Xkcd Smearing Clock

https://tonybox.net/posts/smearing-clock/

by bonyt • 6 years ago

22 12 6 years ago

tonybox.net

heartbeats• 6 years ago

Here's a question I've always had: why February?

December 32nd would be much more sensible.

jolmg• 6 years ago

Because it's got the least number of days, so adding one brings it closer the the average? But then I'm going to be curious as to why it only has 28/29 days.

A month with 32 days would just be introducing a new anomaly instead of making an existing one less so.

headcanon• 6 years ago

Because February is the worst month, so we make it shorter :P

mcv2• 6 years ago

Because Augustus Caesar wanted his month to have just as many days as his predecessor's month. After that, the regular alternating pattern continued, until the end of the year (February) came up a day short.

tomatotomato37• 6 years ago

I think February was the either the end or beginning of the year in the Georgian calendar's earliest predecessor when leap days were implemented

jascii• 6 years ago

That would make the holiday season one day longer, with all the pain and suffering indicated by the suicide statistics of that period..

jfengel3• 6 years ago

Because the early Romans basically stopped counting between December and March. The year began in March, which kinda made sense for an agrarian society that didn't really do much that they needed to track during the winter. When they later added January and February, it made sense (just as you say) to make the leap day the last day before the year really began. It wasn't until later that the year was shifted to begin in January (closer to the solstice).

mcv2• 6 years ago

I heard it was because Rome was a military society. In March the weather was good enough for new military campaigns (hence why it's named after the god of war).

im3w1l• 6 years ago

So then when and why did January become the first month?

jfengel3• 6 years ago

Ah, Randall. Because of course all us nerds already know about leap seconds, and that Google has for a decade implemented leap seconds by "smearing" them over the day rather than as a discontinuity[1].

It makes me want to read it as a Jerry Seinfeld joke. "What's the deal with Google's leap second? It's not a leap, and it's not a second."

[1] https://developers.google.com/time/smear

Xkcd Smearing Clock

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