Are the superstitious preventing us from having a logical calendar?
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Ashley van Gerven wrote:
every month except January having a different number of days than the one before
July and August both have 31 days too... :-D
V.
Stop smoking so you can: Enjoy longer the money you save. Moviereview ArchiveV. wrote:
July and August
Hmmm never took notice of that :~
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
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That has been around for some time for "time". Biel Mean Time[^]never took of, unfortunatly. People like to stick with the familiar, even if it's not as good as the unknown alternative. Things that are unknown are scary. Every day in a year has a unique number, ranging from 1 to 365. Most logical date-format would be "2008.42" for today. Why give them names in the first place? That makes it only harder to translate a date.. How about Summertime? Are you going to keep that, or do you want to drop it?
I are troll :)
Eddy Vluggen wrote:
ranging from 1 to 365.
I think we need smaller logical seperarations though for dealing with recurring events / schedules.
Eddy Vluggen wrote:
Summertime
DST I don't see a huge issue with. Two days of the year have different number of hours than usual - no biggie.
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
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Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
We ought to bring it back with some minor modifications...
Such as making it six five day weeks instead of three ten day weeks. :cool:
Jörgen Andersson wrote:
six five day weeks
That's no good. I'd lose my weekends!
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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It's illogical conventions I have the issue with, not complex date math :-\
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
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Illogical would mean there are contradictions within the calendar system, which there are not (at least not obviously). Stupid design is merely inconvenient - and I wouldn't even give the gregorian calendar that label. It is optimized to meet various criteria which are largely in phase - but only largely, not in detail. And where there's difference in details, there's friction. You were asking for a calendar that seemd to be optimized soelly for date math, that's why I was asking ;) It is a similar problem to building software: readable, robust, flexible, fast are slightly independent, largely parallel (i.e. an somethign that improves readability also improves maintainability) - but only up to a point: beyond that, they become antiparallel - improving one will hurt the others. And I think it's that last part where most of the "friction" in making software occurs.
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When will everyone agree that every month except January having a different number of days than the one before it is counterproductive? I want 13 x 4-week months, with one exceptional 8-day week at the beginning! I'm betting superstition prevented it from ever happening. But it's time to review things. Computers control the world. Programmers control computers. So... what are waiting for! :) Any names? How about Bituary, month of the geek...
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
You have no idea of the implications do you? How old would anyone be after such a debacle is implemented? Have you ever tried to track back through different calendars in history, all the month changes, etc.? It's a bloody nightmare. Let's see: I was x years from there to there, then y months from then to then, *switch calendars*, z months + n days from then on, divided by w weeks/NewCalendar. Screw it I'm 21 forever. (not really though)
Cheetah. Ferret. Gonads. What more can I say? - Pete O'Hanlon
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When will everyone agree that every month except January having a different number of days than the one before it is counterproductive? I want 13 x 4-week months, with one exceptional 8-day week at the beginning! I'm betting superstition prevented it from ever happening. But it's time to review things. Computers control the world. Programmers control computers. So... what are waiting for! :) Any names? How about Bituary, month of the geek...
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
"Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know." However, look here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/calendarreform/[^]
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When will everyone agree that every month except January having a different number of days than the one before it is counterproductive? I want 13 x 4-week months, with one exceptional 8-day week at the beginning! I'm betting superstition prevented it from ever happening. But it's time to review things. Computers control the world. Programmers control computers. So... what are waiting for! :) Any names? How about Bituary, month of the geek...
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
Due to our winter weather being a tad brutal this year, I recently heard a funny poem.
30 days has Septmber
April, June and November
All the rest have 31,
Except for January and February which have 60 god-damned days in them.Yes, spring is coming. :)
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
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They certainly prevent all other kinds of progress. It took us 8 years to get Stem Cell research approved for sponsorship, and that's in the Information Age! Can we delete DST while we're at it? Just teach people to adjust their alarms, not their clocks.
Don't let my name fool you. That's my job.
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Illogical would mean there are contradictions within the calendar system, which there are not (at least not obviously). Stupid design is merely inconvenient - and I wouldn't even give the gregorian calendar that label. It is optimized to meet various criteria which are largely in phase - but only largely, not in detail. And where there's difference in details, there's friction. You were asking for a calendar that seemd to be optimized soelly for date math, that's why I was asking ;) It is a similar problem to building software: readable, robust, flexible, fast are slightly independent, largely parallel (i.e. an somethign that improves readability also improves maintainability) - but only up to a point: beyond that, they become antiparallel - improving one will hurt the others. And I think it's that last part where most of the "friction" in making software occurs.
I get what you're saying... maybe illogical is a stretch. But still, IMO, it's inconvenient and overcomplicated, and archaic. However I also accept that's it's easier to keep to an old convention than to change *everything*. The "friction" is minimal by now... I'm quite used to working with date issues. Three different month lengths in a year is always taken as normal. Well, from now on I'm regarding it as archaic and ill-conceived. BTW I was being sarcastic about it being 'complex' math... it's not hard, just annoying :mad: OK rant done. :cool:
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
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You have no idea of the implications do you? How old would anyone be after such a debacle is implemented? Have you ever tried to track back through different calendars in history, all the month changes, etc.? It's a bloody nightmare. Let's see: I was x years from there to there, then y months from then to then, *switch calendars*, z months + n days from then on, divided by w weeks/NewCalendar. Screw it I'm 21 forever. (not really though)
Cheetah. Ferret. Gonads. What more can I say? - Pete O'Hanlon
Some of us are just eager programmers who don't think ahead enough to realise what a support & training nightmare such a change would be :~
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
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I get what you're saying... maybe illogical is a stretch. But still, IMO, it's inconvenient and overcomplicated, and archaic. However I also accept that's it's easier to keep to an old convention than to change *everything*. The "friction" is minimal by now... I'm quite used to working with date issues. Three different month lengths in a year is always taken as normal. Well, from now on I'm regarding it as archaic and ill-conceived. BTW I was being sarcastic about it being 'complex' math... it's not hard, just annoying :mad: OK rant done. :cool:
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
Ashley van Gerven wrote:
I'm regarding it as archaic and ill-conceived
What an improvement! :laugh:
Ashley van Gerven wrote:
BTW I was being sarcastic about it being 'complex' math... it's not hard, just annoying
Yeah, I think I know what you mean. I'd say if you start thinking it's easy, you sooner or later figure out it's totally not. But not really hard, just annoying in the way that you can almost see it snickering at you. "You think the time span of a day is 86400 seconds? Let me tell you what: LEAP SECOND! HAHAHAHAHACOUGHSPUTTERHAHAHA!"