[ale] [OT] Googlian Calendar

[Sid Lane]

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!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20130927/1ee6fb98/attachment-0001.html>