It’s broken. It’s really broken. The fact that we don’t have a consistent pattern to the number of days in a month, the fact that February is stupidly short and a number of other problems make it just a horrible calendar. I’d like to see some reforms done and frankly, this one is the best.
Of course it won’t happen, mind you. It’s like the metric system. It’s much easier, makes much more sense and just generally makes life easier, but we in the USA refuse to convert to it because it’s “confusing” and “too hard” and we’re “too lazy” and “too stupid”. I’m sure eventually it will happen, but as with the metric system, it’s going to take a long, long time.
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January 3, 2012 at 12:40 am
Is there some reason that only the month name “October” is centered on that calender? Probably only a “typo”.
In addition to “evening out” the days (like you wrote about), I also think the current calendar could be improved as such:
1. Begin the calendar year at the start of spring and end it at the end of winter…rather than beginning it in the middle of winter.
2. Rename the months. The current names are all “two month back”. ie: “September” means “seven” but it’s currently the ninth month, “October” means “eight” (as in “octopus”) but it’s the tenth, “November” means “nine” but it’s eleventh, and “December” means “ten” (as in “decimal”) but it’s twelfth.
January 3, 2012 at 7:28 am
If the year began on March 1, that’s close enough to the start of spring, and then the months’ names would match their order. As far as fixing the weird way that days, weeks, and months fall, why not just build some really big rocket engines and adjust the orbits of the earth and moon so we can have twelve months of 28 days?
I’ve always liked the idea of eliminating time zones and DST, and just using UTC. However, I think it still makes sense for most workers to work during daylight hours, because working in the dark requires more energy for artificial lighting, both at the workplace and during the commute.
January 4, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Number one thing to get rid of: Daylight saving time.
Re calendars in general, it’s an ongoing peeve of mine that pretty much every SF story ever that takes place on a different planet happens to be on a world where the clocks all somehow sync up with good old terrestrial standard time. Same length of days, same seasons, same year duration. The myopia and lack of imagination betrayed by that one single little slip just gets straight up my nostril.
January 4, 2012 at 4:17 pm
Well, at least Star Trek avoids that problem by using star dates.
January 4, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Ha, true. Just don’t get me started on cheap fallbacks such as Q or the Borg…
January 4, 2012 at 6:40 pm
>Number one thing to get rid of: Daylight saving time.
Yeah, Japan doesn’t have that system and I definitely don’t miss it!
January 4, 2012 at 8:01 pm
Hey – cool blog.
There are a couple of states that don’t use DST. Chris and I live in one (Arizona) – though not ‘together’, you know; we’re in totally different counties and everything. I doubt I’m his type in any case. Alaska doesn’t either, nor does half of Indiana (!). As I recall, Hawaii never got suckered into it either.
There’s no rational use for DST, and whenever you point that out to people who’ve never really thought about it, it’s clear that they’ve never really thought about it. They’ve become so habituated to changing the clocks twice a year that they regard it as bizarre when you tell them you live somewhere that doesn’t do it.
January 25, 2012 at 8:04 am
you can always check out theAbysmal Calendar – don’t let the name fool you =)