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Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

blog.zdsmith.com

1–10 of 77 posts

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#2
> Finally it is perennial, in that the weekdays of every year are always the same.

No, the epagomenal/intercalary days would change this from year to year. The weekdays would be the same from month to month within a given year, of course (assuming the extra day doesn't fall somewhere in the middle).

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#3

> Finally it is perennial, in that the weekdays of every year are always the same. No, the epagomenal/intercalary days would change this from year to year. The weekdays would be the same from month to month within a given year, of course (assuming the extra day doesn't fall somewhere in the middle).

According to the great and wise Wikipidia,

>This extra day added to the last month was outside of the days of the week cycle, and so the first of a month was always a Monday. On leap years, an additional festival day (also outside the week cycle), to celebrate holy women, would join the memorial day of the dead.

Which to me reads that the extra day/s are not one of the 7 weekdays. Hence these days would fall between a Sunday and Monday, but would not be refereed to by any of our current weekday names. So, each year there would be the forth Sunday of Bichat, followed by the The Festival of All the Dead epagomenal day, followed by the first Monday of Moses.

edited out some typos

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#5
The article fails to make the distinction between lunar and solar calender. It's just about dividing the solar year to equal months, but we also want to make the month align with the moon, which circles earth for 29.5 days on average. The big problem with the Gregorian calendar, in my opinion is that it so clearly missed the lunar month. it just feels intolerably close, but not quite there...

by the way, no need to invent a new calendar. the Hebrew calendar is both solar and lunar.

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#6

> Finally it is perennial, in that the weekdays of every year are always the same. No, the epagomenal/intercalary days would change this from year to year. The weekdays would be the same from month to month within a given year, of course (assuming the extra day doesn't fall somewhere in the middle).

According to the great and wise Wikipidia, >This extra day added to the last month was outside of the days of the week cycle, and so the first of a month was always a Monday. On leap years, an additional festival day (also outside the week cycle), to celebrate holy women, would join the memorial day of the dead. Which to me reads that the extra day/s are not one of the 7 weekdays. Hence these days would fall between…

You know, I just really like the idea of leap days not being called anything. It sort of reminds me of the Egyptian mythology. Something-something-something, why doesn't the year have 360 days like degrees in a circle, blah blah blah, so here's some fake days to get around Ra and have your babies by another man. It's like metaphysical hackers.

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#7
post #5

The article fails to make the distinction between lunar and solar calender. It's just about dividing the solar year to equal months, but we also want to make the month align with the moon, which circles earth for 29.5 days on average. The big problem with the Gregorian calendar, in my opinion is that it so clearly missed the lunar month. it just feels intolerably close, but not quite there... by the way, no need to i…

I suspect the authors intention here was to present a simplified calendar with some nice guarantees (e.g. dates matching days), not a lunisolar alternative. The Positivist calendar ignores the lunar cycle to reduce complexity that others have in spades, including both the Gregorian and the Hebrew calendars.

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#8
post #4

Inserting a day between the regular weekdays once a year sounds pretty dangerous to me. I bet there are a lot of things that need to happen weekly that would quickly go out of whack if they are delayed a day.

I think we would need to be more precise about our measures of lifetime for some things (recent e.g. would be MH370's black box battery life rating) but the idea of measure lifetime with days since an event is already used quite widely (I rarely heard the phrase 2 weeks since that event) and could be adjusted to without much difficulty.

Financial and similar institutions would likely treat the festival day(s) as they do any long weekend at the moment. Pay cycles could be adjusted with end of year 'bonus' to cover out of cycle days.

I'm sure there's something but we've dealt with quirky calendars for a long time so really we're just attacking the same problem that we currently have with 30 day fixed cycles.

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#9

> Finally it is perennial, in that the weekdays of every year are always the same. No, the epagomenal/intercalary days would change this from year to year. The weekdays would be the same from month to month within a given year, of course (assuming the extra day doesn't fall somewhere in the middle).

According to the great and wise Wikipidia, >This extra day added to the last month was outside of the days of the week cycle, and so the first of a month was always a Monday. On leap years, an additional festival day (also outside the week cycle), to celebrate holy women, would join the memorial day of the dead. Which to me reads that the extra day/s are not one of the 7 weekdays. Hence these days would fall between…

Oh, great. Extra Mondays. "Festival of the Dead" is a pretty good name for that idea.

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#10
I've been a proponent of this reform for a while. Strangely on my way into work this morning I was trying to figure out why a week is 7 days and not some other division. I thought maybe it was religious, but I now think it has more to do with lunar cycles being close to 28 days and that predating any religious foundation.

12 months has the benefit of dividing the seasons into 3 month quarters. However having an uneven number of days per month and with the solstices and equinoxes falling somewhat haphazardly on the calendar, this doesn't seem like a good reason to stick with the current system.

As long as we're redesigning the calendar system, I think the solstice and the equinox should fall in the middle of a season with the Winter Solstice effectively marking the start of the calendar year as a holiday. The leap day could be the day that proceeds that, effectively being used as a day to mark the end of the year. Seasons would then define periods of similar daylight.

The only reasons not to adopt this sort of calendar are ceremonial. Having a 13 month calendar simplifies so much from financial calculations to having consistent day of week/month boundaries that I can't see any real down sides.

I have no idea how to promote widespread adoption of a new calendar, but it is something I've thought about a lot.

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