Slashdot Mirror
New Calendar Proposal
belg4mit writes "An astronomy professor at Johns Hopkins is pushing for
the adoption of a new, static, calendar. The
press release is written better than his site
but a little short on details.
Interestingly he claims this should be easy to implement and points at the hoops coders must jump through for the Gregorian calendar." Nobody is taking my 10 hour day plan seriously either.
So view here instead.
Another proposal along the same lines
a r. html
http://world.std.com/~swmcd/steven/rants/calend
It doesn't break the 7 Day Week. All it really is a 364 Day Year. And every 5-6 Years therre is an extra week. So It will not mess wih their Sabbath.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
google cache
J.R.R. Tolkein had a perpetual calendar for the Evles and Hobbits. They were outlined in some of the appendicies. Of course, there were only six days in a week, and some days fell outside of months.
I have left looking for me. If you encounter me before I do, stop me until I arrive at myself...
Swatch recently tried to market something like this. Unfortunately, their site is flash, but go to here and search for ".beat". The idea was based on 1000 "beats" per day, all starting at 0 in Zurich, if I remember correctly (rather than Greenwich). Interesting idea to keep everybody synchronized, but not helpful if you want to know what time lunch is.
for you all who're having trouble getting to the actual info page, here it is.
To give you some inside information, the guy behind this idea is kind of a crackpot -- he's a guy who has lots of weird thoughts, but hasn't exactly done much serious research in a while.
And that's why although this may make a good press release, any professional astronomer (or even amateur) knows why we have the calendar we do -- so that each year, the calendar days you are familiar with correspond to approximately where the stars lie in the sky, and the weather season, etc. Ie. every September, the vernal equinox coincides with the rising parallel, the length of the day, etc. etc. Leap days are the way to distribute the extra 1/4 of a day per year into a reasonable interval (once every 4 years).
This scheme of having one calendar with a leap "week" is just another way of shifting around the leap days, and is exactly what an astronomer would NOT want! And his rationale for not having to print different calendars is obviated by having to remember that leap "weeks" occur in years 2015, 2020, 2026, 2032, 2037, 2043, etc...
The current calendar gives some consistency and familiarity -- you can predict how long the day is, what stars are in the sky (within a day or so b/c leap days), and approximately if you're going to need a heavy jacket to go outside in the cold. Under this crackpot new calendar, you have to recompute all these things based on what year it is. Crackpot.
That's stupid.
For more information on calendar reform in general check Calendar Reform. I'm partial to the World Calendar.
Software Wars
The Bible clearly makes the Sabbath the last day of the week, but does not share how that corresponds to our 7 day week. Yet through extra-biblical sources it is possible to determine that the Sabbath at the time of Christ corresponds to our current 'Saturday.' Therefore it is common Jewish and Christian practice to regard Sunday as the first day of the week (as is also evident from the Portuguese names for the week days). However, the fact that, for example, Russian uses the name "second" for Tuesday, indicates that some nations regard Monday as the first day.
In international standard ISO-8601 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has decreed that Monday shall be the first day of the week.
So, actually, it depends rather on you (your beliefs) and how the people from your country choose to go ... BTW, here's a helpfull link to discover who choose what :)
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
You mean this isn't a good response?
... born on the fourth of July!) "
"Aww....you've spotted the big defect in the new calendar. Isn't it terrible? And what about kiddies that are born in Newton week? When is their birthday, in non-Newton years? (Actually, I suggest that such folk should all consider themselves to be
(emphasis mine)
Semi-Seriously, a standard for 10 hour days does exist.
Unfortinuely the Wikipedia articles have been edited such that they point back and forth to each other. This version from the history is better.
- Jax
Wouldn't that be kilograms? ;)
The metric system has a unit of measure called the ton as well, so no.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Actually:
Fourth
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to The Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days The Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
This calendar is much more in line with the world I want to live in.
The main shortcoming is of course the 10 day week, something that could be overcome by simple division into 5 day weeks.
The best feature is the 5-6 day party at the end. Screw Chrismahanakwanzaka, lets just have a 5 day party.
We've been overdue for the annual Timecube reference on Slashdot.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The Shire Calendar also has every day be the same day of the week each day, but in it every month is 30 days long, not just some of them, and the extra days are feast days on the solstices. Partying is built right in to the calendar!
Say what you want about Hobbits, but they knew the value of making drinking and eating a regular part of one's daily activities. And since they had so many kids, one might conclude that their after hours party activities included a few less bucolic things as well.
Hindu is likely older- certainly has older than 6000 year scriptures. And it's widely practiced.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's", or some such, I suspect. As I recall he didn't much care to be boxed in by contrived dilemmas.