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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

#451

Post by behnamoh »

lolinder wrote: post #371
superjan wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It looks like there's a legend that this was the case, but January has been the first month of the year through all of recorded history, and Julius Caesar's version was no different. EDIT: Because there's a lot of confusion in several replies I thought I'd clarify: February was the second month in Julius Caesar's calendar. Romans in the Republic describe the month as being at some point the last month in the calendar…

As a Persian, I always found the Gregorian calendar weird. In Iran and some other countries, Jalali calendar is used which is much more straightforward:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalali_calendar

   The Iranian calendar (also known as Persian calendar or the Jalaali Calendar) 
   is a solar calendar currently used in Iran and Afghanistan. It is 
   observation-based, rather than rule-based, beginning each year on the vernal 
   equinox as precisely determined by astronomical observations from Tehran.
There are 12 months. The first 6 have 31 days and the rest have 30 days, except the last month which is 29 days. Every 4 years, it's a leap year and the last month becomes also 30 days.

It's also precisely set to follow seasons. For example, the first day of Fall is actually the first day of "Mehr" (the 7th month). For some reason, the Gregorian calendar has it on Sep. 22.

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

#452

Post by rsynnott »

octobus2021 wrote: post #205
NorwegianDude wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That was my point, if the workweek in US is Monday through Friday, and US weekend is Saturday and Sunday, there's NO REASON WHATSOEVER to call Sunday "the first day of the week"...

The five day workweek is a fairly new thing (early to mid 20th century); the day numbering thing is much older.

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

#453

Post by enedil »

Ensorceled wrote: post #426
gerdesj wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different people see humour in different ways or even not at all. Do I really need to spell it out?

No, but maybe I do … Don’t yuck someone’s yum. Let people enjoy things. Don’t rain on the parade.

I believe that it is in spirit of this website that you are encouraged to explain poorness of a joke, if you find it poor. After all, if it inspires curiosity what's the issue?

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

#454

Post by kgwgk »

lolinder wrote: post #410
Jap2-0 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article seems to state the opposite?

> In the oldest Roman calendar, which the Romans believed to have been instituted by their legendary founder Romulus, March was the first month, and the calendar year had only ten months in all. Ianuarius and Februarius were supposed to have been added by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, originally at the end of the year. It is unclear when the Romans reset the course of the year so that January and February…

Maybe Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November and December were the seventh, eight, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth months of the year through all of the “recorded Roman history”. But it seems well accepted that they were once the fifth, sixth, seventh, eight, ninth and tenth months of the year.

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

#455

Post by choko »

Why would we assume that alien visitors don't also have convuluted time measurement systems? It's seems likely any alien civilization would have followed a similar development trajectory as humans and would therefore also retain some anachronistic practices well into technological advancement.

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

#456

Post by dawsmik »

Thorentis wrote: post #366
_k9eq wrote: post #154

I find the implication that aliens are rational and have no subrational concepts due to tradition and habit interesting, as it sort of implies that these kinds of outgrowths are not necessary and can just be done away with. The narrator starts from a position of not wanting to legitimize or historicize beyond reductive statements like "some ancient civilization did XYZ". I'll admit that I skimmed through the last par…

Yeah, often people leap to "aliens" being some higher intelligence than us who will judge our poor sub-optimal decisions. Though to me it seems more likely that any life we encounter is more likely to be less intelligent, if intelligent at all.

If Aliens find us, it seems reasonable they would be smarter/more advanced.

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

#457

Post by econ101time »

This is how a 12 year old internet atheist sees the world. Advanced alien species is just a stand-in for the know-it-all author. Grow up. These things all have good historical reasons. And you don't turn society upside down just to get some nice parsimony in the calendar. We have a system that works and is remarkably accurate. Changing it would upset millions of social customs, accounting systems, computer systems, etc. The cost is unfathomable really. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

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

#459

Post by enedil »

forinti wrote: post #329
fimdomeio wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Portuguese name weekdays by numbers ex Monday, Segunda-feira (Second Market), but I don't think anyone assumes Sunday as the first day. And I leave the "market" for someone who still didn't have enough of this rabbit hole.

Russian is similar to Portuguese, albeit off by one. Monday = Segunda (second) = понедельник (start of the week) Tuesday = Terça (third) = вторник (second) Wednesday = Quarta (fourth) = среда (middle) Thursday = Quinta (fifth) = Четверг (fourth) Friday = Sexta (sixth) = пятница (fifth) So I guess Russians have no doubt as to when the week starts.

Well, in Polish, Monday is poniedziałek, which means "after Sunday" (Sunday is "niedziela") and not "start of the week" and it looks analogous in Russian...

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

#460

Post by rvba »

The author also does not mention that there is no year 0.

So when Jesus was born, he was 0 years old, but it was already year 1. When Jesus was 20 it was allready year 21. Ignoring discussions if Jesus existed or not... lack of year zero is illogical.

Maybe they did it to not have year minus zero? Which also should be there tbh.

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