6 ms·

I was originally going to write "Since Friday, 15 October 1582", since that was the first day of the Gregorian calendar. But the previous day on the Julian cal

I was originally going to write "Since Friday, 15 October 1582", since that was the first day of the Gregorian calendar. But the previous day on the Julian calendar was Thursday, 4 October 1582. So even though there was a jump in the day number, the weekdays remained monotonic. So maybe the correct answer is 1 January, 45 BC, the day the Julian calendar took effect, which was apparently a Friday.

ComputerGuru 5y ago
For anyone interested in such oddities, here's an email from a DEC engineer in response to an alleged bug report back in the 90s that goes into a brief but very deep dive of the history of calendar, including the jewel about the jump between the Julian and Gregorian calendars (and the continuity of the days of the week): https://neosmart.net/forums/threads/an-extended-history-of-time-the-calendar.2851/ https://neosmart.net/forums/threads/an-extended-history-of-t... More to the point, that email suggests that there's a good chance the continuity of the days of the week predates even the Gregorian calendar and goes back to the founding of the Roman empire, as presumably Mercedonius wouldn't have given anyone a reason to suddenly change the days of the week.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Does my unix date utility take into account these occasional leap seconds? And are these just hardcoded in the library itself and updated once in a while?
  - LeoPanthera 5y ago
    Leap seconds are supported by ntpd. Leap seconds are announced in advance at this fixed URL, which also contains the list of past leap seconds: https://www.ietf.org/timezones/data/leap-seconds.list https://www.ietf.org/timezones/data/leap-seconds.list ...which can be added to ntpd's configuration if you want your system's leap second to occur exactly on time. Even if you don't, the leap second will eventually take effect via an update from your configured remote ntp servers, or your GPS source, or wherever you get your time from.
eru 5y ago
Thanks! I wonder whether the continuity of the Jewish week predates the Julian calendar?
- hashimotonomora 5y ago
  Yes, it’s been 7 days since the creation.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ComputerGuru 5y ago

For anyone interested in such oddities, here's an email from a DEC engineer in response to an alleged bug report back in the 90s that goes into a brief but very deep dive of the history of calendar, including the jewel about the jump between the Julian and Gregorian calendars (and the continuity of the days of the week): https://neosmart.net/forums/threads/an-extended-history-of-time-the-calendar.2851/ https://neosmart.net/forums/threads/an-extended-history-of-t... More to the point, that email suggests that there's a good chance the continuity of the days of the week predates even the Gregorian calendar and goes back to the founding of the Roman empire, as presumably Mercedonius wouldn't have given anyone a reason to suddenly change the days of the week.

Aeolun 5y ago
Does my unix date utility take into account these occasional leap seconds? And are these just hardcoded in the library itself and updated once in a while?
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  Leap seconds are supported by ntpd. Leap seconds are announced in advance at this fixed URL, which also contains the list of past leap seconds: https://www.ietf.org/timezones/data/leap-seconds.list https://www.ietf.org/timezones/data/leap-seconds.list ...which can be added to ntpd's configuration if you want your system's leap second to occur exactly on time. Even if you don't, the leap second will eventually take effect via an update from your configured remote ntp servers, or your GPS source, or wherever you get your time from.

eru 5y ago

Thanks! I wonder whether the continuity of the Jewish week predates the Julian calendar?

hashimotonomora 5y ago
Yes, it’s been 7 days since the creation.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]