Earlier quoted context omitted.
> everyone agrees Not everyone, Israel has has Friday and Saturday off.
Is Sunday a work day in Israel?
Usually, yes.
Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
871–880 of 1001 posts
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#872I 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…
At the end of the story they isolate us from them and prevent us from reaching the stars, I don't think the implication is that this is just due to the weird calendar system. I think its more than that, our inability to rid ourselves from our tradition and religious heritage has more profound implications. We don't look at things rationally and make decisions to improve ourselves. The aliens may have gone through sim…
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Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#873At least we all agree that as one week is 7 days, when we say we'll meet in two weeks, that'll be in 14 days. Right, guys? Oh no... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quinze_jours
This is just a word, which although originally means "fifteen days", it is actually used for "two weeks". The same thing happens in Spanish with "quincena" (which, confusingly, could also mean "fifteen days" or "half a month", at which point hilarity ensues).
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#874Earlier 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.
On a side note, it's not 100% clear (to me, at least) that the word for Monday (ponedelnik) means "per week" or anything about the week per se. In Russian the word for week is "nedelya", so "ponedelnik" does seem to naturally tie into that. But the word for Sunday in Russian is "voskresenie" (literally means resurrection). Notice this! Every religious word used in non-religious context is suspicious! If we examine Bu…
This is correct, "nedelya" (no-work) is the common Slavic word for Sunday. The Russian variant is a more recent invention.
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#875Earlier quoted context omitted.
> all sorts of different clothes' size standards surely can be replaced by one that would actually make sense Like, imagine if those sizes were equal to some actual body part measurements (or the garment's dimensions itself, whatever) in millimetres/centimetres?
only expensive clothes have reproducible sizes. You can test this yourself. Go pick out 3 different levis jeans that are the same size that ought fit you, in different colors but the same cut. They will all fit slightly differently. Expensive clothes that are meant to be altered will usually have better tolerances, at least in my experience. this is one of the main reasons i refuse to buy any clothing intended to be…
I have a hard time finding clothes that fit due to being way out on the edge of standard sizing. I have found this similar inconsistency, e.g. I’ll find something I like in my size, order one of each color, and invariably one or two out of four items (that should be roughly identical) will be an 1.5-2 inches out of spec in a way that makes a huge difference (like waist, or inseam, or sleeve length).
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#876Earlier quoted context omitted.
That actually works pretty well and has worked well for thousands of years for what it was designed to do. The calendar should not necessarily follow the local climate of every region, as that can vary each year and throughout the time. They had to fix a reference point for seasons, and they have chosen the Equinox. This is a sensible reference point (see refs). But also it could be anything else as long as it's meas…
Calendar seasons are mainly used to talk about the weather. Using Equinox as a fixed reference point is not any more precise than using meteorological convention wrt thermal seasons.
Here is what Equinox means and how it's related to weather in general https://www.weather.gov/lmk/seasons
> Using Equinox as a fixed reference point and a is not any more precise than using meteorological convention wrt thermal seasons
Well, no. What meteorological convention? That's a pretty broad term. We are talking about calendars, not a general weather forecast system, as I was comparing Persian calendar with other calendars.
With Equinox, you get a good indication of weather conditions for a wide geography while having a precise reference point to design a calendar which can be used for other equally important purposes.
P.S. While I was thinking about what you wrote, I wondered how these things were argued and arranged in ancient times and what did they think or say considering what they had to come up with affects a significant portion of the civilized world and trade between nations.
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#877Earlier quoted context omitted.
> all sorts of different clothes' size standards surely can be replaced by one that would actually make sense Like, imagine if those sizes were equal to some actual body part measurements (or the garment's dimensions itself, whatever) in millimetres/centimetres?
only expensive clothes have reproducible sizes. You can test this yourself. Go pick out 3 different levis jeans that are the same size that ought fit you, in different colors but the same cut. They will all fit slightly differently. Expensive clothes that are meant to be altered will usually have better tolerances, at least in my experience. this is one of the main reasons i refuse to buy any clothing intended to be…
I know that the tolerances are quote large; but I've personally have experience with 27 size shoes being slightly larger than 29 size shoes from a different brand which is ridiculous IMHO. Those numbers don't mean anything, they differ not only from brand to brand, but from batch to batch even for the same maker, so I don't even know how people manage to buy clothes over Internet: the listed sizes in my experience at best serve as a starting point, then you just try pieces on until you find something that actually fits you.
Which is exactly why I ask for sizes to be garment's actual sizes, not some made up fairy numbers (and don't even get me started on X+S|S|M|L|X+L markings).
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#878Earlier quoted context omitted.
only expensive clothes have reproducible sizes. You can test this yourself. Go pick out 3 different levis jeans that are the same size that ought fit you, in different colors but the same cut. They will all fit slightly differently. Expensive clothes that are meant to be altered will usually have better tolerances, at least in my experience. this is one of the main reasons i refuse to buy any clothing intended to be…
I have a hard time finding clothes that fit due to being way out on the edge of standard sizing. I have found this similar inconsistency, e.g. I’ll find something I like in my size, order one of each color, and invariably one or two out of four items (that should be roughly identical) will be an 1.5-2 inches out of spec in a way that makes a huge difference (like waist, or inseam, or sleeve length).
Well, you can try to order several copies of a piece at once and return those that don't fit... that is, if your market platform allows that. The ones over here recently have started charge a not insignificant amount of money for returns.
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#879Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Don’t forget to point out the absurd arbitrariness the kilo part. Base ten number systems are just as arbitrary as the rest of this stuff we’re mocking.
"Kilo-" as a prefix just means thousand, derived from Greek.
Doesn’t seem arbitrary to me. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Of course, all number systems are arbitrary in a sense.
Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar
#880So, for comparison - in Poland we use - 24 hour clock - days of the week are called "after not working day", "second day", "middle day", "fourth day", "fifth day", "sabbath", "not working day" - months are mostly named from the agricultural/weather phenomena "wood cutting month", "strong cold month", "Mars month", "flowers month", "Mai month", "red pigment larvae month", "linden trees month", "sickle month", "heather…
So you have the day before "seventh day" be called "fifth day"?
Week starts on Monday.