How are the eras named? This will be the end of the Heisei era. I grew up in the Showa era (apparently.)
'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
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Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#22How are the eras named? This will be the end of the Heisei era. I grew up in the Showa era (apparently.)
The Japanese emperor picks a regnal name when he takes the throne, just like the Pope.
The name is actually the name of the emperor, not the name of the era. In Japan, nobody uses the emperor's birth name; they just use the regnal name. For example, nobody in Japan says "Hirohito"; they refer to him as "Emperor Showa" instead (though nobody calls Akihito "Emperor Heisei" now, because it's considered rude to refer to the living emperor by name... he's just "His Majesty, the Emperor").
Note that this wasn't the case until the 19th century. Until Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito) took the throne in 1867, the name of the emperor and the name of the era were completely decoupled, and the emperor would just arbitrarily start eras whenever he felt like it. Meiji changed all this and standardized Japan on a one-emperor, one-era system. And in 1979 (!), it actually became law.
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#23How pervasive is the Japanese calendar in computing actually? I suppose most programs calculate all dates internally using UNIX timestamps or UTC and only convert that to Japanese dates for display purposes. Anybody has any experience with this?
I don't think that's the problem; I think that's the one thing that's not a problem. Monotonic time is not that hard. The hardest thing about it is just convincing programmers to use it, and making sure your libraries use it properly. I don't want to say it's trivial, but it's not that hard once both you and your code base internalize "convert everything to internal UTC representation as quickly as possible, convert…
> tax forms that have � in the date
Just make � the official symbol of the new era :)
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#24How are the eras named? This will be the end of the Heisei era. I grew up in the Showa era (apparently.)
The Japanese emperor picks a regnal name when he takes the throne, just like the Pope. The name is actually the name of the emperor, not the name of the era. In Japan, nobody uses the emperor's birth name; they just use the regnal name. For example, nobody in Japan says "Hirohito"; they refer to him as "Emperor Showa" instead (though nobody calls Akihito "Emperor Heisei" now, because it's considered rude to refer to…
Is it generally true that, if the Emperor has to refer to himself by name, he'll use his birth name?
The one case I've seen that seems this way is that the first author of this paper on fish genetics [1] is listed as "Akihito".
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#25How pervasive is the Japanese calendar in computing actually? I suppose most programs calculate all dates internally using UNIX timestamps or UTC and only convert that to Japanese dates for display purposes. Anybody has any experience with this?
Yes, I have been doing software development in Japan for the past decade. Of course you are right that no sane person would contemplate this calendar for any purpose other than user-facing display, and even then only where it is absolutely required. But the insane WTF thing is that it does still seem to be widely required on any kind of financial document. Expense reports, salary statements, that kind of thing. All m…
Interestingly, sometimes the system is used for future dates. For instance, my drivers license expires in September of H.31, which I guess will never happen now.
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#26How are the eras named? This will be the end of the Heisei era. I grew up in the Showa era (apparently.)
The Japanese emperor picks a regnal name when he takes the throne, just like the Pope. The name is actually the name of the emperor, not the name of the era. In Japan, nobody uses the emperor's birth name; they just use the regnal name. For example, nobody in Japan says "Hirohito"; they refer to him as "Emperor Showa" instead (though nobody calls Akihito "Emperor Heisei" now, because it's considered rude to refer to…
Thanks! I knew I'd get a good explanation here. And you piqued my interest in the Meiji period - any good Japanese histories to recommend?
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#27?
" Source: Ken Whistler
Date: July 16, 2018
Background
The UTC is now working on the Unicode 12.0 release cycle. The tentative release date that I and the Editorial Committee are working towards for that release is March 5, 2018. "
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#28How pervasive is the Japanese calendar in computing actually? I suppose most programs calculate all dates internally using UNIX timestamps or UTC and only convert that to Japanese dates for display purposes. Anybody has any experience with this?
Yes, I have been doing software development in Japan for the past decade. Of course you are right that no sane person would contemplate this calendar for any purpose other than user-facing display, and even then only where it is absolutely required. But the insane WTF thing is that it does still seem to be widely required on any kind of financial document. Expense reports, salary statements, that kind of thing. All m…
Canada isn't much better re: feet, miles. Things are officially metric, but because of proximity to the US and inertia, half of everything is still standard. Buying construction supplies and consumables? All in US units. People talk about square footage of condos, buy carpet in square feet, all fasteners are in US units. But gasoline is sold by the liter. People know how tall they are in feet and inches, not cm. Everything is mixed up together.
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#29I sometimes wonder if Unix clock running out in 2038 is going to be our only hope to solve the Great IoT DDOS war of 2030s? :)
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I have been doing software development in Japan for the past decade. Of course you are right that no sane person would contemplate this calendar for any purpose other than user-facing display, and even then only where it is absolutely required. But the insane WTF thing is that it does still seem to be widely required on any kind of financial document. Expense reports, salary statements, that kind of thing. All m…
Canada isn't much better re: feet, miles. Things are officially metric, but because of proximity to the US and inertia, half of everything is still standard. Buying construction supplies and consumables? All in US units. People talk about square footage of condos, buy carpet in square feet, all fasteners are in US units. But gasoline is sold by the liter. People know how tall they are in feet and inches, not cm. Ever…
Yeah
I suppose they like using lbs and sqft as $/lb is smaller and sqft is a bigger number than sqm (and of course the inertia which I prefer calling "being lazy")
It is definitely ridiculous