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Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

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Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#61

Post by colechristensen »

naniwaduni wrote: post #36

For what it's worth, leap day is at the "end" of a year. It's just a year that starts in March—an assumption shared with several other odd properties of this calendar.

Evidence for this is September October November and December are named as seventh eighth ninth and tenth months which matches with a year starting in March obviously intentionally at the spring equinox but calendar inaccuracies lost that.

Quarters should begin and end with equinoxes and solstices and be equivalent with seasons, major holidays aligned with quarter transitions and solar milestones make sense.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#63

Post by octobus2021 »

This is absolutely hilarious, and despite being long form, fits Twitter format very well, with each chunk funnier than the last :)

A few notes:

- Per my knowledge US is the only country which stubbornly (and illogically) considers Sunday to be the first day of the week;

- US (and maybe one or two English-speaking countries) are the only ones using 12h time, the rest of the world uses 24hrs, however 12h _sometimes_ is used conversationally;

- May be the author got tired (or whatever he took started to wear off) but I consider omitting the whole DST thing a major missed opportunity. :)

Also, for those interested, look up Swatch time invented in late 90s and touted as more logical replacement of the mess that we have. I believe they still maintain some Internet presence but mostly gave up on promoting it. Good luck breaking 1000+yo habits.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#64

Post by tomcam »

vsnf wrote: post #26
daedalus2027 wrote: post #16

I saw when i was in Japan a various billboards marking a 25 hour service I thought it was some kind of mistake but apparently they call 1 am the hour 25...I think I saw it in Okinawa

It’s more than just 25, they often go to 29, to indicate 5am. They do this to make it clear that it is an overnight service starting in one calendar day and terminating in another. It’s not just a simple substitute for “1 am”.

Surprisingly, I like that as an informal system

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#66

Post by ratsmack »

russdill wrote: post #23

Not looking forward to telling them that we named our home planet planet dirt

"The Origin Of The Word 'Earth' is an English/German name which simply means the ground. It comes from the Old English words ‘eor(th)e’ and ‘ertha’ ."

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#67

Post by Symbiote »

Ekaros wrote: post #39
vsnf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more than just 25, they often go to 29, to indicate 5am. They do this to make it clear that it is an overnight service starting in one calendar day and terminating in another. It’s not just a simple substitute for “1 am”.

Actually it is pretty elegant system. Bit strange and extra calculation, but rather elegant option to pick.

You occasionally see times like 24:15 on European railway timetables. If the train runs only on weekdays, it might make it clearer that there isn't one at 00:15 on Monday.

I haven't noticed 25:00, but I don't often look at printed/PDF timetables nowadays.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#70

Post by EdwardDiego »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #20
Ekaros wrote: post #17

Don't even go to those idiots over there who uses these weird units for measuring temperature, distance, weight and ugh volume... When we actually have this well designed system where everything fits beautifully together...

Yes, it's very strange that the English measure their weight in stone and pounds and their beer in pints.

In NZ, all legal weights and measures are metric, yet for some stubbornly cultural reason we still tend to discuss height in feet and inches (ladies on dating apps who are discriminating on height will specify that you need to be 6 foot, not 183cm) the weight of a newborn baby in pounds (but only for newborn babies!), and order our beer in pints, which generally means "a large glass of beer somewhere between 400 and 600mL". Also for some reason ordering a "12th" means a "half pint", and I'm really not sure why.

But the good craft beer places have a sign saying what their pints are in millilitres to prevent unpleasant surprises when you were expecting 568mL but got 425mL.

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