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The Death and Life of the 13-Month Calendar

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Re: The Death and Life of the 13-Month Calendar

#41

Post by redblacktree »

jeffasinger wrote: post #37
estel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't some companies already run salary in thirteen four week periods? I've worked at at least one that did.

I'm not 100% sure, but in the US, this is relatively rare, as it's required in most situations to be paid at least 2 times per month. I think all but 5 states have laws dictating pay frequency, and in most cases they require at least two times a month pay frequency. The most popular pay schedules tend to be 24, 26, and 52 times per year. EDIT: This was supposed to be a reply to redblacktree. State law examples: - htt…

> it's required in most situations to be paid at least 2 times per month.

Where did you get this? I have a friend who's paid monthly at his salaried software engineering gig.

Re: The Death and Life of the 13-Month Calendar

#42

Post by redblacktree »

estel wrote: post #28
latortuga wrote: post #7

This would complicate anything that is paid for monthly, including but not limited to: employee salaries, rent/mortgage, subscriptions, utilities, etc. Do we just ignore Sol for those purposes or roll it into another month? Having your birthday perpetually on a wednesday would also not be so much fun. Perhaps "year day" could shift every year forward by 1 week day - year day could be Monday and then Jan 1 of the next…

Don't some companies already run salary in thirteen four week periods? I've worked at at least one that did.

Not 13, but I am paid in 26 two-week periods.

Re: The Death and Life of the 13-Month Calendar

#43

Post by logfromblammo »

frogpelt wrote: post #35

In addition to the 13 month calendar, I wish the year started in March or April. The beginning of Spring* makes more sense for a new year than the middle of winter. *I realize this is only true in the northern hemisphere, but 90% of the world's population lives in the Northern Hemisphere. The other 10% can start their year in the Fall.

Given that the northward equinox is relevant to astronomy and geographic reference frames, I have also had occasions to wish that not only would the year start at that instant, but also that it be considered day 0 of the new year, rather than day 1.

Re: The Death and Life of the 13-Month Calendar

#45

Post by aetherson »

ijk wrote: post #14
hasenj wrote: post #4

Why do we even have a 7-day week? 7 and 28 are just as arbitrary as 12. Why do we even have a solar year? If the year was 100 days, we could have a whole year of summer.

Except that the year is based on the solar orbit, which has some quite obvious effects via the axial tilt causing seasons. The month is based on the lunar orbits, which are a bit more arbitrary now and less important with an urban rather than agricultural economy, but still not completely arbitrary. Weeks are a bit arbitrary, as far as we can tell, but very widespread and we seem to be stuck with them.

I'm always blown away by people who don't understand weeks.

A lunar month is 28 days.

There are few divisors of 28. 2, 4, 7, and 14 are the only ones. 28 days is too long for convenience if it's your shortest grouping of days. 2 days is too short. So, 4x7 or 7x4. Having 7 4 day weeks every month is probably a bit less convenient than 4 7 day weeks. Hence, 7 day weeks. (Or two 14 day weeks, which I think you essentially used to see some of the time: it seems like 17th-19th Century Britain was more aligned on fortnights than weeks).

Not NECESSARY in the same way that days are, but it's not exactly mysterious how they came about.

Edit: Oh, also, in terms of preferring 7 or 14 to 2 or 4, think about the lunar cycle. It easily breaks down into 7 or 14 day periods (7 days = new to half, or half to full, or full to half, or half to new. 14 days = new to full or full to new. 4 days = ?)

Edit2: Of course, a lunation (full moon to full moon) is 29.5 days, as opposed to the sidereal month (same part of sky to same part of sky) of 27.3 days. But I suspect that in antiquity, most people dealt with a conventional 28 days for both.

Re: The Death and Life of the 13-Month Calendar

#46

Post by drostie »

32bitkid wrote: post #27
tempestn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very small percentage of the population ever has to write date handling logic. For the rest, things "just work", thanks to those few. Besides, even as a member of that small group, I like the variety of the current calendar, inefficient as it is.

One has to admit that it complicates even trivial communications about days and times. Even questions like "What's the date of friday next week?" can't be quickly answered. Or "Is Nov 12th on the weekend?" I feel these are practical things that _most_ people would _like_ to easily reason about, but can't. It imperial units for days; or like trying to do math in a numerical system where each significant digit has a di…

Well, we already do math in a crazy-radix system for time, and the not-easily-divisible unitless variable of (1 year / 1 day) means that we can't do too much better -- we can reduce the problem to about one crazy radix, but no smaller; that radix will probably always depend on the value of the more-significant number in the date (the year).

But yes, we probably should quash the "variety is fun" argument early in the discussion. The problem is that it's a persistent low cost in the back of everyone's heads. Sure, when you think about it you might like it a lot, but it will then stress you out in hard-to-perceive ways during the rest of the year, with no real benefit to show for it.

The huge error that Eastman made was to keep the same month-names for the other months. This is a bad idea; if two systems are going to exist in parallel they need to be disambiguated in practice.

Re: The Death and Life of the 13-Month Calendar

#47

Post by aetherson »

function_seven wrote: post #21

From the article: > Easter would fall on April 15 every year on Cotsworth's calendar I don't understand why this would be. Can someone explain?

I think that they're suggesting that this would be conventionally the case: "Okay, we're now deciding that Easter Sunday will be April 15, which is always a Sunday."

I think this is on the basis that it's important for Easter to be on a Sunday, and not nearly as important that it be the Sunday following the first full moon following the equinox, or whatever: just that once you say "it's got to be on a Sunday," you need some damn way to figure out which Sunday each year.

Re: The Death and Life of the 13-Month Calendar

#48

Post by billybofh »

function_seven wrote: post #21

From the article: > Easter would fall on April 15 every year on Cotsworth's calendar I don't understand why this would be. Can someone explain?

See also the 'Synod of Whitby' (Whitby is also famous for Dracula - I'm not sure if that's related, but if you're a goth or easter-history fan it's a great place to visit! ;-) :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synod_of_Whitby

Re: The Death and Life of the 13-Month Calendar

#49

Post by cauterized »

msoad wrote: post #30

Fun fact: The arabic calendar which is based on Moon movements used to have an extra month every four(?) years to adjust the season changes. It was called Nasi' month. But after a Quran Sura published that prohibited this month Arabic calendar lost it's accuracy for seasons.[1] The Iranian Calendar that is based on sun movements was safe from this Sura because it didn't have an extra month but an extra day each five…

The Hebrew calendar (also lunar) still does this - a leap month in (IIRC) 7 out of every 19 years.

Re: The Death and Life of the 13-Month Calendar

#50

Post by aetherson »

jeffasinger wrote: post #37
estel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't some companies already run salary in thirteen four week periods? I've worked at at least one that did.

I'm not 100% sure, but in the US, this is relatively rare, as it's required in most situations to be paid at least 2 times per month. I think all but 5 states have laws dictating pay frequency, and in most cases they require at least two times a month pay frequency. The most popular pay schedules tend to be 24, 26, and 52 times per year. EDIT: This was supposed to be a reply to redblacktree. State law examples: - htt…

I would like you to explain to me what the situation is in which you imagine that being paid every 2 weeks would result in you being paid less than twice a month.
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