My computer clock reads military time WTF?

How did this happen? I can read military time. But, I don’t like it. Why is my computer clock doing this? How can I reset it to “normal” time?

Might be a virus/malware infection
or not

You set it the same place you set your dollar sign and digit separators. If you’re on Windows, look in Control Panel | Regional and Language Options. You may even have a little box on your taskbar that controls it.

Check for malware. That’s what happened to my computer a few weeks ago.

Note that the use of times based on a 24-hour clock extends well beyond the military - for example, all of civilian Europe. It’s in many ways more logical and less prone to confusion than the 12-hour scheme.

Whilst it’s certainly more widespread over here, it’s not universal. The UK, for instance, tends to stick to the 12-hour clock.

There’s a notable exception to the almost universal use of the 24-hour clock for transport purposes in Great Britain. If you ever find yourself on Merseyside, all train and bus timetables issued by the local transport authority (Merseytravel) show a.m. and p.m. times. See here. Which confuses the hell out of the rest of us.

With all sincerity, thank you for this thread, samclem. I like military time, and have changed my computer to display in the desired format. :smiley:

ETA: The Straight Dope format is duplicitously redundant. I saw 03:48 AM a moment ago. :wink:

I uses both. I am native to am/pm, but my work (and a hobby) uses military time. So I can use both with pretty much equal facility, but I don’t want to if I don’t have to. I still prefer am/pm.

I kinda like that system in parts of Thailand where they have four separations: night, morning, afternoon, and evening. So “3 at night” is 3am, “3 in the morning” is 9am, “3 in the afternoon” is 3pm, and “3 in the evening” is 9pm. At least, so I am told. I didn’t see it when I was in Thailand.

Thanks to all who answered. I am running IE. I’m pretty good about running spybot and avg 2-3 times/week and I’m pretty savvy about avoiding bad links,etc. But, with a 15yr old/18-yr old/21-yr old also on the machine, it’s murder.

I’ve gotten rid of some bad stuff the last few months, but some residuals remain. Some of these buggers are crafty.

I use this as my systray clock, to give it some pizzazz.

I downloaded it and had some issues with it not working properly when you have the task bar set to autohide. I use this instead: AlfaClock Free Edition. It is a newer program, optimized for Windows XP, SP2. Same functionality, but more compatible.

Do we really, though? I mean, if you, as a passer-by in the street, were to ask me the time in a casual way, I’d probably say “just after ten past four” or whatever, but I generally prefer to think in the 24 hour clock, and prefer my clocks* to show time that way. And I always write down the time using the 24 hour clock. And I certainly prefer transport timetables to use the 24-hour clock, even if Merseyside does want to be different. :smiley:

  • of course, this might be partly because I’m an idiot who is capable of “setting” an alarm clock and failing to spot the little dot that tells me if it means a.m. or p.m. :smack:

Five, actually, and use is common everywhere in the country.

1-5am is tee 1, tee 2, etc.
6-11am is 6 mohng chao, 7 mohng chao, etc.
1-3pm is bai mohng (note the absence of the numeral 1), bai 2 mohng and bai 3 mohng.
4-6pm is 4 mohng yen, 5 mohng yen and 6 mohng yen.
7-11pm is 1 thum, 2 thum, etc. (This is the one that is confusing until you get used to it, because the four others above at least still use the same numbers we do. 7-11pm use 1-5.)

Plus noon and midnight are thiang and thiang kheun, respectively.

These are all only spoken, however. All signs and other writing use military time (very common) or the am/pm system of the West.

And thanks Buddha for that. :smiley:

I find the whole thing mightly confusing.

Where the hell is ‘civilian Europe’? I’d like to go there some day :slight_smile: