Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python • Hacker News Board

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#31

Post by jberryman » Sat, Apr 19, 2014, 12:50 AM UTC

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #24

chinpokomon wrote: post #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 uneve…

> 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. It seems like that would complicate the business practice of dividing your fiscal year into quarters. I guess each quarter would be 3 months + 1 week but then you don't have quarters starting/ending evenly with months.

Solution: everyone takes the extra month off.

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#32

Post by jerf » Sat, Apr 19, 2014, 12:52 AM UTC

chinpokomon wrote: post #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 uneve…

A fun read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#.22Weeks.22_in_other_calen...

In general, I can't imagine what month reform could be done that would be worth the pain of switching. Computers are doing all the hard calculations now. While calendars throw programmers for a loop sometimes, what really nails programmers (and therefore computers) are timezones and all the screwy things we do with seconds. Changing calendars is orthogonal to those problems, and the possibility of real reform on that front is more likely, since the costs/benefits work out more pleasingly.

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#33

Post by ecma » Sat, Apr 19, 2014, 12:57 AM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #30

With all this talk about universal basic incomes and automation taking away jobs, etc etc, there really might be something to the idea of switching to 73 5-day weeks. I wouldn't be in support of taking away Saturday and Sunday ;) but a 3-day workweek of W-F followed by a weekend of Saturday and Sunday could have real possibilities!

Automation doesn't preclude the need for high levels of human productivity, especially in a knowledge industry based society. Having a 60% productivity (admittedly soft and cultural) limit for the week would be a more significant change than if we were to do 4-1 weeks instead of 5-2 (71.4%). 4-1 seems like it could be a perfectly reasonable way of doing things for a lot of hackers, maybe not for everyone though.

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#34

Post by dfc » Sat, Apr 19, 2014, 12:58 AM UTC

  > Comte set year 1 of his new calendar as the first year of the
  > truly modern age: 1789, the first year of the Great Crisis.

For me 1789 is the first year of the Great Constitutional Ratification. I did a quick google search for "great crisis" and came up empty. Google seems to be convinced that when I type "great crisis" I am looking for "Great Depression." What is the Great Crisis?

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#35

Post by JelteF » Sat, Apr 19, 2014, 1:02 AM UTC

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #24

chinpokomon wrote: post #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 uneve…

> 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. It seems like that would complicate the business practice of dividing your fiscal year into quarters. I guess each quarter would be 3 months + 1 week but then you don't have quarters starting/ending evenly with months.

Quarters are broken now as well. Currently the quarters aren't actually quarters. Since the months that are in them aren't all the same length.

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#36

Post by dfc » Sat, Apr 19, 2014, 1:04 AM UTC

jkdearden wrote: post #16

toyg wrote: post #12

It's sad to see that, in what we all consider to be an "enlightened" age for science and rationality, the calendar problem is considered a de-facto taboo, something that will never be changed. It's such an obvious legacy hack, it should be refactored with a modern and proper design, but the API is so popular that breaking it would generate unbearable amounts of stop-energy. I wish we could have a wrapper or something…

It's analogous to the current situation with the metric and imperial unit systems - yes, it would make sense to switch away from imperial units, but it would require many people to fundamentally change how they think about distance, volume, speed, etc. (or time, in the case of the calendar). Although in that case, we sort of have a wrapper, in that many labels list both types of units, but I tend to just look at the…

I do not know how analogous this is to metric standardization. Everyone using metric seems to produce some very clear and concrete gains.

I like to think we (americans) are standing on principle and refusing to accept the metric system on the basis of semantic consistency: an SI base unit should not contain a prefix.

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#37

Post by userbinator » Sat, Apr 19, 2014, 1:06 AM UTC

munificent wrote: post #15

maxerickson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years and days are both reasonable periods to track and while some other system of tracking which day we are on is easy to imagine, the current system doesn't deserve to be called hard to deal with (it's 2 numbers...).

> the current system doesn't deserve to be called hard to deal with OK, then tell me what day of the week May 4th, 2054 will be.

Weekdays shift by 1 every year (365 mod 7 = 1), and once more every leap year (366 mod 7 = 2). May 4, 2014 is Sunday. In 40 years there will be 10 extra leap years so the total shift is 50 mod 7 = 1, so May 4, 2054 is a Monday.

Not so hard, is it?

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#38

Post by ecma » Sat, Apr 19, 2014, 1:06 AM UTC

dfc wrote: post #34

> Comte set year 1 of his new calendar as the first year of the > truly modern age: 1789, the first year of the Great Crisis. For me 1789 is the first year of the Great Constitutional Ratification. I did a quick google search for "great crisis" and came up empty. Google seems to be convinced that when I type "great crisis" I am looking for "Great Depression." What is the Great Crisis?

It might be referring to la Grande Peur[0] (the Great Fear) which was the panic reaponse to the initial rebellions at the beginning of the French Revolution.

[0] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fear

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#39

Post by userbinator » Sat, Apr 19, 2014, 1:20 AM UTC

crux wrote: post #19

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #17

We need to be able to timestamp stuff still, right? If the 28th of Bichat is 2014-13-28 and the 1st of Moses is 2015-01-01 , how do we timestamp those "uncharted" festival days? Would they just be 2014-13-29 (and 2014-13-30 on leap year) but just not have a day of week name?

Good question. In the library, intercalary days are just their own month. So it would just be 2015-14-1.

In other words, there's actually a 14 month that either contains 1 or 2 days, both of which have no weekday associated with them?

I don't see how it would make things much easier, especially for timestamps in various date formats and date-input fields.

Re: Posical, the Positivist Calendar for Python

#40

Post by lsh » Sat, Apr 19, 2014, 1:20 AM UTC

tylerneylon wrote: post #22

Another mathematically elegant calendar is the 7date: http://tylerneylon.com/a/7date_spec/

I really like the 7date notation with the base-7 notation counting the weeks down, but the 7month with the remaining 22/23 days of the year are still a kludge. With a 13 month calendar those remaining 1/2 days are neatly packaged and disposed of as "festival days". Harder to deal with 22/23 tailing days.