The perpetual calendar
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From: Mensanator on 24 Feb 2010 18:02 On Feb 24, 1:41 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > On Feb 24, 11:59 am, Tak To <ta...(a)alum.mit.edu> wrote: > > > Peter T. Daniels wrote: > > > On Feb 23, 8:07 pm, Andrew Usher <k_over_hb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > >> Ant nio Marques 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. > > >>>> You always count items starting with 0? > > >>> It's a matter of stupid perspective. Since the array's position is the > > >>> 'first', the 'first' element's position is the array's ('first') plus 0. > > >>> First plus 0 = first! > > >> 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. > > > OTOH, indexing years starting with Year 0 makes a lot of sense. > > But there was no Year 0. Yes there was. 0 CE preceeded 1 CE. > 1 BCE Is a different number system. > was immediately followed by 1 CE. No, it was immediately followed by 0 BCE, then -1 BCE, -2 BCE, etc. > > Which is why astronomers don't use BCE dates. Duh. What they use is -2 CE, -1 CE, 0 CE, 1 CE, 2 CE, etc.
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.
From: Hatunen on 24 Feb 2010 18:28 On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:58:49 +0000, Mike Barnes <mikebarnes(a)bluebottle.com> wrote: >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. I once worked here in Arizona as a construction engineer on a power plant for a company based in Seattle; most of the personnel came from Seattle, which does go on daylight time. When time for daylight time arrived, the bosses moved our work hours an hour earlier. I found out it was so they had time to get in a round of golf after work. It was a 75 mile commute taking about an hour and a quarter each way. I did not appreaciate having my wake up time moved back from 6:30am to 5:30am. -- ************* DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen(a)cox.net) ************* * Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow * * My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
From: Trond Engen on 24 Feb 2010 18:33
benlizro(a)ihug.co.nz: > I just realized the other day that the reason I've seen so little of > the live coverage (compared to Beijing) is that it's coming on from > early morning (Vancouver is currently 3 hours later than us) to some > time in the afternoon, when I almost never watch TV. I'm not > particularly a sports fiend, but when the Beijing events were running > right through prime time, you couldn't help occasionally seeing > something. The events in the Vancouver Olympics start surptisingly early, local time, so I suppose they've been scheduled for European prime time. Norwegian TV has live transmissions from around seven to midnight every day. So does Swedish. -- Trond Engen |