The perpetual calendar
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From: Evan Kirshenbaum on 24 Feb 2010 17:42 Hatunen <hatunen(a)cox.net> writes: > On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:15:35 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels" > <grammatim(a)verizon.net> wrote: > >>On Feb 23, 8:07�pm, Andrew Usher <k_over_hb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > >>> Indeed, indexing is not the same thing as counting. If I were >>> creating a non-computer _indexing_ system, I would start from 0 as >>> well. >> >>What would you be indexing? Books, for instance, don't have a p. 0. > > That comes down to the question of whether the cardinal numbers > include zero. If they don't, how do you express the cardinality of the empty set? -- Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |It is error alone which needs the 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |support of government. Truth can Palo Alto, CA 94304 |stand by itself. | Thomas Jefferson kirshenbaum(a)hpl.hp.com (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
From: R H Draney on 24 Feb 2010 17:50 Evan Kirshenbaum filted: > >"Skitt" <skitt99(a)comcast.net> writes: > >> You're being robbed. At Lockheed, when I was still working, we got >> an average of 13 paid holidays per year. Most of them were the days >> between Christmas and New Year's (inclusive, of course). >> >> The others were Memorial Day, Independence Day (and the adjacent day >> if there was only one day between ID and a weekend), Labor Day, and >> Thanksgiving Day and the Friday after it. >> >> The days off at Christmas time varied in number, as there was usually >> an extra day or two thrown in, depending on what day of the week the >> actual holidays fell. >> >> A long time ago, we didn't get the time off between Christmas and New >> Year's. Then the company realized that no one did any actual work >> during that period and decided to institute the holiday schedule I >> described above. Everyone liked that, and the company saved a lot of >> money, practically shutting down all the plants. > >They did the same thing for us starting a few years ago, except they >said "We're closing. You *will* take vacation. If you don't have >enough vacation you can borrow against next year's". So essentially, >you can look at it as having taken several days of vacation away from >everybody in exchange for an equivalent number of holiday days. >(Unless you leave before the end of the year, of course, in which >case they have to pay you for those "holidays".) We used to get nine holidays (New Years, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas), plus four "floaters" and some number of vacation days based on seniority...around 1985 they took away Columbus Day and added MLK...a few years after that they did away with the separate categories and just handed out a fixed number of "PTO" (paid time off) days that could be used whenever we scheduled them, which meant that you could get stuck working Christmas Day if you'd taken off too many days earlier in the year, or if everyone else in your department had already requested it and a manager decided that "coverage" was required.... Before everything got lumped into a single category, the important distinction was that they had to pay you for any unused vacation days if you left before the end of the year; holidays (including floaters) were simply forfeited...one year, to simplify the bookkeeping, I changed my initial request for some days off from one category to the other, prompting a series of visits from managers afraid I was getting ready to jump ship....r -- "Oy! A cat made of lead cannot fly." - Mark Brader declaims a basic scientific principle
From: Hatunen on 24 Feb 2010 17:57 On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:42:02 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenbaum(a)hpl.hp.com> wrote: >Hatunen <hatunen(a)cox.net> writes: > >> On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:15:35 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels" >> <grammatim(a)verizon.net> wrote: >> >>>On Feb 23, 8:07�pm, Andrew Usher <k_over_hb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> >>>> Indeed, indexing is not the same thing as counting. If I were >>>> creating a non-computer _indexing_ system, I would start from 0 as >>>> well. >>> >>>What would you be indexing? Books, for instance, don't have a p. 0. >> >> That comes down to the question of whether the cardinal numbers >> include zero. > >If they don't, how do you express the cardinality of the empty set? That's been a mathematical know for some time, and comes down to how you define a cardinal number (which may not be quite the same as the contemporary concept of cardinality post Cantor.) I amke no claim to understand it all. -- ************* DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen(a)cox.net) ************* * Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow * * My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
From: Mike Barnes on 24 Feb 2010 17:58 Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenbaum(a)hpl.hp.com>: >Mike Barnes <mikebarnes(a)bluebottle.com> writes: > >> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenbaum(a)hpl.hp.com>: >>>Mike Barnes <mikebarnes(a)bluebottle.com> writes: >>> >>>> Transfer Principle <lwalke3(a)lausd.net>: >>> >>>>>Here's the original purpose of DST. In certain higher >>>>>latitudes (including most of the UK), the length of the >>>>>daylight at the summer solstice was around 16 hours. With >>>>>the period of daylight centered at noon GMT, this would make >>>>>the sun rise at around 4AM, before most people awake. And >>>>>so we set the clock forward in the spring. The reason we set >>>>>it back in autumn is because if we didn't, the sun wouldn't >>>>>rise at the winter solstice until around 9AM, after most >>>>>people need to be at work or school. >>>>> >>>>>In other words, the only way to avoid _both_ objectionable >>>>>sunrise times (4AM and 9AM) is to have a biannual clock shift. >>>> >>>> Here those extreme sunrise times would be 3:40 and 9:20. I can see >>>> the objection to 9:20, but what's the objection to 3:40? >>> >>>You don't have to get up with the chickens, do you? But I believe >>>that the main objection was that people had to spend money on light in >>>the evening when there were hours of daylight just going to waste >>>before they got up. >> >> Messing with the clocks seems like overkill. ISTM it would be >> simpler to leave the clocks as they were and for anyone trying to >> minimise their lighting costs to go to bed an hour earlier. > >leaving fewer hours between getting off work (or school) and going to >bed. Unless you compensat by moving the time that work and school >ended. And, presumably, start. Which means you'll probably have to >move the train and bus schedules, as the commute hours will have >changed. There would be an extra hour between getting up and going to work (or school). No need for any drastic action. >And the prime radio and TV hours. <shrug> >Essentially, what you >wind up with in places with clocks and schedules that run on them is a >choice between spending more time in darkness (and sleeping during >light) or essentialy saying "Everything that would have happened at >five now happens at four" for part of the year. Which is essentially >what's done, by the simpler expedient of redefining the hours and >allowing everything to continue to take place at the same nominal >time. It seems to me that most people have the choice of spending more of their waking hours in darkness or in light, but no-one seems to have the choice about whether the clocks change. >> The same goes for anyone who has to get up with the chickens or >> whose life is otherwise locked to solar time. > >Being locked to solar time isn't bad as long as you're not also locked >to nominal time. You're stuffed if you're locked to both, DST or no DST. When the difference is nearly six hours as it is here, reducing it by one hour is hardly worth while. -- Mike Barnes Cheshire, England
From: Bob Myers on 24 Feb 2010 18:24
Andrew Usher wrote: > Well, I'm astounded. Indexing from 0 is so obviously the Right Way > that I can't imagine why anyone would do it the other way. Oh, absolutely. Why, I see people in the stores every day, counting out their money or the number of items they're going to purchase, and saying to themselves "Zero, one, two..." ;-) Bob M. |