So, what's the current status of everything?

[levi]

If simplicity reigned supreme, we would all be keeping track of days the same way most computers do. Pick a more or less arbitrary day and call it day 0.

I'd argue that that's only simple for computers, and even then conversion into other fields need to contain all kinds of caveats and special cases to cope with the conversion, because of leap years and correction seconds and stuff. I think being able to see how many years it is since something is important too, so I'd argue that as long as people can cope with three digit numbers almost as well as they can do two digit ones, it'd be simpler to make new years day day 0 for the year, and then count up to either 365 or 366 before declaring a new year, although there perhaps are benefits in getting the leap day out of the way early in the year is the middle of a northern hemisphere winter by adding it to february, so that the year always ends on Dec 31rd, no matter if that was actually 365 or 366 days since Jan 1st.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Surprisingly (to me at least) the reason that the end months are out by two is not the addition of the two obviously roman regal months (July - Julius and August - Augustus), but the addition of January and February. The original slightly legendary 10 month year started at March, and month five was called Quintills and six, Sextills. Those two months were simply renamed by Julius Caesar after he collapsed the roman republic. The two offending months were actually added by the more democratic roman republic before him.

I think that I once heard that the year was considered to start with spring because that is when life starts to grow but was then changed to be more sun-centric and thus start at a time shortly after the winter equinox. I have no idea if that's true though.

reason to stick with the existing method of timekeeping: Everyone uses it.

I agree. In fact, that's the only reason that I can think off.

"Superior" systems can definitely be contrived, but conversion and adoption would require either an all powerful state actor/dictator forcing it upon everyone or a population so astute, educated and collaborative that they all simply accept it as, "better".

Supposedly our current calendar has been forced onto the people by a dictator. So that did not went well. Maybe it would have been better if there had been no dictator at all. It seems like the lack of a dictator does wonders for the quality of software.

If simplicity reigned supreme, we would all be keeping track of days the same way most computers do. Pick a more or less arbitrary day and call it day 0. Count forward for all days subsequent to that and backwards into negative numbers for all days prior. Seasons and the positions of the stars be damned. We actually all already use this type of system, but apply a classification and translation system over the top of it based on history and convenience. Most of the population is shielded from the reality of time.

It's not about simplicity but about ease of use. Working with big numbers is not easy. So we need multiple units which are multiplications of each other. Also, the day is a very important cycle to us so it should have special significance so that the system becomes easier to work with. E.g. it's not easy to have to recalculate every day at what time you must go to work. I also think that having it be year centric is useful since the year is also an important cycle.

Hence why I did not criticise things like leap years. They're weird but are necessary to make the calendar year and day based. However, not having years, months, and weeks form a proper hierarchy and having months be a random lenght is just cumbersome with no advantages. Not having the year 0 is silly too because it's an extra exception to our system and thus an extra chance for people to make mistakes with it.

 

[Grench]

Hence why I did not criticise things like leap years. They're weird but are necessary to make the calendar year and day based. However, not having years, months, and weeks form a proper hierarchy and having months be a random lenght is just cumbersome with no advantages. Not having the year 0 is silly too because it's an extra exception to our system and thus an extra chance for people to make mistakes with it.

If we're going to even consider changing the calendar, though, we should step back and reconsider even the most fundamental aspects of timekeeping.

For example, how about we decouple the calendar (social timekeeping) from the orbital period (celestial timekeeping)?

We could have twelve months of thirty days each. The 'new year' and people's birthdays would then migrate through the Zodiac by 5.25 days per year. Over the course of a normal lifetime a person would then have their birthday in every season. They might come 'round the circle thrice.

While we're at it, though I do like base 12, the 24 hours to a day thing isn't as convenient as it could be. Lets change that to 60 hours in the day with 60 minutes to the hour and 60 seconds to the minute. Instead of there being 86400 seconds in a day we would have 216000 and each new second would be 0.4 old seconds in duration. What is now an eight hour work day would become a twenty hour work-day of equal actual length.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

For example, how about we decouple the calendar (social timekeeping) from the orbital period (celestial timekeeping)?

Personally I think that the year cycle may be too important but I'm not really sure about that. I guess some people like farmers prefer to have the year cycle reflected in their calendar. At least the day cycle needs to be in the calendar, of that I'm pretty sure. Everyone uses that.

We could have twelve months of thirty days each. The 'new year' and people's birthdays would then migrate through the Zodiac by 5.25 days per year. Over the course of a normal lifetime a person would then have their birthday in every season. They might come 'round the circle thrice.

This calendar seems nice too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar
It keeps the year cycle which is nice.

While we're at it, though I do like base 12, the 24 hours to a day thing isn't as convenient as it could be. Lets change that to 60 hours in the day with 60 minutes to the hour and 60 seconds to the minute. Instead of there being 86400 seconds in a day we would have 216000 and each new second would be 0.4 old seconds in duration. What is now an eight hour work day would become a twenty hour work-day of equal actual length.

I like the consistency, but I think that the jumps should be the same as the used base. In fact I think that a day should be our standard unit of time and all other times should be derived using the metric system extended with base 12 prefixes. That could be comparable to the binary prefixes where they just put "bi" instead of the last 2 letters; e.g. "kilo" becomes "kibi". For base 12 this could be done but with "do" instead of "bi". So 1/12 of a day would be a dedoday ("deci" become "dedo"). and 1/12^3 of a day would be a "midoday". Though either "deca" or "deci" needs to be replaced for this system because they become ambiguous when they're base 12 versions are used. The metric system is not without flaws either.

 

[ible]

This calendar seems nice too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar
It keeps the year cycle which is nice.

ooh, i like that one.

I like the consistency, but I think that the jumps should be the same as the used base. In fact I think that a day should be our standard unit of time and all other times should be derived using the metric system extended with base 12 prefixes. That could be comparable to the binary prefixes where they just put "bi" instead of the last 2 letters; e.g. "kilo" becomes "kibi". For base 12 this could be done but with "do" instead of "bi". So 1/12 of a day would be a dedoday ("deci" become "dedo"). and 1/12^3 of a day would be a "midoday". Though either "deca" or "deci" needs to be replaced for this system because they become ambiguous when they're base 12 versions are used. The metric system is not without flaws either.

i also originally liked 12 for division reasons (it's an antiprime), but 6 will also do the job and there is less of a multiplication table that you'd need to remember. seximal is sexy, after all.

a day divided into sixths repeatedly:

24 hours -> 4 hours -> 40 minutes -> 6m 40s -> 66.66 s -> 11.11 s -> 1.85 s

some of those are fairly close to common durations (1 minute, 1 second). not that that's a good reason to use it...

 

[bzar]

This one does many things sanely: http://terrancalendar.com/

For example, how about we decouple the calendar (social timekeeping) from the orbital period (celestial timekeeping)?

We'd also need absolute earth-relative timekeeping, as neither of those two have constant cycles. Days are of different lengths as are years. The ground truth there would have to be determined as temporal distance from a determined point in time as measured by one or more atomic clocks in number of elapsed periods at a specific point of observation. We already kinda do this with GPS and the like.

 

[matzesu]

End of January, to mid of February wasnt meant to put pressure on EvilDragon, its just my hope, and if its takes until March or April, also nothing i have big issues whit..

For a Work PC on my Desctop Settup, i still have the GPD Win, which works pretty good as its also just a tiny Windows PC in a Handheld Case, but it would be cool to just use the same Handheld for Desctop as i also have in my Pockets..

Also the Win got these Issues that its Windows, so you have to wait somethimes if Microsoft decides to give it an Update..

On Pandora, i had to start the Update manually, so if i ditnt had the Time to update, i ditnt updatet the Pandora,
on GPD Win, its automatic, and if i you want to play some tetris, you can have unluck and its update...

 

[Djoga'Ro]

i also originally liked 12 for division reasons (it's an antiprime)

What about five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, ...? I'd say, the base to use should be a power of two.

 

[spud42]

"Superior" systems can definitely be contrived, but conversion and adoption would require either an all powerful state actor/dictator forcing it upon everyone or a population so astute, educated and collaborative that they all simply accept it as, "better".

this! proof of how difficult change can be...

" Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 "to coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the United States". Voluntary conversion was initiated, and the United States Metric Board (USMB) was established for planning, coordination, and public education. The public education component led to public awareness of the metric system, but the public response included resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule. "

you can tell when the forum is bored..... lol

 

[ptitSeb]

Here, take a video of Pyra compared to a Pandora, running SimCity3000 with Box86.

 

[Eight Bit]

Yeah! ptitSeb is here to save the day!

I love seeing the performance improvement!

 

[directive0]

Here, take a video of Pyra compared to a Pandora, running SimCity3000 with Box86.

This is the stuff I'm here to see. Thank you PtitSeb!!

 

[lukey]

Meanwhile on IRC form @aTc:

 

[ptitSeb]

Is that Aperture Science DS on Drastic?

 

[lukey]

Yep, it's the odroid-xu4 build.

 

[levi]

What exactly is that? I see the aperture physics logo, and I spy a portal gun in the top box, but it's not a screen I recognise from either of the existing two portal games as I played them.

Edit: Ah, there's a new page!

 

[ThinkPad]

See you in 2020.

 

[Stainy]

Meanwhile on IRC form @aTc:

What is that??

 

[matzesu]

This is something, whe want ^^
I only know as a Homebrew Portal on DS the "Still Alive DS" Game, where you are in 2D Jump and Run, but ditnt know there is also a 3D Portal Game for the DS..

But the Keyboard Light of ATCs Notebook is much more impressive than the Light on his Pyra..
I think our non transparent Pyras should work better whit the Backlight..

 

[levi]

What is that??

In case you haven't yet, I advice you to read from the top of this page. It's apparently homebrew for the DS.