Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ihnp4!qantel!lll-lcc!lll-crg!seismo!uwvax!husc6!panda!genrad!decvax!decwrl!sun!landauer From: landauer@sun.UUCP Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: Re: Calendar reform Message-ID: <7466@sun.uucp> Date: Fri, 19-Sep-86 23:04:02 EDT Article-I.D.: sun.7466 Posted: Fri Sep 19 23:04:02 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 28-Sep-86 18:19:18 EDT References: <745@tekla.UUCP> <2518@watdcsu.UUCP> Reply-To: landauer@sun.UUCP (Doug Landauer) Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lines: 76 In article <2518@watdcsu.UUCP> kishore2@watdcsu.UUCP (S.Lang) writes: > In article <745@tekla.UUCP> dant@tekla.UUCP (Dan Tilque) writes: > >A truly elegent solution to calendar reform could be done in three simple(?) > >steps: > > 1) Change the definition of the second to be 2 of the current > > seconds (this is the easy part). > > 2) Change the rotation of the Earth to be 65536 of the new seconds. > > 3) Move the Earth (away from the sun) so that there are exactly > > 256 of the new days in the year. Note that this step is > > unneccesary if the constant in step 1 is changed from 2 to > > approximately 1.881. > > ... > > Dan Tilque UUCP: tektronix!dadla!dant > > Hey, I like this one. Now if only we could change our genes so that we have > only one finger and a thumb on each hand and only two toes on each foot. > Then it would be natural for us humans to count in binary too ! :-) It's already pretty easy to do that: use one thumb (being right-handed, I usually use the right thumb) as the 0 bit, the index finger as the 1's bit, and so on; the left thumb is the 32-bit. This way it's easy to count all the way up to 1023 on your fingers. (Thanks go to Steve Crocker, who showed me how to do this, seventeen years ago.) Now back to the real subject (redesigning the calendar): My favorite proposal (I don't remember whether I made it up or read it somewhere) is twelve months of thirty days each, with a six-day week. Obviously, Monday is the day to get rid of. The shorter week means we'll have 8.333% more weekend days per year, so it will help some to ease the unemployment problem. The extra five days (six days in leapyears) would be considered to be a week without a Saturday; that week is not a part of any month. Are you aware of how little gets done anywhere in the US between Christmas and New Year's Day? The most logical thing to do would be to combine these two holidays into a single, week-long holiday (call it NewYear). Just imagine, work weeks only being four days long! Here is a calendar for any month of any year under this scheme: January through December, any year Sunday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday ------ ------- --------- -------- ------ -------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 NewYear, leap years: Sunday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday ------ ------- --------- -------- ------ -------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 NewYear, normal years: Sunday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday ------ ------- --------- -------- ------ 1 2 3 4 5 No, I don't always right-justify my writing; the words I thought of just happened to come out justified for three lines, so how could I avoid noticing that, and how could I just break a pattern like that after I got it started? -- Doug Landauer Sun's Net: landauer@morocco Phone: 415 691-7655 Arpa/DDN: landauer@sun.com UUCP: {amdahl, decwrl, hplabs, seismo ...}!sun!landauer The man who will not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read. -- Mark Twain