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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

#91

Post by walrus01 »

This gets even more complicated when you introduce dealing with foreign countries that actually don't follow the western calendar system. Such as the standard Persian calendar months and years. Also, did you know that the arabic Islamic calendar dates and the persian calendar dates don't agree? Because the traditional calendar dating back to the maximum geograhpical extent of the Persian empire is solar based, while the standard Islamic calendar is entirely lunar based.

And the persian calendar is solar based and the year resets on Nowruz (new years day) around the spring equinox, but the practiced holidays are based on the lunar islamic months? But also some holidays like Nowruz are observed based on the solar date.

This means you've got Nowruz occuring on approximately the same time in the weather season every year, while relative to the western calendar, notable holidays like Eid al-fitr and Eid al-adha and the start of Ramadan etc move backwards in calendar date approxiamtely 10 or 11 days per year. Some years Ramadan might occur in the middle of winter and much later on it will be in the middle of summer.

This series of tweets doesn't even begin to get into the possible opportunities for confusion when working between three different calendar systems... And western countries where the standard work week is M-F but others where Friday is the day of rest and people work on a 6-day work week on a persian or arabic islamic calendar, but some companies give their employees a two day weekend so they're off on Friday and Saturday, but the local timezone equivalent of Sunday is definitely a normal workday... I could go on.

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

#92

Post by googlryas »

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…

I'd love to hear the logic of why Monday should be the first day of the week.

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

#94

Post by giantrobot »

The Earth is in an elliptical orbit around the Sun and rotates on its axis at a ratio of roughly 365.25:1. The axial tilt of the planet is such that the northern and southern hemispheres have varying seasons at different portions of the orbit and those seasons materially affect the life of most of the larger animals on the surface.

There's not many intuitive ways to break that up unless you use a base365.25 number system.

Calendars can definitely be weird but they're working around non-integer natural ratios.

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

#95

Post by Yhippa »

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…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time

I believe the old Sega Dreamcast used this as its standard time in the menu system. Maybe that was for the online service. I would love to move to something like that permanently. Little ambiguity as to when people could meet across time zones.

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

#96

Post by vlunkr »

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.

The author mentions this as well. I don’t know how I’ve never connected those dots.

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

#97

Post by renewiltord »

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #54
vsnf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

I don't get it.

Your flight leaves at 23 and arrives at 26. (11 PM to 2 AM next day)

Your return flight leaves at 2 and arrives at 11. (2 AM to 11 AM that same day)

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

#99

Post by mod »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #70
kevinmchugh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's very strange that the English measure their weight in stone and pounds and their beer in pints.

In NZ, all legal weights and measures are metric, yet for some stubbornly cultural reason we still tend to discuss height in feet and inches (ladies on dating apps who are discriminating on height will specify that you need to be 6 foot, not 183cm) the weight of a newborn baby in pounds (but only for newborn babies!), and order our beer in pints, which generally means "a large glass of beer somewhere between 400 and…

"Pint" varies in the US as well, when ordering a beer. You're just gonna get whatever glass they have.

They'll probably tell you if they know it's not a true pint, but I expect most bartenders have no idea.

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

#100

Post by myth2018 »

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…

> however 12h _sometimes_ is used conversationally;

That happens in Portuguese (brazilian, at least). Digital clocks go through 0-23 hours, but the second half is _sometimes_ named as 1-11 afternoon/night (whatever fits your taste). Hour 0 is never referred to as 12, though: it's always 0 or "half night"

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