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

Post by irrational » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 9:11 PM UTC

Post by detaro » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #197

Someone wrote: post #7

> "At the start of the year?" > "nah. The end of the second month" > "WHY WOULD IT BE THE SECOND MONTH?" Because leap day is at the end of the year, but at some time we moved the start of the year two months back (same reason why September through December now are the ninth through twelfth month of the year, not the seventh through tenth) (Historically, I think it was slightly different. February, the last month of t…

He didn't mention LEAP-SECONDS which are at THE END OF THE YEAR.

Post by avgcorrection » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 9:13 PM UTC

kevinmchugh wrote: post #195

EdwardDiego wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The "above six foot" rule seems like it's just a round number, but in the US at least: * height is normally distributed for men. * The average height of a man is 5'9". * The standard deviation for men's height is 3". So six foot is one standard deviation above average. I am sure one or more of the above does not hold for NZ. I just think this is neat, that the commonly stated preference happens to be for one standard…

Post by FastEatSlow » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

retrac wrote: post #110

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…

> Per my knowledge US is the only country which stubbornly (and illogically) considers Sunday to be the first day of the week /Officially/ almost everyone has standardized on ISO 8601 where Monday = 1 and Sunday = 7. But unofficially, not really. The week is still popularly understood to start on Sunday in English Canada, and probably some other parts of the English-speaking world. A quick check of Wikipedia suggests…

Post by avgcorrection » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

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.