Isn't the latter an example of the former - ie. a 'extra few days' somewhere?
Technically, yes, but that was a poor choice of words on my part. But "1 extra week every few years" is not the same as "3-day-holiday at the same time every year."
I'm curious about the winter solstice vs summer solstice there
I was referring to Northern solstices for brevity. The intercalary days would happen at the same time, so folks in the Southern Hemisphere would get the longer-on-average set at their summer solstice.
I'd also note that the solstice can be on any of 3 days, typically.
Yes, and a lunar month isn't a whole number of days, and a solar year isn't a whole number of days, either. We make do. Perhaps by setting aside a set of 3 days that the solstice could land on :)
Sure, the further problem there is the December solstice can occur[0] on any of 20, 21, 22, or 23rd of December, timezone of the observer notwithstanding.
Trying to be tricky with fantasy calendars will often catch you up.
You mentioned this was a secular calendar, but appear to have designated the two current / conventional Sabbaths (once again Islam gets the rough end of the stick).
Obviously religious people will oppose a shift from the 7 day week structure, as it will almost definitely break their brand of mysticism.
The design also locks in a 3-day work week, and 2 days where 'normal' people are seemingly not expected to work.
Right now we're tantalisingly close to reducing the conventional 5-day work week down to 4, so I'd be wary about trying to implement a calendaring system (or a social structure) that locked us into 3-day work weeks. It just burdens future-us yet another road block in several years when we realise working 60% of the time is as silly as the equally arbitrary 71%.
The nice thing about the four-day work week discussion is that it encourages people (though not everyone assumes or understands this feature) to think more fluidly in terms of days-of-the-week that you work, and days-of-the-week that you don't. Basically I think it'd be a massive shame to retard that aspect of the thought experiment all over again.
Anyway, cultural baggage is hard to shift when trying to come up with a Brand New Calendar, and it's enticing to try to reject arbitrary dates.
F.e. rather than try to follow some earth / sun configuration events, I'd probably just stick with the 1st of January as the western world's 1st day of the year - people's DOB and age will continue to track accurately that way. (Look at the mess for genealogists created by the ~1752 shuffle).
Other examples are assuming we need 12 months -- we very much don't -- and your proposed design effectively has 14 months anyway, just two of them are very short & variable length.
You've settled on solstice rather than equinox for these mini-breaks, which may indicate that one or both of the solstices is when your culture currently/commonly has a holiday?
Season commencements, of course, are not consistently observed around the world. In sane countries like Australia we consistently start summer on the 1st of December, so that summer spans the 3 hottest months, and winter on the 1st of June, etc. Our seasons kinda nearly center themselves around the season's equinox / solstice.
Similarly the 30 day month -- I can't work out any advantage to that, other than to mostly retain the 12-month calendar you're more familiar with.
I'd argue trying to have a calendar month length be near, but very much not the same as, the lunar cycle, is actually worse. With a half day length delta between the two, you're guaranteeing ~60 unique permutations of lunar : calendar, so not at all "predictable" for the casual citizen.
Comments
Technically, yes, but that was a poor choice of words on my part. But "1 extra week every few years" is not the same as "3-day-holiday at the same time every year."
I was referring to Northern solstices for brevity. The intercalary days would happen at the same time, so folks in the Southern Hemisphere would get the longer-on-average set at their summer solstice.
Yes, and a lunar month isn't a whole number of days, and a solar year isn't a whole number of days, either. We make do. Perhaps by setting aside a set of 3 days that the solstice could land on :)
Sure, the further problem there is the December solstice can occur[0] on any of 20, 21, 22, or 23rd of December, timezone of the observer notwithstanding.
Trying to be tricky with fantasy calendars will often catch you up.
You mentioned this was a secular calendar, but appear to have designated the two current / conventional Sabbaths (once again Islam gets the rough end of the stick).
Obviously religious people will oppose a shift from the 7 day week structure, as it will almost definitely break their brand of mysticism.
The design also locks in a 3-day work week, and 2 days where 'normal' people are seemingly not expected to work.
Right now we're tantalisingly close to reducing the conventional 5-day work week down to 4, so I'd be wary about trying to implement a calendaring system (or a social structure) that locked us into 3-day work weeks. It just burdens future-us yet another road block in several years when we realise working 60% of the time is as silly as the equally arbitrary 71%.
The nice thing about the four-day work week discussion is that it encourages people (though not everyone assumes or understands this feature) to think more fluidly in terms of days-of-the-week that you work, and days-of-the-week that you don't. Basically I think it'd be a massive shame to retard that aspect of the thought experiment all over again.
Anyway, cultural baggage is hard to shift when trying to come up with a Brand New Calendar, and it's enticing to try to reject arbitrary dates.
F.e. rather than try to follow some earth / sun configuration events, I'd probably just stick with the 1st of January as the western world's 1st day of the year - people's DOB and age will continue to track accurately that way. (Look at the mess for genealogists created by the ~1752 shuffle).
Other examples are assuming we need 12 months -- we very much don't -- and your proposed design effectively has 14 months anyway, just two of them are very short & variable length.
You've settled on solstice rather than equinox for these mini-breaks, which may indicate that one or both of the solstices is when your culture currently/commonly has a holiday?
Season commencements, of course, are not consistently observed around the world. In sane countries like Australia we consistently start summer on the 1st of December, so that summer spans the 3 hottest months, and winter on the 1st of June, etc. Our seasons kinda nearly center themselves around the season's equinox / solstice.
Similarly the 30 day month -- I can't work out any advantage to that, other than to mostly retain the 12-month calendar you're more familiar with.
I'd argue trying to have a calendar month length be near, but very much not the same as, the lunar cycle, is actually worse. With a half day length delta between the two, you're guaranteeing ~60 unique permutations of lunar : calendar, so not at all "predictable" for the casual citizen.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solstice#Solstice_determinatio...