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Pi Day is a fake holiday made up by Big Math to sell more math.

@th D
Do Americans realise that most of the world identifies today as 14/3/23? (small units/medium units/big units) Apart from anything else, this allows sensible ordering by date.

@strum @th It's actually quite weird - America being as religious as it is, that they changed the format of the date.

Obviously it's the 14th day of March in the year of our lord 2023.

This weird thing Americans do - can't be made to fit this original way of defining the day of the year.

@lynn @strum @th right... But your money says "in God we trust" on it. Prisoners who are up for parole, are much less likely to be given parole if they aren't religious. And the whole mess of abortion that is going on right now, is all rooted in religion, not science.

You might not be *as religious* a country as historically, but overall, America is still a very religious country

@asjmcguire @strum @th

Yeah no. I guess it’s compared to what. And what you mean by religious.

@strum @th how would that format allow sensible ordering? (I'm not saying the American way does, of course). 2023-03-14 allows lexicographical sorting.

@strum @th I have filled out forms day/month/year because I am the same page as those who understand metric. However, yes, the U.S.A. is so indoctrinated to believe in silly antiquated religious practices it’s amazing that in any context we ever use intelligent date ordering (Federal documents), celsius (academia and medicine), or metric (scientific instruments). For a time, it seemed like we were chipping away the old imperial ways but now… #Merica #Date #Metric #Farenheit

@strum @th
I switched to using YYYY-MM-DD (ISO 8601) a few months before 1999-12-31
iso.org/iso-8601-date-and-time

It's also great for filenames.

@dec23k @strum @th 2023-03-14 is logical, useful, AND it still works for pi day!

@ndrw @dec23k @strum @th maybe it's useful for math, not for the language, because we normally say 'March, 14', not '14 March'.

@BigCaddy @dec23k @strum @th that's exactly what I wrote though? And it's useful for computers mostly. Though parts of the world really do say "14 March" when speaking.

@ndrw @BigCaddy @strum @th
There are some computer systems (including one of the most widely used control panels in Web hosting management) where monthly archives are named using the short month name, and the file manager defaults to sorting by name, so most users see this mess for every year:

Apr
Aug
Dec
Feb
Jan
Jul
Jun
Mar
May
Nov
Oct
Sep

@BigCaddy @ndrw @strum @th
In conversation or casual email, I'll keep it short and refer to just "the 14th", if March is implied or understood. Depends on the context.

@BigCaddy @ndrw @dec23k @th
I beg to differ. I (& most of the English-speaking world) would say "14th of March.

Indeed, most of the time, "it's the fourteenth" is all the information needed. The month is usually a given

@ndrw @dec23k @th
That works fine in a spreadsheet column... but...
If someone asks you for the date, do you give them the year, first? The day is the most interesting bit of information.
Most of the time "it's the fourteenth" is enough.

@th More importantly, it's not a real date if you format dates properly

@th

Delicious flavors. That's how they getcha'! 😤

@th I once grew pumpkin pi, a pumpkin that weighed 3.14kg :)

@ersei @th it's because of my TI calculator that I had for School, that I know that Pi is 3.141592654

I have in my entire 40 years on the planet, never actually needed to know the value for Pi though, and the only time I ever use it, is to tell people, that my School calculator said that this was Pi.

@th Enjoy your pi! But don't forget to observe tau day, when you get to eat two pi's, often in better weather too.

@th don't do math, not even once. you end up smoking math and your teeth fall out. It's awful.

@th that only work for the mm dd system other wise it is 14 03

@th ... and the problem with this #piday is that it goes on and on and on, ad infinitum. It's totally irrational.

@stargazersmith @th disappointingly it's on sale for 29.99. Not charging 31.41 or 31.42 (rounded up) for it is a lost opportunity. :O

@th Source? I heard that it was actually big pastry that started Pi Day as a way to write off any production and advertising expenses as educational donations… although I can’t find the article again.

@th I approve of any fake holiday whose goal is to sell pies.

@th
That's my kind of math, which is where I get destroy the whole dam problem!

@th
But it is only an approximation. I will hold off for the real thing (that will never come)

@th I like to celebrate c day (august 31 in Europe)

@th Watch out - if you go up against Big Math, you might wind up factoring polynomials in a basement somewhere.

@th yes, approximately about 3.14159... times more math

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