[ale] [OT] Googlian Calendar

[Pete Hardie]

DST changes are a b*tch.  I've had a number of lovely multi-day support
calls dealing with all the wonderful things that happen when you have a
system with independent devices that assume all days are 24-hours long


On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 11:03 AM, Scott Plante <splante at insightsys.com>wrote:

> I hadn't replied because I took all this as a tongue-in-cheek suggestion.
> Just in case you're serious, I'll have to say this is a really bad idea.
> When under Bush, they just changed the Daylight Savings Time dates, it
> caused a huge amount of work for us. They just changed the DST dates in
> Israel<http://www.jpost.com/Business/Business-Features/Israel-does-the-time-warp-daylight-savings-glitch-wreaks-havoc-325560>and it again caused us to waste many, many needless hours of support, and
> I'm not sure we're done with the fallout yet.  The amount of wasted effort
> across the US and the World to deal with a change of this magnitude in
> computer systems for so little (if any) benefit would be outrageous.
>
> Scott
>
> ------------------------------
> *From: *"Sid Lane" <jakes.dad at gmail.com>
> *To: *"Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!" <ale at ale.org>
> *Sent: *Friday, September 27, 2013 1:20:44 PM
> *Subject: *[ale] [OT] Googlian Calendar
>
> being in an interfaith marriage my frighteningly precocious daughter
> recently asked me why we have two New Years as well as how we can go from
> the year 2013 in January to 5774 a couple of weeks ago which got me to
> thinking that Google’s 15th birthday today seems like the perfect
> opportunity to separate that most deeply rooted of all church/state
> violations: the Gregorian Calendar! what does that have to do with Google?
> glad you asked! let me answer in three parts:
>
> 1. any calendar requires an epoch (this is self-evident)
> 2. most (if not all) alternatives’ epochs are tied to respective
> religion’s creation stories (still violating separation just in different
> flavors)
> 3. name a more secularly significant event than google launching*
>
> think about it - how often do you wonder: “how did the world work before
> Google?” when Googling obscure error messages or edge case symptoms we
> often quip at work: “isn’t it weird to think there was a time when you used
> to have to actually KNOW stuff?”. the fact that “Googling”, the present
> tense of the verb “to Google”, is recognized by spell check (at least mine)
> just underscores my point (though admittedly I’ve yet to see a full
> conjugation)! honestly, I am convinced that Google is the new library of
> Alexandria and when they eventually crash it will plunge humanity into
> another dark age though that’s a topic for another time…
>
> anyway, in conclusion I encourage everyone to write your congress critter
> (enclosing the obligatory campaign contribution - another topic for another
> time), MP, Ayatollah (well, maybe not him), etc to petition that September
> 27, 2013 be internationally recognized as 15.000, the 0th day of the 15th**
> year A.G. (Anno Googli). at a minimum I hope we can get formal adoption
> from the Pastafarians…
>
> Happy New Year!
>
> *which can be identified with any precision - I’m not keen on a Kelvin
> calendar based on a big bang SWAG, not to mention the relativistic effects
> get really nasty as you approach absolute zero (though an argument can be
> made that does seem appropriate given what quantum mechanics does
> approaching 0K temp).
>
> **unlike Pope Gregory Googlers are smart enough to realize that days and
> years should start with ZERO instead of one! not to mention that we don’t
> even need a B.G.! we just go negative - September 26, 1998 becomes -1.364
> (though this admittedly requires signed variables). we can figure out the
> subdivisions (“months”, “weeks”, etc) later but it seems like an
> opportunity to standardize & bring sanity while we’re at it!
>
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-- 
Pete Hardie
--------
Better Living Through Bitmaps
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