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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

#171

Post by timbit42 »

octobus2021 wrote: post #164
Swenrekcah wrote: post #157

Very entertaining read. The earthling says at one point (for comedic effect probably) that they don’t know why people used to like to count in dozens. I didn’t understand myself until someone explained to me that it makes dividing pay between a group of workers much easier. You pay 12 coins for a job, very simple to divide between a team of two, three, four, six or twelve.

Yep, one of the reasons US construction industry sticks to feet and inches instead of using decimal system.

The decimal system should have been the dozenal system but good luck getting people to switch from decimal to dozenal.

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

#172

Post by bombcar »

plebianRube wrote: post #111
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 in crontab. First index in the array, 0.

Sunday is the last day of the week in crontab.

Last index in the array, 7.

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

#173

Post by autophagian »

MayeulC wrote: post #155
autophagian wrote: post #85

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.

Ooh, that's interesting. Did you use decimal time as well?

I gave it an honest try, but I found it much harder to adapt to than the calendar. I could just about do head-conversion for dates between Gregorian and Revolutionary calendars for things like appointments, but found it much harder to do it for both dates and time. I still have a love for the system, though.

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

#175

Post by bombcar »

ethanbond wrote: post #123
988747 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, since Saturday and Sunday are called "weekEND", so it logically follows that Monday is a "week start". Most people think about it like this: Monday is a start of a new work-week, and then you get two days of rest at the end of the week.

But there are two ends of any line, one on each side. Not two ends, both of which are on the same side.

Exactly. A sausage has two ends, the beginning end and the end end, and so shall the week

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

#176

Post by ISL »

Yhippa wrote: post #95
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.

It's not obvious why a new system is needed. UTC, TAI, or unix-time are sufficient.

The primary defect I see in the SIT proposal is that it isn't obviously based on the SI, but rather tied to the Earth. Defining a new unit that is 86.4 seconds long feels troublesome for everyone.

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

#177

Post by walrus01 »

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #86
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.

This is along the same general idea as the Persian/Farsi day names, you've got Jummah which is the western Friday (Islamic day of rest), then the rest of the days are named shanbe, yakshanbe, doshanbe, sehshanbe, and so on.

shanbe = day (first day of the week after Jummah)

yak = one

do = two

seh = three

Literally just day one, day two, day three.

You count upwards in day number until you reach six, then it's Jummah again and it resets.

The city of Dushanbe, Tajikistan being part of the historical extent of the Persian empire and language is literally just named second day.

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

#178

Post by wl »

DemocracyFTW2 wrote: post #46
ecshafer wrote: post #9

This would be better written in a short story format but I digress. This is precisely the type of thing that would probably happen in almost any society. There are many standards that pop up that are vestiges of one thing or another. The fact we get base 60 from Sumeria but use Base 12 or Base 24 for hours is not a big deal, weird things happen. I doubt any advanced alien would be just so flabbergasted over this. We…

the historical record of someone named Jesus existing isn't debated by any historical scholar It is debated by people like Richard Carrier https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEB&search_query=richard... who says that (IIRC) while it's not unlikely that one or several people with similar messages preached in Judea 2000 years ago, the Jesus of the Bible looks like a literary invention when you go back to all the earlie…

Richard Carrier is a crank who somehow got popular among New Atheists who didn’t know any better. His work enjoys no support in academia.

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

#179

Post by dathinab »

philsnow wrote: post #68

Don't tell the aliens about the missing 12 days in 1752: https://www.augustachronicle.com/story/lifestyle/columns/201...

It's not just days, there is a whole time period of a bunch of years where its not fully clear if they did exist or where skipped. I just forgot when.

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

#180

Post by bluecalm »

function_seven wrote: post #148
bluecalm wrote: post #45

I always thought it would make sense to have 52 weeks (364 days) and then a special New Years day and then repeat 52 weeks. This way every year is the same. It's always the same day of the week on April's 13th. No moving holidays. Easier to plan. No adjusting schedules. No problem with leap seconds/days (just as them to the special day whenever). It just seems like a simple and superior solution. What were those guys…

I’ve always loved that idea. So did Kodak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar

It's a bit different though. I think the are reasons for 12 months, 7 days per week, 3 months quarters etc. My version keeps it all and avoids points in "disadvantages" section of the Wikipedia article.
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