Muddled Calendar Notes

I’d been planning to commemorate leap day with this episode, but I forgot. Over on the right-hand side of the page you can find the holiday ticker, which counts down upcoming holidays. It gives the date in two systems, the old-fashioned Gregorian way (April 2th) and the Muddled Age date (4:0).

The muddled calendar is based on the date I first started my nomadic life. I got the Fed-Ex from the escrow company declaring me formally homeless, loaded up my car, and drove away. A couple of interesting notes:

  • The Muddled Calendar is zero-based. Once adopted, we will be done with those annoying people who said that the year 2000 wasn’t really the millenium.
  • The Muddled Calendar is more accurate than the Gregorian. That old calendar is based on a solar year of 365.2425 days, while the Muddled calendar has a year of 365.2422 days. If the world doesn’t adopt the Muddled Age Calendar by the year 4909, there’s going to be trouble. The MuddleCal is off by 0.000001 days, and I figure by the time that matters, tidal drag will have lengthened the day anyway.

Still, there are a couple of things that might slow the adoption of the Muddled Calendar. Once we clear these things up, Global adoption should be a piece of cake.

  • It has no months, or other structures that give one a sense of the season. Without losing the pure numbering system, it would be nice to have segments of the year (probably based on equinoxes and whatnot)
  • The calendar needs a catchy name. That’s critical in this day and age. The seasonal segments should have catchy names as well.
  • Finally, in the muddled calendar, the special “2th” holidays lose their poetic anchor.

So, while a couple of challenges remain, I think the obvious advantages of the MuddleCal will one day make it the way we all track time.

7 thoughts on “Muddled Calendar Notes

  1. Absolutely 100% in support of Drop Everything And Read Day, and let no one think otherwise. HOWEVER, after reviewing their list of favorite Drop Everything reads, I think we may need to have a word or two with them. I was quite happy to see ‘How To Eat Fried Worms’ included. But no ‘Great Brain’? No ‘Encyclopedia Brown’? Particularly disturbing, no ‘Hoboken Chicken Emergency’?!

  2. I don’t know. But it saddens me. It’s a sad thing.

    Another one they forgot/neglected to mention is ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’.

  3. Happy Pi Day, everybody!

    And for those of you who celebrate the other March 14th holiday, a very happy day to you as well…

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