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Yes, the ISO 8601 standard is both human-readable and machine-readable. This dual readability is one of the reasons why ISO 8601 is so widely adopted.

Key features that make ISO 8601 machine-readable:

1. Consistent Length: Dates and times in ISO 8601 have a consistent structure, which makes parsing straightforward for computers. For example, a date in the format YYYY-MM-DD always has four digits for the year, two digits for the month, and two digits for the day.

2. Unambiguous: The standard avoids ambiguities that can arise from different regional date formats. For example, "2017-03-10" is unambiguously March 10, 2017, unlike "03/10/2017," which could be interpreted as either March 10 or October 3, depending on the regional convention.

3. Sortable: When dates are written in the YYYY-MM-DD format, they can be sorted lexicographically (as strings) and still be in chronological order. This simplifies operations like sorting records by date.

4. Time Representation: ISO 8601 also standardizes the representation of time, including hours, minutes, seconds, and time zones. For example, "2023-05-15T13:45:30Z" represents 1:45:30 PM UTC on May 15, 2023.

5. Combined Date and Time: The standard allows combining date and time in a single string, which is useful for timestamping. For example, "2023-05-15T13:45:30" combines date and time in a clear and unambiguous manner.

Example of ISO 8601 Date and Time:
- Date Only: 2023-05-15
- Date and Time: 2023-05-15T13:45:30
- Date, Time, and Time Zone: 2023-05-15T13:45:30Z (UTC time) or 2023-05-15T13:45:30+02:00 (specific time zone)

These features make ISO 8601 an ideal standard for both human readability and machine processing, facilitating data exchange, storage, and interoperability across different systems and applications.