Re: measuring systems (was: Selenites)

Raymond A. Brown wrote:
[snipped]
> >(Plus, it would mean that birthdays, anniversaries, etc. wouldn't
> >be stuck at the same time of year for your whole life).
>
> All right for birthdays - but people get sort of hung up about other things
> like Christmas and, I guess in the US, Thanksgiving.  Anyway, one gets used
> to a kind of rhythm of things - when September passes into October I expect
> to notice leaves changing color; I don't expect snow in mid-June etc etc.
Well, down here in Australia, we celebrate Christmas in the middle of
summer. I don't think most Australians would mind having it in the
winter
sometimes, and I've heard Americans and Europeans talking about how they
wouldn't mind it in the summer.

We could even adopt a year which is massively out from the present one,
one that is 3/4 of a year or 5/4. That way, over a period of four years
you would
get Christmas once in each season.

> And wouldn't various sporting bodies be put out somewhat? Soccer seems now
> to be played nearly all year round, but other sports over here are somewhat
> more seasonal.  Cricket is essentially a summer sport & many clubs, I
> think, have fairly fixed schedules almost like the changing of a religious
> calender with its different feast days: "Ah, we always plays Ebernoe on the
> third Saturday in June".  I'm sure other parts of the world have seasonal
> sports.
Yes, but they could probably adapt. I think most of the worlds sports
are
slowly going in the direction of being played all year round anyway.

> Personally, I've never found any problem with a solar year of a little less
> than 365.25 days.  I really see no advantage of an artifical year of 360
> days - and I just cannot see how it'd make life simpler!
Make the calendar easier for one thing. Ever tried to right computer
programs
to handle date manipulation? The rules are so horribly messy and
complicated,
date calculations are much harder than they should be.

> Ray.
Simon Kissane