You didn't by any chance buy your computer in Berlin?

Nope, in fact this is one of the few I have actually bought in Scandinavia. However, it is set to English UK (not US) for all OS settings but the actual layout of the keyboard (and € as default currency). This one even has a combined, physical, Scandinavian keyboard that displays how the Danes got the Ø and Æ mixed up. I share your frustration, moving a couple of keys really messes up everything. For a long period I was used to the French keyboard, but that only works if you have a separate numeric keyboard as the French have yet to figure out the numeric row on top. What I really hate, is when I work on French keyboards and have to type long hidden passwords with tons of special characters. Yes I touch type, but with endless special characters... A mess.

Anyway, I suspect your AM/PM problem is somewhere in Java/MacOS. Maybe possible to fix, but I would not know.

..is 12:01 AM one minute past noon, or one minute midnight?

12:01 AM is most certainly just after midnight - as 12:01 PM means: "hungry, time to go for lunch". It is the 12:00 which is confusing. Your mnemonic-tool: AM = "After Midnight" is kind of confusing, though, when AM means before noon.

As for the superiority of the 24 hour system, I fully agree. But then, I am against DST too. In fact, standardised time zones only came into play to get the train tables right - and I kind of think we could all be better off using UTC in an international world. Ever tried to schedule an international phone-conference? On the other hand, Danish counting from 50 to 99 requires linguistic and mathematical skills which makes AM/PM and time zones easy in comparison... [:)]

ok