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Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

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Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#81

Post by Swizec »

vsnf wrote: post #26
daedalus2027 wrote: post #16

I saw when i was in Japan a various billboards marking a 25 hour service I thought it was some kind of mistake but apparently they call 1 am the hour 25...I think I saw it in Okinawa

It’s more than just 25, they often go to 29, to indicate 5am. They do this to make it clear that it is an overnight service starting in one calendar day and terminating in another. It’s not just a simple substitute for “1 am”.

Back when I was a night owl, I considered “today” to last until about 5am when you start hearing birds outside. Aligning semantic days with your schedule is incredibly convenient.

Now that I’m a morning person, the same concept of 5am semantic days still works perfectly. The day begins about 20min before my alarm.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#82

Post by Ekaros »

rocqua wrote: post #59
adventured wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always amused by the fantasy that aliens are more likely to be rational and have far less convoluted systems than we do. It's some manner of borderline religious, faith-based notion about the assumed nature of aliens. People seem to get quite upset if you intrude on their fantasy about what aliens must surely be like (not like us, far better than us; humans are the primitive dredge of the universe basically). Des…

There is one defining difference between us, and aliens that visit earth. They managed interstellar travel, we did not. That inherently puts them at an advantage to us. Definitely a technological advantage. Hence it makes sense to assume (with medium confidence) that such aliens will be better at science than us. Assuming that they will therefore be more rational than us is not much of a leap.

I don't want to actually even imagine what sort of hell an proper interstellar empire timekeeping is. Just ignore different planets having different orbital and rotational characteristic.

Just the basic relativistic effects even with some type of instant transfers would make most communication and so on massively painful mess.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#83

Post by drexlspivey »

mro_name wrote: post #49
dragontamer wrote: post #29

October, for Octogon, meaning the 8th month, is the 10th month. And Dec for 10 meaning December is the 12th Month. Going by the Roman system, March is the 1st month bu we've decided to make it the 3rd month today and offset everything else.

septem, octo, novem, decimus is latin for the numbers 7, 8, 9, 10.

epta, octo, ennea, deca is greek for 7, 8, 9, 10

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#85

Post by autophagian »

For a few years I lived my life rigorously to the beat of the french revolutionary calendar - i was very enamoured by its consistent month partitioning, and dumping the leap day at the end of the year's festival days. The major downside is that the months were named after French seasonal characteristics, which... doesn't really work.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#86

Post by edflsafoiewq »

octobus2021 wrote: post #63

This is absolutely hilarious, and despite being long form, fits Twitter format very well, with each chunk funnier than the last :) A few notes: - Per my knowledge US is the only country which stubbornly (and illogically) considers Sunday to be the first day of the week; - US (and maybe one or two English-speaking countries) are the only ones using 12h time, the rest of the world uses 24hrs, however 12h _sometimes_ is…

In Hebrew the weekdays are named "First", "Second", etc. making "Shabbat" ie Saturday, the last day of the week.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#87

Post by pjerem »

wongarsu wrote: post #52
naniwaduni wrote: post #36

For what it's worth, leap day is at the "end" of a year. It's just a year that starts in March—an assumption shared with several other odd properties of this calendar.

This is why September, October, November and December are named after the numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10: they are the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th month if you start the year in March, like we used to.

wow.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#89

Post by Symbiote »

ghaff wrote: post #47
petesergeant wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The look on an American's face when you describe something as being "a fortnight away"

Not sure what that has to do with calendars. Fortnight is just one of many measurements that aren't used a lot in the US (among other places) these days so I wouldn't expect the average person on the street to immediately recognize what it means. There are a ton of imperial measurements that aren't widely used like pecks, bushels, rods, etc. (I'd also avoid terminology like bi-monthly and semi-monthly as it's a predi…

Everyone in Britain knows what a fortnight is, and the word is in normal use.

We are confused when TSA staff in the US talk about quart bags.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#90

Post by _glass »

octobus2021 wrote: post #63

This is absolutely hilarious, and despite being long form, fits Twitter format very well, with each chunk funnier than the last :) A few notes: - Per my knowledge US is the only country which stubbornly (and illogically) considers Sunday to be the first day of the week; - US (and maybe one or two English-speaking countries) are the only ones using 12h time, the rest of the world uses 24hrs, however 12h _sometimes_ is…

- Sunday is the first day of the week (even by name, literally the first day) in Israel/Hebrew.

- In Germany we use the 12h format in day to day conversation

- Swatch time was so cool when I was a teenager

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