4 ms·

Your math doesn't work out there though. If we had 30 day months, we would end up with 360 days spread among 12 months, and an extra 5 days leftover. 28 day mo

Your math doesn't work out there though. If we had 30 day months, we would end up with 360 days spread among 12 months, and an extra 5 days leftover. 28 day months make far more sense, would align nicely with your proposed single New Year's day, and have the added bonus of aligning with our 7-day week system quite nicely. This ends up with 13 months altogether, and hey, it turns out that 28 days is closer to a lunar cycle, so the full moon would end up happening at roughly the same time every month. Not perfectly of course, but with the chaos that is our solar system, I'll take what I can get. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar

bluejekyll 10y ago
Ah. I screwed up my math. 28 sounds perfect. I rely on unit tests for this stuff these days ;)
jhbadger 10y ago
That first example (12 30 day months with 5 or 6 days outside months) was actually used in practice in post-revolutionary France (and again during the Paris Commune). I'm not sure keeping 7-day weeks is really a plus -- the French Revolutionary calendar used 10-day "decades" which align with the metric system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar
- wernercd 10y ago
  Metric? Yeah... us Americans would never go for that garbage... :)
  - bluejekyll 10y ago
    I think you mean "we Americans..." And yeah. I mean 10 is only divisible by 2 and 5 where 12 is much more flexible in giving us 2, 3, 4, and 6. At least that was my grandfather's argument. I annoying need to keep Metric and Standard wrenches and such for working on various things. Eventually it won't matter as the US will mostly source parts built over-seas where it will only make sense to adopt metric. And then the Standard system will only be left on road signs and temeratures, oh that's pretty much already happened.
    - wernercd 10y ago
      > 10 is only divisible by 2 and 5 where 12 is much more flexible in giving us 2, 3, 4, and 6. Now that is some good ole American ingenuity :)
      - serge2k 10y ago
        Americans do come up with the best dumb arguments why their busted idiotic system is better. My "favorite" is "Well farenheit just makes more sense for humans".
  - vidarh 10y ago
    But you do.. Sort of. One of the original signatories of the treaty of the metre, and all of your silly units for length and mass at least are defined in terms of SI units as of 1959 [1] [2]. So when you give someone an inch, you're specifically giving 25.4mm ;) [1] https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/si-units-length https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/si-units-lengt... [2] https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pml/wmd/metric/frn-59-5442-1959.pdf https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pml/wmd/m...
- cafard 10y ago
  I will just point out for the benefit of those who run Emacs and haven't yet discovered it, that in calendar mode, "p f" will tell you, for example, that November 7, 2016 is 17 Brumaire, year 225 of the revolution.
restalis 10y ago
Why having (7-days) "weeks" at all? Divide 28 into 7 groups of 4 days each and use these. Three days of work followed by one off, how does it sound?
- placeybordeaux 10y ago
  Like something that is not going to happen. Religious days are the reason we have weekends where they are. They are not going to change because "why not have 4 day weeks".
  - restalis 10y ago
    Religious groups may stay with their own calendar if they wish, it wouldn't be the first nor the last thing kept conservative out of religious reasons. The secular society, however, may look for whatever works best.

bluejekyll 10y ago

Ah. I screwed up my math. 28 sounds perfect. I rely on unit tests for this stuff these days ;)

jhbadger 10y ago

That first example (12 30 day months with 5 or 6 days outside months) was actually used in practice in post-revolutionary France (and again during the Paris Commune). I'm not sure keeping 7-day weeks is really a plus -- the French Revolutionary calendar used 10-day "decades" which align with the metric system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar

wernercd 10y ago
Metric? Yeah... us Americans would never go for that garbage... :)
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  I think you mean "we Americans..." And yeah. I mean 10 is only divisible by 2 and 5 where 12 is much more flexible in giving us 2, 3, 4, and 6. At least that was my grandfather's argument. I annoying need to keep Metric and Standard wrenches and such for working on various things. Eventually it won't matter as the US will mostly source parts built over-seas where it will only make sense to adopt metric. And then the Standard system will only be left on road signs and temeratures, oh that's pretty much already happened.
  - wernercd 10y ago
    > 10 is only divisible by 2 and 5 where 12 is much more flexible in giving us 2, 3, 4, and 6. Now that is some good ole American ingenuity :)
    - serge2k 10y ago
      Americans do come up with the best dumb arguments why their busted idiotic system is better. My "favorite" is "Well farenheit just makes more sense for humans".
- vidarh 10y ago
  But you do.. Sort of. One of the original signatories of the treaty of the metre, and all of your silly units for length and mass at least are defined in terms of SI units as of 1959 [1] [2]. So when you give someone an inch, you're specifically giving 25.4mm ;) [1] https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/si-units-length https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/si-units-lengt... [2] https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pml/wmd/metric/frn-59-5442-1959.pdf https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pml/wmd/m...
cafard 10y ago
I will just point out for the benefit of those who run Emacs and haven't yet discovered it, that in calendar mode, "p f" will tell you, for example, that November 7, 2016 is 17 Brumaire, year 225 of the revolution.

restalis 10y ago

Why having (7-days) "weeks" at all? Divide 28 into 7 groups of 4 days each and use these. Three days of work followed by one off, how does it sound?

placeybordeaux 10y ago
Like something that is not going to happen. Religious days are the reason we have weekends where they are. They are not going to change because "why not have 4 day weeks".
- restalis 10y ago
  Religious groups may stay with their own calendar if they wish, it wouldn't be the first nor the last thing kept conservative out of religious reasons. The secular society, however, may look for whatever works best.