The perpetual calendar
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From: Transfer Principle on 14 Mar 2010 03:24 On Feb 24, 1:43 am, "PaulJK" <paul.kr...(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote: > Brian M. Scott wrote: > > I'm not sure that 25 hours would be quite long enough. > I agree, it wouldn't. I just didn't want to sound like some kind > of an extremist. 28 was mentioned by some other posters. > That would do me rather well. Yes, 28, that would be perfect. The reason that some posters mentioned the 28-hour day is that it can be implemented simply by taking one of the 24-hour days of the week and divide it into sixths, giving four hours each to the other six days of the week. The first website to give this proposal is actually the following link: http://www.dbeat.com/28/?dupe but the xkcd webcomic made the idea more well-known. Notice that the dbeat plan has the waking hours matching the daylight on the weekend, while the xkcd plan has the waking hours matching the daylight during the week. Obviously, DST would be awkward and thus eliminated. Not only that, but one might even abolish _time zones_ as well, since the waking hours would no longer be tied to daylight. There might be one clock for the entire world. If one side of the world (say Greenwich) set up the clock according to the dbeat plan (i.e., the weekends are set up so to maximize the amount of daylight that Londoners receive on the weekend), then this would result in New Zealand having the xkcd plan (darkness during waking hours on the weekend), and vice versa. It's necessary for a calendar reform to accompany the 28-hour plan, since there would be six days in a week instead of seven. Someone mentioned a 13-month calendar earlier in this thread -- each month in that calendar would still have four weeks, and so it would have only 24 days per month rather than 28. A 12-month plan is also possible, with each month having 26 days. This would truly be a perpetual calendar, with the same number of days in every month. As 13 months with 24 days each or 12 months with 26 days each still adds up to only 364 nychthemera, we still need a blank day. In order to maintain the relationship between daylight and day of the week (whether via the dbeat or xkcd pattern), it would be better to have a leap week instead. Any leap week pattern mentioned back in the Usher posts (a 62/124-year cycle, etc.) would work.
From: jmfbahciv on 14 Mar 2010 08:29 Transfer Principle wrote: > On Feb 24, 5:23 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv(a)aol> wrote: >> Transfer Principle wrote: >>> As for myself, I'm of two minds on this issue. On one hand, >>> what's wrong with having a biannual clock shift so that the >>> hours of daylight actually match the hours I'm awake? On the >> What is wrong is forcing the entire populace to go through >> a jetlag twice a year. Their driving is more dangerous >> and productivity falls until each person has adjusted his/her >> internal time clock. Congress has been passing laws >> about truckers getting enough sleep. OTOH, they pass clock >> resetting laws which causes everybody to not get enough sleep. >> What's wrong is that it's dangerous and unhealthy. > > Tonight is the night that clocks are to be set forward here in the > United States, and so I respond to this post here. > > Here's a link to an article with echoes jmfbah's anti-DST opinion: > > http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/636934.html > > "In general, in terms of normal sleep patterns, daylight in the > morning > is better than light later in the day. Remember, our circadian rhythms > were set eons ago to a rhythm that didn't include daylight savings > time, > so the shift tends to throw people off a bit," said Dr. Nicholas > Rummo, > director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Northern Westchester > Hospital in Mt. Kisco, N.Y. > "Daylight savings time is anti-physiologic, and it's a little > deleterious, > at least for several days," he said, adding that research has shown > that > the rate of auto accidents goes up slightly in the days following the > change to daylight savings time." > > In one of her earlier posts, jmfbah mentions how even moving westward > in the same time zone, with no clock shift, still affected her. And we > see how this is mentioned in the article: > > "Rummo said that people on the Western edges of a time zone, and > those living in Northern areas, may be affected a little bit more > because > they already experience more darkness in the morning." > > Obviously, for such people, of the three choices given in my post > (Year Round Standard Time, biannual clock shift, and Year Round DST), > Year Round Standard is the best choice. Indeed, such people may even > need reverse DST, where the clock is set back an hour from Standard > Time (and kept there the entire year). In the summer, at the latitude > of > London (which is near where William Willett considered DST), the sun > would rise at 3AM at the summer solstice under this plan, but this is > harmless since morning sunlight is desired. At the winter solstice, > under > Year Round Reverse DST, the sun would rise at 7AM (around wake-up > time) and set at 3PM. Children would have to go home from school in > the dark (but under Year Round Standard Time, they go to school in > the dark), but once again, what's desired is for the sun to be up when > it's time to wake up. > > Dr. Rummo writes that circadian rhythms were set "eons" ago. Back > before artificial lighting, people probably woke up and went to sleep > such > that noon (i.e., the sun at its zenith) was nearly halfway between > wake > up time and bedtime. Nowadays, most people are awake for far more > hours after noon than before -- waking up around 7AM to go to work and > staying up until 9PM, 10PM, 11PM, even midnight (and later, obviously, > on the weekend). That's why Willett proposed DST in the first place, > so > that sun hours would match waking hours more closely. And, finally, somebody is thinking and the news media are reporting it. > > Since noon is closer to the midpoint of children's waking hours than > adult waking hours, children and their families are the other major > group > who prefer Year Round Standard Time. > > Well, jmfbah, I hope that you were able to get enough sleep tonight on > the shortest night of the year (according to the clock), and certainly > one > of your least favorite nights of the year. It's not last night which is the problem. It's the mornings which are now dark until 08:00 and, later in the summer, the "nights" which are lit up until 22:00. My sister told me it take months for her to get used to the change. She usually gets up at 04:00. When I was working, it would take me about 6 weeks. /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 14 Mar 2010 08:32 Transfer Principle wrote: > On Feb 24, 5:11 am, Cheryl <cperk...(a)mun.ca> wrote: >> jmfbahciv wrote: >>> What is wrong is forcing the entire populace to go through >>> a jetlag twice a year. Their driving is more dangerous >>> and productivity falls until each person has adjusted his/her >>> internal time clock. Congress has been passing laws >>> about truckers getting enough sleep. OTOH, they pass clock >>> resetting laws which causes everybody to not get enough sleep. >>> What's wrong is that it's dangerous and unhealthy. >> What's stopping people from going to bed an hour earlier that night? >> Anyway, that only works for one direction. The other time, everyone gets >> an extra hour of sleep, and therefore should be more rested and less >> likely to have accidents. > > I think the problem jmfbah has when we fall back is that she feels > tired an hour before bedtime. That's why for her, Year Round > Standard Time is the best. <snip> Nope. It's any change. And I go to bed when I'm tired. I get up when I wake up. IOW, my life isn't run by the clock but others are. It's extremely annoying to be woken up at 21:30 by chattering neighbors who don't go to bed while the outside light is on. Closing windows in the summer is not an option. /BAH
From: Peter Moylan on 15 Mar 2010 00:10 Transfer Principle wrote: > The reason that some posters mentioned the 28-hour day is that > it can be implemented simply by taking one of the 24-hour days > of the week and divide it into sixths, giving four hours each to the > other six days of the week. [...] > It's necessary for a calendar reform to accompany the 28-hour plan, > since there would be six days in a week instead of seven. Getting rid of one of the weekdays is no big deal. Most people hate Mondays anyway. -- Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org For an e-mail address, see my web page.
From: Odysseus on 23 Mar 2010 02:57
In article <7ukn1rFnhsU2(a)mid.individual.net>, Cheryl <cperkins(a)mun.ca> wrote: <snip> > But I'm in Canada, so we don't celebrate President's Day at all, > whenever it comes. I'd make do with a 'mid-February Holiday' in honour > of nothing in particular if I could be guaranteed a break in that dreary > month. In Alberta we have Family Day, the third Monday in February IIANM, but when the government introduced it (perhaps twenty years ago) they neglected to amend the labour laws to increase the minimum number of paid holidays. So it's mainly civil servants, teachers, and a few other unionized workers that get the day off, while the rest of us get a dose of envy to go with our February blahs. -- Odysseus |