The perpetual calendar
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From: Transfer Principle on 22 Feb 2010 20:03 On Feb 22, 4:41 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > On Feb 22, 1:58 am, Transfer Principle <lwal...(a)lausd.net> wrote: > > Notice that the current USA Labor Day (first Monday in > > September) already occurs exactly 11 weeks and three days > > before Usher Thanksgiving. As Usher points out later, this > > is convenient for college football, which traditionally began > > on Labor Day weekend and ended on Thanksgiving, with enough > > time to play 11 games in between. (The recent practice of > > playing 12 games instead of 11 occurred because in a recent > > year when Labor Day and Thanksgiving were 12 weeks and three > > days apart, colleges scheduled an extra game, then kept on > > scheduling 12 games even when the period between the two > > holidays switched back to 11 weeks and three days.) > It can't have been terribly recent, since it was FDR who changed > Thanksgiving from "last Thursday in November" to "fourth Thursday in > November" -- supposedly to increase the number of shopping days before > Christmas. In this case, I wasn't referring to a change to Thanksgiving itself (a la "Franksgiving"), but a change to the number of weeks between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. In particular, we had: 2001: Labor Day = September 3rd Thanksgiving Day = November 22nd dates in between = 11 weeks, 3 days 2002: Labor Day = September 2nd Thanksgiving Day = November 28th dates in between = 12 weeks, 3 days 2003: Labor Day = September 1st Thanksgiving Day = November 27th dates in between = 12 weeks, 3 days 2004: Labor Day = September 6th Thanksgiving Day = November 25th dates in between = 11 weeks, 3 days So what happened was that up until 2001, college football teams scheduled 11 games in the season, but then in 2002, since there was an extra week between Labor Day and Thanksgiving, some schools has 12 games instead. This resulted in more teams becoming bowl-eligible (since it's evidently easier to win six games when there are twelve chances rather than eleven to win). The bowl schedule expanded in 2003 in order to accommodate the extra teams becoming bowl eligible. Then in 2004, some schools went back to scheduling only 11 games. There were fewer teams that were bowl eligible, and so bowls were cancelled. But other schools continued to play 12 anyway. Nowadays, 12-game seasons have become the norm (with a possible 13th game in those conferences which have conference championships). But there are still fewer bowl games than there were in 2003, resulting in some bowl-eligible teams (mostly 6-6 teams) not finding room in any bowl to play. But had the Usher Thanksgiving Day been implemented, Thanksgiving would have fallen on November 21, 2002, and November 20, 2003, meaning that those 12th games would never have been played. We'd probably still have 11-game seasons nowadays, with fewer bowl-eligible teams, and nearly enough spots for all of the bowl-eligible (6-5 or better) teams. An interesting exercise is to Google the phrase "quirk in the calendar" -- most of the results discuss how the differing number of weeks between certain holidays affects sports, or even business. The Usher calendar reform (as well as most other calendar reforms) seek to eliminate such quirks.
From: Robert Bannister on 22 Feb 2010 20:09 Michael Stemper wrote: > In article <%GIfn.45264$lB6.23443(a)newsfe16.ams2>, "Androcles" <Headmaster(a)Hogwarts.physics_u> writes: >> "R H Draney" <dadoctah(a)spamcop.net> wrote in message news:hlni3r01mb3(a)drn.newsguy.com... >>> Robert Bannister filted: >>>> Androcles wrote: > >>>>> The USA doesn't have a football schedule. The rest of the world plays >>>>> football, the USA calls that soccer and then plays it's own version of >>>>> parochial handball. >>> One expects such a reaction from someone who inserts an apostrophe into >>> possessive "its".... >> Oops... I forgot that is one possessive word that doesn't have an apostophe. > > mine, yours, his, hers, its,ours, theirs. > > Not one possessive pronoun has an apostrophe. > One's -- Rob Bannister
From: Andrew Usher on 22 Feb 2010 20:12 Joachim Pense wrote: > >>>> But 0 is the start of computer indexing - at least in real programs. 0 > >>>> = Sunday. > >>> > >>> Ahem. In low level, pointer oriented languages such as C and its > >>> family. And those who chose to imitate it. > >> > >> But not in the first language I used when working for a living (COBOL). > >> > > Nor FORTRAN DO statements. Most people start at 1. You can also > > write an off-by-1 bug in loops depending on whether you start the loop > > with 0 or 1. > > > > Neither Pascal. 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. Andrew Usher
From: Andrew Usher on 22 Feb 2010 20:13 CDB wrote: > "The advantages of living with two cultures > Strike one at every turn, > Especially when one finds a notice in an office building > 'This elevator will not run on Ascension Day'; LOL! Andrew Usher
From: Andrew Usher on 22 Feb 2010 20:15
Evan Kirshenbaum wrote: > > mine, yours, his, hers, its,ours, theirs. > > > > Not one possessive pronoun has an apostrophe. > > One should be sure of one's facts before making such assertions. (Or > should that be "ones"?) 'One' is not, grammatically, a pronoun. It is a nominalised adjective (the number one) that is used in place of a pronoun. Andrew Usher |