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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

#621

Post by the_af »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #386
pitaj wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kind of ambiguity is everywhere, though. If it's Friday, and I say "next Monday", those two days are close enough that you may need clarification - do I mean "this coming Monday" or "the Monday after that". Or another example for day 1 = Monday, if on Sunday I said "let's do that next week", you may need the same form of clarification.

I don’t see any ambiguity in “next Monday”. It literally is saying the next day which is Monday. “Next week” on a Sunday is ambiguous because some people consider the new week to have started while others consider it to start the next day.

> I don’t see any ambiguity in “next Monday”. It literally is saying the next day which is Monday.

But when communicating with other people, it matters what they understand. And I've come across enough people who don't use "next Monday" like that to understand the word "next" means trouble.

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

#622

Post by shadowofneptune »

ISL wrote: post #176
Yhippa wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't see what makes the second less tied to the Earth than the day. The SI system is for scientific purposes, it doesn't have units important for civil purposes like liters. If you were to completely redefine civil timekeeping (good luck!), the day feels like a better unit to focus on.

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

#623

Post by anjbe »

tsimionescu wrote: post #615
forinti wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While the majority of Christians meet on Sunday and consider it the “new” Sabbath or the fulfillment of the Sabbath, in commemoration of Jesus’s resurrection, how does that relate to restructuring the week so Sunday is the last day? The Bible is clear that Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath.

Matthew 28:1 (NIV): “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.”

Mark 16:1–2 (NIV): “When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb…”

Luke 24:1 (NIV): “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.”

John 20:1 (NIV): “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb…”

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

#624

Post by fomine3 »

Morgawr wrote: post #539
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; Just adding to the rest of the responses but Japan also has a very... contrived relationship with what counts as "the beginning of the week" and most people would say Sunday is that day.

N=1: No, Monday is that day and I believe I'm majority, despite many Japanese calendars are beginning with Sunday

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

#625

Post by db48x »

jes5199 wrote: post #619
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.

No, they obviously use the modern definition based on cesium clocks, or some equivalent. In fact, they set up long–term interplanetary communication systems so that any civilization which had fallen and rediscovered radio could learn their language and units, so customer civilizations mostly used the same definition of a second even though their day/night cycle might be completely different.

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

#626

Post by el-salvador »

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;

Where I live we are taught that Monday is the first day of the week, yet most calendars start on Sunday. It's the sort of question you ask your teachers at school and nobody knows how to answer.

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

#627

Post by jelliclesfarm »

Terretta wrote: post #609
octobus2021 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"...

No reason other than some 6000-7000 years of record keeping by Hebrews, tracking the 7th day.

The Hebrew calendar kept changing as they moved and adapted the calendar designed by the ruler of the lands.

Hebrew words for the week came from Akkadian and sabbath itself can be traced back to the Babylonian loan word for fifteen..mistaken as seven. šabattu is the 15th day of the month, the time of the full moon Vs “sebūtu“ was the 7th day of the lunar quarter.

The Akkadians had no concept of ‘week’. They simply followed the moon. Starting with the new moon, first quarter, second quarter and third quarter. Their festivals were based on the 1, 7 etc and 15 day with the 15th day being observed as the bright full moon.

It must have been from the Babylonians that the Hebrews adopted the 7 day week because they had seen them celebrate the 7th day, “sebūtu“. Altho they probably chose the word for the 15th day/full moon of Babylonian šabattu as it’s closer to Hebrew ‘sabbot’ and their word for ‘rest’. Post exile Hebrews took this to create the Hebrew calender and created sabbot as the 7th day of rest.

The Babylonians celebrated 1, 7, 21 and 28th day after new moon as the beginning of each quarter. Hebrews simply took each quarter to be a slice of time instead of differentiating between the four quarters between two new moons.

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

#628

Post by tsimionescu »

anjbe wrote: post #623
tsimionescu wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While the majority of Christians meet on Sunday and consider it the “new” Sabbath or the fulfillment of the Sabbath, in commemoration of Jesus’s resurrection, how does that relate to restructuring the week so Sunday is the last day? The Bible is clear that Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath. Matthew 28:1 (NIV): “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary M…

I believe, though am not sure, that once Christians stopped observing the Jewish Sabbath and instead resting on the Lord's day, it also became natural to consider it the end of their week, instead of the beginning.

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

#629

Post by anjbe »

tsimionescu wrote: post #628
anjbe wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the majority of Christians meet on Sunday and consider it the “new” Sabbath or the fulfillment of the Sabbath, in commemoration of Jesus’s resurrection, how does that relate to restructuring the week so Sunday is the last day? The Bible is clear that Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath. Matthew 28:1 (NIV): “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary M…

I believe, though am not sure, that once Christians stopped observing the Jewish Sabbath and instead resting on the Lord's day, it also became natural to consider it the end of their week, instead of the beginning.

Then why does the US, a very young culture compared to Europe, universally consider Sunday the first day of the week? Calling Sunday the seventh day must be a very recent development.

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

#630

Post by krick »

This is a boring way to respond to a post that obviously tries to be funny, but I don't find it funny. There's nothing special about Gregorian calendar. It is shit and unorganized just like hundreds of other things that are shit and unorganized, and would make life easier if we could replace them with something better (which already exists, or very realistically can be designed) via absolutely massive organizational effort. Gregorian calendar can be replaced by French Republican calendar (or one similar to that), imperial unit system can be replaced by metric, all sorts of different clothes' size standards surely can be replaced by one that would actually make sense. There are hundreds of things like that, you encounter them every day. Calendar and units are just some that everyone knows.

To me there's nothing funny about this. This is just sad and annoying, and slightly demoralizing, since it's so simple to fix, yet absolutely impossible to fix by yourself.

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