this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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One of the comments reads : Actually, we will probably never figure out, was it man or woman. but I thought this comment of the professor was an interesting eye opener. https://mastodonapp.uk/@MarkHoltom/112070436760917344

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (2 children)

So they nailed it with the 28 day calendar and we are stuck with this one

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

well yes, but 28 day months dont divide nicely into 365/366 days, so it would not have worked well.... uh, hang on. i'm being handed a note. huh. apparently our current calendar also doesnt solve this neatly at all, and is in fact a patched monstrosity more batshit than anything any single malicious person could come up with. well.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Let's go with 12 28 day months and the overhead days are universal vacation days during summer. There you go.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What about summer not being at the same time everywhere? Which hemisphere do you wanna favor? What kind of problems do vacation days in summer create in agriculture?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Essential work will always need doing on holidays. Anyone doing essential work gets their free days at other times before of after these holidays.

Good point about hemispheres though. Put half of the days in between December and January and half in between June and July. Since it's an odd number of days (unless it's a leap year), alternate which of these gets one more every year.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

well yes, the clear answer is to have "days outside the calendar". this is how the hobbits do it too :)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Anyone working with dates and times was cursed in a past life. Timezones are a pain to work with. Daylight savings sucks. Some countries change daylight savings at different times. Some countries change timezones sometimes. Go further back and some countries had their own leap days. Different calendars don't form neat cycles and must be manually synchronized every few years. Did you know Easter, for about 300 years, needed to be announced by the Pope each year because it was a lunar holiday based on a Jewish calendar but the Christians followed a different one? Also, every now and again we throw a leap second into the computers because the Earth's rotation is gradually slowing down and 365/366 days isn't quite precise enough anyways.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I once read that when Sweden decided to switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar they didn't do it all at once, disliking the idea of jumping so many days forwards/backwards (I can't remember which way the Julian is out of sync). Instead they opted for a plan to move their calendar one single day every year over several decades. I remember the place I read about it saying that it just confused everyone and the plan was scrapped after a few years.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (2 children)

13 months of 28 days with an extra holiday at years end, it works so much cleaner than what we use.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

That's just what Big February wants you to think.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, but then how could we make the important months longer than the rest? That would really piss off Julius and Augustus.

Slightly more sensibly, 12 months is easier to synch to the seasons, and calendars are very important to agriculture. 3 months for each season is convenient.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Thirteen also can’t be divided evenly and is widely considered bad luck.