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Dates before bedtime
Nov. 1st, 2007 08:34 amDodgy things, calendars. They are a bit like names in Northern ireland. (Two women in a hospital in adjacent beds, both of whom have just given birth to sons.)
"What's your boy going to be called?"
"Billy. .... And yours?"
"Patrick".
And the rest is silence.
Well, calendars are a bit like that, aren't they? Let's face it, if you base your entire long-term time-frame on the time when some guy who spoke Aramaic was born in what is now the occupied West Bank, then you can hardly be surprised if some other groupings go off and base their calendar on the birth dates of other obscure chaps from the past.
But, overall, it's all a bit random. However, the concept of the year itself seems to have sorted itself out, at least in most calendars (although I hear that they still have some problems in Ethiopia). So, why not at least rationalise the day when years begin, if not the number of the year itself?
I say this because it has always struck me that the most sensible day for a new year to begin would be on one of the equinoxes. For a start, it's not difficult to figure out when it is, even if your society has only a vague knowledge of astronomy. Secondly, I think think that a new year that started on the autumn equinox would be less depressing. Nice autumn leaves before a short period of depressing winter (now running from March through to late June), followed by a glorious summer in the third quarter and an end to the year of what is now balmy August (to become November) and sweet September (to become December).
OK, in the southern hemisphere things are shifted by six months, but even that way round there are compensations, and it's better than the system they have at the moment -- eating Christmas pudding on a high summer's day.
So, I propose that we have a nine-month year to shift us over to the new system.
One reason I am confident that this will succeed is that Microsoft would back it -- think of all the expensive computer rejigging.
++++++++++
October went quite well on the poker front, with a nice little sequence from a few days into the month right up to a few days from the end of it. I think I now have some idea of my "expected earn" at $100 buy-in NL, and I really have to think long and hard about the next step. There are three obvious choices, and I'm still not sure which to take.
"What's your boy going to be called?"
"Billy. .... And yours?"
"Patrick".
And the rest is silence.
Well, calendars are a bit like that, aren't they? Let's face it, if you base your entire long-term time-frame on the time when some guy who spoke Aramaic was born in what is now the occupied West Bank, then you can hardly be surprised if some other groupings go off and base their calendar on the birth dates of other obscure chaps from the past.
But, overall, it's all a bit random. However, the concept of the year itself seems to have sorted itself out, at least in most calendars (although I hear that they still have some problems in Ethiopia). So, why not at least rationalise the day when years begin, if not the number of the year itself?
I say this because it has always struck me that the most sensible day for a new year to begin would be on one of the equinoxes. For a start, it's not difficult to figure out when it is, even if your society has only a vague knowledge of astronomy. Secondly, I think think that a new year that started on the autumn equinox would be less depressing. Nice autumn leaves before a short period of depressing winter (now running from March through to late June), followed by a glorious summer in the third quarter and an end to the year of what is now balmy August (to become November) and sweet September (to become December).
OK, in the southern hemisphere things are shifted by six months, but even that way round there are compensations, and it's better than the system they have at the moment -- eating Christmas pudding on a high summer's day.
So, I propose that we have a nine-month year to shift us over to the new system.
One reason I am confident that this will succeed is that Microsoft would back it -- think of all the expensive computer rejigging.
++++++++++
October went quite well on the poker front, with a nice little sequence from a few days into the month right up to a few days from the end of it. I think I now have some idea of my "expected earn" at $100 buy-in NL, and I really have to think long and hard about the next step. There are three obvious choices, and I'm still not sure which to take.
