Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

611–620 of 1001 posts

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

#611

Post by tsimionescu »

nodja wrote: post #502
retrac wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> A quick check of Wikipedia suggests Arabic, Portuguese and Vietnamese, all use number-based systems to name the days of the week, and they are indexed from Sunday = 1. But yes, the other is more common. Most of the Slavic languages, and Chinese, among others, use indexed from Monday = 1. For portuguese the name being number based has nothing to do with when the week starts, portugal is historically a very christian…

All Christian denominations agree with the Jewish ones: God rested on the seventh day - The Sabbath, or Saturday. Jesus was then resurrected on the day after the Sabbath, the first day of the Jewish week, which became the Lord's Day in many European languages (Domenica, Domingo, Duminică etc). It was quickly understood as a non-working day, a day of religious celebration, but it was still the first day of the week.

Now, since Jesus and his resurrection are much more important in Christianity than the creation of the world, the Sabbath began losing its importance, and so renumbering the week started making sense, but was a contentious religious and political issue for a long time. Of course, having two rest days, and one of them being based on Jewish customs in a quite anti-semitic medieval Europe, played a part as well in wanting to change things.

I'm relatively sure that the Portuguese week day names are based on the original Jewish week.

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

#612

Post by Dylan16807 »

narag wrote: post #133
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…

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…

> Months are related to Moon's orbit, weeks to its phases.

But in a way that doesn't work right.

> 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 Romans used to go to war in the Spring.

Yes? That's a mess and that's basically what the tweets said. They didn't mention the emperors but that makes it even messier. I'm not sure what you're arguing there. There's no "perfectly understandable" reason for having some gods some emperors and some wrong numbers.

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

#613

Post by NoRagrets »

I..like many Hindus..follow the lunisolar calender that is based on both the lunar and the solar movements. I have two calenders that run my life..Hindu Panchang that runs in my head for home(mostly based on the moon cycle) and the Gregorian one for the outside world.

My life revolves around the Panchang only and following the Gregorian calender is just like learning to use English as the language for communication. It’s something I have to do to assimilate.

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

Fun fact: (because I like trivia) Nikola Tesla was born July 10, 1856(Gregorian calender), but when he was born, his birth record says June 28, 1856 as Serbia was following Julian calender at that time.

Elon Musk who is known for his company, Tesla Motors was also born on a June 28, Gregorian calender. This random almost-coincidence tickles me for some reason.

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

#614

Post by ivlad »

nrvn wrote: post #391

wrt calendars there is one curious rational alternative. 13 months, 28 days each. Year day in the end not belonging to any month, leap day every leap year in the middle of the summer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar

Quarterly planning is hard with 13 months

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

#615

Post by tsimionescu »

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.

Note that this off-by-one is exactly the difference between Jewish/Biblical-based weeks, where the Sabbath is clearly the last day of the week (based on Genesis, the day when God rested), and more "revisionist" Jesus Christy-based weeks, where the day that Christ was resurrected is considered more important than the Sabbath and takes its place as the end of the week.

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

#616

Post by Dylan16807 »

shakezula wrote: post #168
retrac wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Sunday = 1 Animals. Absolutely barbaric. Everybody knows we should index lists starting at 0. /s

Well by struct tm, Sunday is 0. And months start at 0. And the day of the month starts at 1!

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

#617

Post by the_af »

hunter2_ wrote: post #336
pantojax45 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s still ambiguity in verbal language. On Sunday, if someone messages you “let’s do this next week” - do they mean “in the next 6 days” or “after 7 days from now”?

"Next" has terrible ambiguity, beyond the phrase "next week." If it's Monday and someone says "next Thursday" do they mean the coming Thursday (+3) or the one after that (+10)? I assume the latter, except when it's said by people who I know disagree! But even with people I don't put in that category, I'd hesitate to assume +13 days if they said "next Sunday" on Monday. More likely they mean +6 when it's so far out...

Tell me about it. My wife and I cannot agree on the meaning of "next" for almost anything, and we are Spanish speakers.

For example, when driving, to her "turn at the next corner" means "the corner after the next", while to me it means "the corner the car is about to cross". What I call "the next corner" to her is "this corner".

Same with days, of course.

It drives me crazy!

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

#618

Post by the_af »

hunter2_ wrote: post #428
mynameisvlad wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Next Thursday” vs “next week Thursday”. The former, for me, means +3 and the latter +10. I don’t think there’s ever been a time when someone I know has said the former but implied +10. Interesting to see so many people here who do interpret it that way.

In my area it's fairly common to say, for example, "X happens every Thursday. Do you want to go this Thursday or next Thursday?" which is equivalent to +3 versus +10.

Same with my wife; she tells apart "this Thursday" and "next Thursday" in exactly the way you describe. I don't. Predictably, all sorts of confusions ensue.

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

#619

Post by jes5199 »

db48x wrote: post #596

The Qeng Ho in Deepness in the Sky had the right idea. They traveled from planet to planet in STL ships, and counted time purely in seconds. They had to account for relativity, but nothing else. A short task might take a kilosecond (about 16 minutes), a watch schedule might plan for activities covering a megasecond (close enough to a month for you and me), while a gigasecond is a good chunk of your life (32 years). "…

ah yes, "seconds", the "second minúte part of an hour", i.e. 1/60th of 1/60th of 1/24th of the average time it takes the Earth to rotate towards Sol. very sensible default.

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

#620

Post by jelliclesfarm »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #520
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…

just because something has historical reasons does mean it makes sence today. There is no reason for the Moon to have any place in a modern calendar. You already have 2 values: year and day, and they do not divide nicely. But they serve a practical purpose in a modern society, so we have to deal with them. The moon does not, but adds a third factor.

I disagree. Moon is the closest celestial body to earth and we have historically been able to make very accurate observations and calculations based on its orbit and waxing and waning phases.
Post reply on HN