Terran Computational Calendar Introduces Minimonths, Year Bases, and Datemods 209
First time accepted submitter TC+0 (3672227) writes "Inspired by comments regarding its first incarnation, the Terran Computational Calendar's recent redefinition now includes dynamic support for 'leap duration', 'year bases', and 'datemods'. Here's the new abstract from terrancalendar.com (wikia mirror) captured at 44.5.20,6.26.48 TC+7H:
Synchronized with the northern winter solstice, the terran computational calendar began roughly* 10 days before the UNIX Epoch. Each year is composed of 13 identical 28-day months, followed by a 'minimonth' that houses leap days (one most years and two every 4th but not 128th year) and leap seconds (issued by the IERS during that year). Each date is an unambiguous instant in time that exploits zero-based numbering and a handful of delimiters to represent the number of years and constant length months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds that have elapsed since 0TC (the calendar's starting point). An optional 'year base' may be applied to ignore erratic leap duration. Arithmetic date adjusting 'datemods' can be applied to define things like weeks, quarters, and regional times."
Synchronized with the northern winter solstice, the terran computational calendar began roughly* 10 days before the UNIX Epoch. Each year is composed of 13 identical 28-day months, followed by a 'minimonth' that houses leap days (one most years and two every 4th but not 128th year) and leap seconds (issued by the IERS during that year). Each date is an unambiguous instant in time that exploits zero-based numbering and a handful of delimiters to represent the number of years and constant length months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds that have elapsed since 0TC (the calendar's starting point). An optional 'year base' may be applied to ignore erratic leap duration. Arithmetic date adjusting 'datemods' can be applied to define things like weeks, quarters, and regional times."
Re:Umm .... (Score:3, Informative)
So say a little over 10 years ago at 34TC [terrancalendar.com] you wanted to schedule a task for EXACTLY 10 years in the future, you can write that date as 44TC34 [terrancalendar.com] and not have to worry about the 3 additional leap seconds that have occured during that time.
Another nice thing about the calendar is that it's easy to calculate the amount of time that occured since the beginning of the year. So basically 44.5.20,19.40.4 TC [terrancalendar.com] means that 5*(28*24*60*60)+20*(24*60*60)+19*(60*60)+40*(60)+4 = 13894804 seconds have past since the beginning of the year. The equivalent being 44TC+13894804 [terrancalendar.com]. Most other calendars aren't too keen on this amount of simplicity.
Re:Thirteen months, who's on crack? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, back in the pagan days, there WERE 13 months
Embolismic months are not constant, but are inserted because there is a difference of about 11 days between 12 synodic months (~354 days) and one tropical year (~365 days). An embolismic month ends up being added approximately 7 years out of 19, by different algorithms according to different cultures. And even if you were intended to include Jews (and their occasional "Adar II") among your categorization of "pagans," even Christians keep track of embolismic lunations in reckoning the date of that faith's holiest day (in the Gregorian Calendar, May 30 is the first day of the seventh lunation out of thirteen in AD 2014). The only major religion that absolutely, positively insists on a year of 12 months for all purposes is Islam.
The year started in spring, and December was the 10th out of 13 months.
It was the tenth of ten months; the early Romans likely reckoned winter as extracalary. January and February (and Mercedonius/Intercalaris) were added later, probably when what passed for Roman astronomy became relatively more sophisticated. And it wasn't only "pagans" that insisted that March was the first month. The last major hold-out, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, didn't change until AD 1752 (AUC 2505). And not all "pagans" were or are Roman.