Goodnight

[Mark]

It is now 12:20 P.M. TubeNet will be closing in ten minutes and will reopen tomorrow morning, 8:00 A.M. E.D.T.

Are you serious? You want to close at 20 minutes after noon?

You're on Sammamish-ish time, Mark.

No, 12:20 P.M. is twenty minutes after noon.

[bort]

Joe's right. AM means before noon, and PM means after noon. Noon (or midnight) is neither before nor after itself, so noon is just noon.

This is why you will never see a flight, train, etc. scheduled for exactly noon or midnight. They always pick 11:59 AM or 12:01 PM (or vice versa) to avoid confusion.

Why we can't just use the metric system and 24-hour time like so many other countries I'll never understand...

[tbn.al]

A quote from my favorite online dictionary.
"While computers and digital clocks display "12:00 a.m." and "12:00 p.m." these notations provide no clear and unambiguous way to distinguish between midnight and noon. It is actually improper to use "a.m." and "p.m." when referring to 12:00. The abbreviation a.m. stands for ante meridiem (or before the meridian) and p.m. stands for post meridiem (or after the meridian), with the meridian being 12:00 noon. For this reason, neither abbreviation is correct for noon or midnight.[4] The length of the error is determined by the smallest unit of time: 12:00:01 p.m. would be correctly notated, as would even 12:00:00.00001 pm."
This may be the first time in the history of tubenet that Joe and Wade have been on the opposite side of a question, and both wrong.

[tubeast]

Hm. In our world, digital clocks jump from 23:59 to 0:00.
No problems here.

[ShoelessWes]

Hm. In our world, digital clocks jump from 23:59 to 0:00.
No problems here.

You also have the metric system. If it wasn't for marmite/vegemite, I think you guys might be onto something down there.

[ShoelessWes]

Hm. In our world, digital clocks jump from 23:59 to 0:00.
No problems here.

You also have the metric system. If it wasn't for marmite/vegemite, I think you guys might be onto something down there.

Austria, not Australia.

Haha, you just got to laugh.

END OF DISCUSSION. (inside joke)

[bort]