[ale] [OT] Googlian Calendar

Tue Oct 1 15:35:32 EDT 2013

Don't be offended. One of the replies to this thread caught me right after I was losing my mind over an email about our supposed unpreparedness for Israel's changed DST dates (MS and Apple were also unprepared, so I don't feel too bad). Between the two, it reminded me of when the US DST change forced us to upgrade the JVM we then embedded in our product, which would have been fine except the installer software we were using didn't support the later JVM and had gone out of business. So we had to come up with a whole new install process. You can imagine the headache. Of course, we would have eventually had to do most of the work anyway, but it wasn't a pretty couple of months for me. I was pretty sure your post was TIC, but it provided me with a good opening to vent on my issue of the moment ;-) 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Sid Lane" <jakes.dad at gmail.com> 
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" <ale at ale.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, October 1, 2013 8:28:43 AM 
Subject: Re: [ale] [OT] Googlian Calendar 

not sure if I should be flattered or offended but yes, it was TIC... 

I'd thought of this years ago joking around but Google's 15th anniversary seemed like a good occasion to go public with it. it seemed like a natural convergence of the absurdity of political correctness taken to its extreme, homage to the coolness/utility of google (remember when we used to have to know stuff?) and the fact that "Googlian" & A.G. seemed like natural drop in replacements for Gregorian & A.D. silly/absurd? absolutely! but is it really any more so than C.E. & B.C.E.? either keep the real labels or replace the system! the P.C. facade is juvenile... 

I'm sure I'm far from alone among ALErs but my brain is wired somewhat differently from "normal" people (whatever that is)! 

</rant> :D 

On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 11:03 AM, Scott Plante < splante at insightsys.com > wrote: 

I hadn't replied because I took all this as a tongue-in-cheek suggestion. Just in case you're serious, I'll have to say this is a really bad idea. When under Bush, they just changed the Daylight Savings Time dates, it caused a huge amount of work for us. They just changed the DST dates in Israel and it again caused us to waste many, many needless hours of support, and I'm not sure we're done with the fallout yet. The amount of wasted effort across the US and the World to deal with a change of this magnitude in computer systems for so little (if any) benefit would be outrageous. 

Scott 

From: "Sid Lane" < jakes.dad at gmail.com > 
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!" < ale at ale.org > 
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2013 1:20:44 PM 
Subject: [ale] [OT] Googlian Calendar 

being in an interfaith marriage my frighteningly precocious daughter recently asked me why we have two New Years as well as how we can go from the year 2013 in January to 5774 a couple of weeks ago which got me to thinking that Google’s 15th birthday today seems like the perfect opportunity to separate that most deeply rooted of all church/state violations: the Gregorian Calendar! what does that have to do with Google? glad you asked! let me answer in three parts: 

1. any calendar requires an epoch (this is self-evident) 
2. most (if not all) alternatives’ epochs are tied to respective religion’s creation stories (still violating separation just in different flavors) 
3. name a more secularly significant event than google launching* 

think about it - how often do you wonder: “how did the world work before Google?” when Googling obscure error messages or edge case symptoms we often quip at work: “isn’t it weird to think there was a time when you used to have to actually KNOW stuff?”. the fact that “Googling”, the present tense of the verb “to Google”, is recognized by spell check (at least mine) just underscores my point (though admittedly I’ve yet to see a full conjugation)! honestly, I am convinced that Google is the new library of Alexandria and when they eventually crash it will plunge humanity into another dark age though that’s a topic for another time… 

anyway, in conclusion I encourage everyone to write your congress critter (enclosing the obligatory campaign contribution - another topic for another time), MP, Ayatollah (well, maybe not him), etc to petition that September 27, 2013 be internationally recognized as 15.000, the 0th day of the 15th** year A.G. (Anno Googli). at a minimum I hope we can get formal adoption from the Pastafarians… 

Happy New Year! 

*which can be identified with any precision - I’m not keen on a Kelvin calendar based on a big bang SWAG, not to mention the relativistic effects get really nasty as you approach absolute zero (though an argument can be made that does seem appropriate given what quantum mechanics does approaching 0K temp). 

**unlike Pope Gregory Googlers are smart enough to realize that days and years should start with ZERO instead of one! not to mention that we don’t even need a B.G.! we just go negative - September 26, 1998 becomes -1.364 (though this admittedly requires signed variables). we can figure out the subdivisions (“months”, “weeks”, etc) later but it seems like an opportunity to standardize & bring sanity while we’re at it! 

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