Retread ZOT! Who is the moderator in this thread?

[PATRICKHENRY REPUBLIC]

I would like to get permission to post a question to other Freepers. TY.

[sionnsar]

Too late...it's Spring. The trees are all leafed out!

We're just starting to see buds 'n blossoms here. I wore my fleece vest today instead of a coat, but it was just a bit chilly for that. Probably back down to the high 30s.

[Monkey Face]

Now THAT's a scary thought...

[sionnsar]

Calendars would be obsoleted by this system, but who cares?

Not only calendars but our Prayer Book too, with its table of the dates for Easter from 1786 to 2013 (I'm sure that in 1928 2013 was unimaginably far in the future), and table of calculations covering at least through 3499.

I suggest we do away instead with Isaa... oh, never mind. *\;-)

[Monkey Face]

When I was in public school, I was fortunate to be educated in a conservative town. We not only pledged allegiance but no school day was started without a prayer. And a small flag was displayed in every classroom.

I wouldn't have fared well in today's public school system, I think. I would have been questioning everyone about everything.

[sionnsar]

Scary? I won't use "victim" but that's where I received my official education. (The rest was from parents, church and on my own.)

[rottndog]

Actually, upon reflection you've already established that you have risen above that impediment. You didn't type, "I went 2 publik skool"

Spel chiker.

[Monkey Face]

This is just getting good, but I have to go to bed...honest. I don't do well this time of day, as my brain tends to stop processing the written word. As a result, my responses are just as wierd!

G'night, Y'all!

[rottndog]

It wasn't all that long ago....I still remember all the words to all the Patriotic songs we sang at assembly every morning.

[rottndog]

As a result, my responses are just as wierd!

You mean your weird responses aren't SOP?

G'Nite 'Face!

[sionnsar]

When I was in public school, I was fortunate to be educated in a conservative town. We not only pledged allegiance but no school day was started without a prayer. And a small flag was displayed in every classroom.

Me too, a few years after you, I think. I don't recall prayer, though, but... I just don't recall.

In 1964 my town voted 99+% for Goldwater. Looking at its website today (and its newspaper's site as well), it looks like it has become one of those trendy, artsy-fartsy places infested with libs fawning all over each other about how "progressive" they are and taxing the h*** out of everyone else. It was a great town to grow up in -- then.

[sionnsar]

G'night, Face!

[rottndog]

Progressives they really are. They make things progressively worse wherever they are allowed to fester.

[sionnsar]

I wouldn't have fared well in today's public school system, I think. I would have been questioning everyone about everything.

I learned how to slide through quietly in college. I had a goal from about age 10, "Become an Engineer!" and nothing was going to jeopardize that.

Got there... so now I don't have to be quiet. Among many other things, have somewhat established communications between the identified significantly conservative engineers at work.

[NicknamedBob]

Conversion between calendars would be easy. Asimov's suggestion is similar to the Julian date calendar you occasionally see on desktops, (the kind that have tear-off pages).

Most have a numerical day of the year. That's the Julian date.

Today, the Ides, for example, is the fifteenth day of March. Add the 28 days of February and the thirty-one days of January, and the Julian date is the 74^th.

It would be the 74^th in the Asimov plan also, because this is the beginning of the year. But ra^ther than continue counting up to 365 or 366, we would reset every time we reached ninety-one.

Ninety-one is a multiple of seven, so every season or quarter would start on the same day. If we start New Year's on a Sunday, every first day of every season would also be a Sunday, and we'd get a Friday the thirteenth four times a year!

[sionnsar]

Progressives they really are. They make things progressively worse wherever they are allowed to fester.

So true. I almost cried when I visited the website of my former church -- the building is pretty much unchanged (except they moved the altar from ad orientem to corum populo: explanation here, not sacrilege, but bad), and they seem to have adopted many of the worst of the Episcopal Church's "new things."

"You can't go home again," and in this instance I don't want to. What's that old Cat Stevens song, "Ruin"?

[sionnsar]

ra^ther

LOL, but was it ra^ther or ra^ther?

(Rendering may be browser-specific...)

[sionnsar]

Oh boy... I can't even begin to tell you what that would do to a lot of software out there... that would instantly make obsolete (and cause trouble with) more equipment out there than you can imagine.

Consider just your commercial building's air-conditioning control system, the same one that's been working so well for 20 years or so? (And maybe whose manufacturer has gone out of business, or obsoleted the line.) Suddenly it starts scheduling the building as "largely unoccupied" midweek with all the discomforts that ensue, and applies all the "occupied day" actions on weekends thus increasing energy wastage.

Heck, even my house's relatively simple thermostat will have to be replaced once the notion that "one day of the week is always followed by the next day of the week" gets trashed.

Whether the idea has merit or not, the impact has to be measured. And thus does our very technology bind us.

[NicknamedBob]

"... but was it ra^ther or ra^ther?"

Not sure I understand the distinction, even when I perceive it.

As I was typing along, and wanted to superscript the "th" on the dates, I noticed I had used the word "rather".

So, as a joke, I supered it also.

[NicknamedBob]

"Consider just your commercial building's air-conditioning control system, the same one that's been working so well for 20 years or so? (And maybe whose manufacturer has gone out of business, or obsoleted the line.) Suddenly it starts scheduling the building as "largely unoccupied" midweek with all the discomforts that ensue ..."

I can't see how that would happen. The weekly transitions would remain the same. We'd still work Monday through Friday.

The only things that would be affected are calendar specific events such as July 4^th or December 25^th.

That's the third day of the third season, which would be a Tuesday every year, and Christmas day would always be on a Monday, the 86^th day of the fourth season.

A calendar, such as it would be, would have 91 days on it, like a deskpad calendar showing three months. It would probably con=me as a set of rip-off planner pages, with thirteen rows of seven columns, for Sunday through Saturday.

It's true that New Years would constitute a problem, what with the normal weekday pattern being interrupted by a Friday, Saturday, World Day, Sunday, Monday pattern.

And every four years, that would be even further confused by a Friday, Saturday, World Day, Peace Day, Sunday, Monday pattern to accommodate leap year.

If you consider it, this is actually less intrusive than the twice annual change of our clocks for Daylight Savings Time, (Not that that would go away, but that's another issue).

[sionnsar]

Superscripts are often (not always) rendered in a smaller font.