisely represented as 17:00.
  • Fast Food Drive Through attendants need to be instructed in the proper procedure for giving change to the drive by customer. Too often, an attendant returns your bills first, laying them flat in your hand, then precariously drops the coins on top of the bills. No good. The proper procedure is to first hand you the coins. At that point you can securly grasp the coins in the palm of your hand while folding over the last three fingers, leaving your index finger and thumb to easily and securely snatch the bills.

  • 13 x 28 = 364. There should be thirteen months in a year. The extra day, the 365th one, should be December 29th. The leap day, formerly Feb 29 should also be moved to December, the 30th. All other months have 28 days. Note that 7 goes into 28 nicely, thereby providing that each date of each month would land on the same day of the week. I.e. the 2nd of each month would always be on the same day of the week for one year, say Monday. Then for the next year it would be Tuesday and so on. Nice. Only thing left is to name the new month.
  • All clocks and watches should be atomic. atomic-clocks.com Don’t buy another clock/watch that has to be set. All A/C powered clocks should have a built in rechargeable battery so that when the power goes out they keep working for a reasonable period of time.
  • I think 30 years is long enough to switch to the metric system. Lets make it happen.

Inspired by Mark Winslow’s partial list of my favorite things and the Festivus airing of grievances.