My wife has bought a few of these for significant dates as gifts:
A 26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight (2019)
61–70 of 124 posts
Re: A 26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight (2019)
#62[flagged]
> Just, stop.
Why do you mind what others do?
> A leading zero does not unambiguously say "there are no implied nonzero digits to the left of this zero".
Nor does it anywhere say that it means that or that it should mean that. To me the the leading zero in front of 1931 means “Do you think a thousand year is long? Think on a longer scale.” It is a vibe.
> Or is that the usual truncation of 101931, since most relevant dates are in this decamillennium?
The sentients of 101931 won’t be confused because they will know that 01931 refers to our time. Simply from all the context clues acrued. Such as the fact that the document was written in HTML (an archaic markup format rarely used past 8470 as any historicaly inclined sentient of that age would know) and found saved on an SD—card in the backpack of an astronaut who crash landed on the far side of the moon in 2457. Same as you don’t get confused about which milenia a roman public inscription unearthed in Pompei refers to.
Re: A 26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight (2019)
#63[flagged]
> Leading zeros don't do what you think they do
It's has been pretty normal for clocks with digital displays to include leading zeros for seconds, minutes, hours and/or days for about a century. Doing the same for years, while unusual, doesn't seem particularly confusing. And of course, there is precedent with things like ISO86011 - where 0400 is the year 400 CE.
I'm not sure why one would assume it was a truncation of 101931. That doesn't really make much sense. The first decamillennium digit started at 0, just like the first millennium digit started at 0. 101931 would be 99,905 years in the future.
> how people say 03 when they mean 2003
Making people think beyond that form of casual shorthand (even omitting the apostrophe which would indicate the omission!) is sort of the point? Never mind that 03 doesn't necessarily mean 2003.
Re: A 26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight (2019)
#643.82
plein d’impressement: a series of cordialities
Re: A 26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight (2019)
#65[flagged]
> Just, stop. Why do you mind what others do? > A leading zero does not unambiguously say "there are no implied nonzero digits to the left of this zero". Nor does it anywhere say that it means that or that it should mean that. To me the the leading zero in front of 1931 means “Do you think a thousand year is long? Think on a longer scale.” It is a vibe. > Or is that the usual truncation of 101931, since most relevant…
> The sentients of 101931 won’t be confused because they will know that 01931 refers to our time.
They may well be confused, because by then this silly "long now" stuff will be long since forgotten.
Re: A 26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight (2019)
#66But is the star map there? This article seems to imply that it got demolished in 2022: https://www.oskarjwhansen.org/news/save-the-star-map If so that is somewhat ironic. A message intended to communicate a date to thousands of years into the future got demolished a mere 86 years after its creation due to a drainage issue and a contract dispute.
I'd have to look at what it looked like before, but when I visited there earlier this month, I didn't see any restoration in progress and the star map was open. I didn't take a ton of photos in that area, and here are the only two of the monument I grabbed: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qgJ3x5za82EiFz5P7
From my cursory web searches, your photos may be the first online evidence that the restoration project was indeed completed.
Re: A 26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight (2019)
#67> Having this one fixed point in the sky is the foundation of all celestial navigation. Only in the northern hemisphere.
Not even in the northern hemisphere. Celestial navigation is about shooting altitudes for known bright stars. At least three ideally five. This could include Polaris, but it doesn't need to. Source: watched some old training videos about celestial navigation after reading Fate is the Hunter a while back.
Re: A 26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight (2019)
#68During DEF CON XX, I got bored/overwhelmed (it was not my first year attending) — so I decided to rent a car and visit Hoover Dam (this was before the bypass bridge was completed). I drove through the desert 100mph+, in my own little HST jaunt, searching for nothing but concrete's high water mark . The statues in OP's article are absolutely beautiful examples of Art Deco / 1930s Americana (my local post office was bu…
Heh, a group of friends and I also visited the Hoover Dam while we were in Vegas for DEF CON one year. Was a really cool experience for sure.
Re: A 26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight (2019)
#69> Marking in the terrazzo floor of Monument Plaza showing the location of Vega, which will be our North Star in roughly 12,000 years. (Photo by Alexander Rose) I wonder if some content creator 12K years from now will transport to Earth and stream the North Star from this position for likes/views. If that's even a thing then...
> transport to Earth
They’ll almost certainly still be on Earth. Fundamental physics is unlikely to change in the next 12,000 years.
Re: A 26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight (2019)
#70Haha, I clicked without reading the URL. Then I read the "01931" in the text, immediately looked at the URL and of course it was longnow.org. Brought a smile to my face.
I find it a bit silly. When we refer to 70 CE or 500 CE we don’t add zeros in front.