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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

#181

Post by NorwegianDude »

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…

Legit question. What is a weekend in the US? Is a weekend in the US Friday - Saturday?

Most places consider the week to end with Sunday and the weekend is usually considered to be from after work on Friday(or technically Saturday) until Monday starts.

But when an American says "right over the weekend", do they mean Sunday, since the US week starts on Sunday? Or does the week actually start on Monday as in most places?

I'm from this planet, and even I am confused with all of us, but especially with Americans.

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

#182

Post by superjan »

comeonbro wrote: post #170

I didn't appreciate until recently that the calendar we live by today was personally designed by Julius Caesar. Like not by some forgotten technocrats incidentally during his time, but Julius Caesar himself as a subject matter expert, as a side-project. With consultation, certainly, but by his initiative, from long-standing engagement with the problem in one of his early jobs from long before he was a main character…

And in that calender, February is the last month, which makes it the logical month for adjusting leap years.

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

#184

Post by bombcar »

mod wrote: post #77
edflsafoiewq wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it.

I think: If a coffee shop opens at 5am, they say that. They never say 29. If a bar stays open UNTIL 5am, they say 29.

Yep, and this makes it clear that they are NOT open Sunday because Saturday closes at 29 and there are no hours listed for Sunday.

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

#185

Post by ghaff »

Symbiote wrote: post #89
ghaff wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s just not a word in everyday speech.

A quart is the easy one. It’s just a slightly smaller version of a liter. And it’s not like the UK doesn’t use pints which are just half of a slightly larger quart.

I’m sure there’s lots of language including unrelated to measurement which differs across the Anglosphere.

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

#187

Post by sethhochberg »

NorwegianDude wrote: post #181
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…

Legit question. What is a weekend in the US? Is a weekend in the US Friday - Saturday? Most places consider the week to end with Sunday and the weekend is usually considered to be from after work on Friday(or technically Saturday) until Monday starts. But when an American says "right over the weekend", do they mean Sunday, since the US week starts on Sunday? Or does the week actually start on Monday as in most places…

“Weekend” in the US typically refers to Saturday / Sunday.

Monday through Friday is the workweek.

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

#188

Post by decremental »

Ensorceled wrote: post #167
narag wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I didn't find it funny, maybe because it ignores the reasons of the inconsistencies, that by the way are perfectly understandable looking at space. Months are related to Moon's orbit, weeks to its phases. Months have other gods's names: Janus, Phoebe, Mars, Aphrodite, Maya, Juno... Julius and Augustus were emperors and from that point are just numerals, starting at March. It was associated with Mars because…

Quoted post unavailable.

It was fine with me. Learned something.

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

#189

Post by kuroikyu »

layer8 wrote: post #145
kklisura wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to hear the logic of why Monday should NOT be the first day of the week.

Because then the middle of the week is Thursday instead of Wednesday. ;)

Easy to solve: Thursday is the middle of the week, Wednesday is the middle of the workweek.

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

#190

Post by dathinab »

ozim wrote: post #56

Consistency is for small minds. I expect aliens to have much broader issues with time keeping. Rotations of different galaxies? Weird alien rulers imposing their names like "X Æ A-12" for 3rd rotation even if 12 is in the name. Having video calls scheduling is hard between Earth time zones - good luck scheduling video call between two galaxies.

The bigger the problems you have to handle at scale the more annoying are small, fully unnecessary inconsistencies in the peaces which compose the system in which your problems exist.

Big things have failed due to small overlooked inconsistencies in handling date times.

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