Why does this exist?

nightshade said:
And that we would get an extra day every 4 years.
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this actually has a reason... the calculation of a year is not exact in day length terms... and since day and night divide, you can't have a year that is 365 and 1/4 days... so every 4 years you get an extra day... the travel around the sun is not exactly denominated in days... it's 365 and 1/4 - if they didn't account for that, eventually, the position of the planet on its travel round the sun would shift and seasons would therefore go out of whack in terms of where they occur.
long version: https://www.npr.org/2024/02/26/1232986212/leap-day-explained
 
DeepBlueJoy said:
this actually has a reason... the calculation of a year is not exact in day length terms... and since day and night divide, you can't have a year that is 365 and 1/4 days... so every 4 years you get an extra day... the travel around the sun is not exactly denominated in days... it's 365 and 1/4 - if they didn't account for that, eventually, the position of the planet on its travel round the sun would shift and seasons would therefore go out of whack in terms of where they occur.
long version: https://www.npr.org/2024/02/26/1232986212/leap-day-explained
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Yeah I know, but why did they not calculate days differently so we have 300 days in a year or something when they decided hours etc.
 
nightshade said:
Yeah I know, but why did they not calculate days differently so we have 300 days in a year or something when they decided hours etc.
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I think that is because the day is based on the Earth's rotation on its axis and the year on the rotation around the Sun. So, a day has to be, well, a day long no matter how you divide it and a year has to be about 365 axis rotations long otherwise seasons would get out of sync with the months.
 
nightshade said:
Yeah I know, but why did they not calculate days differently so we have 300 days in a year or something when they decided hours etc.
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because of the trip around the sun... if denominated comes into 365 and one quarter night and days. 365 times the sun comes up... and then a quarter of a day... and if that isn't inserted in a 1/4 x 4 = one extra day every 4 years you have years with extra weeks ever several years... or other even less rational things... as it goes now, we have 365 times the sun rises in a trip of the planet around the sun... and that quarter day is then added as on whole day on day 366 of the 4th year and the drift is controlled before it exceeds a day and starts to cause drift of seasons.

if you had 300 day years, some days would have the sun rise twice and when the day began would become kind of arbitrary in terms of sunrise and sunset.

Someone smarter than me will have to tell you why 24 hours.

why midnight? I suspect the day begins at midnight precisely because 'everyone' is asleep. Whenever people wake up, on the whole, it will be a new day... If they wake at 5 or 7 or 9. (Until modern life, most people didn't really do shift work or start and end at odd hours - even most shifts start before midnight or sometime after). A lot of shifts are 12 hours from 6am to 6 pm or 7-7 or 8 hours - 6-2, 2-10, 10-6 with that last being the overnight. In many fire departments, the shift is 24 hours on, with 48 hours off with shifts A, B & C.

In pre industry/pre electricity, most work was done by daylight, so people got up with the sun rise or some time after and stopped most work with the dark*. Calling midnight the end/start of day meant work days didn't get chopped into different days, which is simpler if you have to calculate how many work days you have to pay for or get paid for. It's simpler if everyone follows a convention... end of day is 'x' everywhere. so it rolls across the planet. Someone decided 24 slices made sense... I am sure there's a mathematical reason to divide the planet 'time pie' into 24 hour slices like a chocolate orange. I will leave that one to someone else.

*Exceptions for night watches.
 
It was especially important in the past to have the calendar not get out of sync with the seasons. But the point is, we could have a 10-day week, or 5-day week, or any number, but we have a seven-day week. Seven days was laid out in the Bible, but I tend to believe that was because that was what people were doing then, and so they established it that way as the word of God, not the other way around.

As far as needing the leap days, I recall hearing that when the calendar was re-synchronized in the US by deleting 11 days, people rioted because those days were being "stolen" from their lives! 😆
 
nightshade said:
Yeah I know, but why did they not calculate days differently so we have 300 days in a year or something when they decided hours etc.
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Because of the legacy of the past. The Ancients didn't use the decimal system. IIRC, the Egyptians used duodecimal or base 12 - hence 12/24 hours in a day. The Sumerians/Babylonians used base 60 (sexagesimal system) - which I presume is the reason for 60 seconds/minutes. They "simply" imposed their counting systems onto natural phenomena as described above.
 
TheMaster666
TheMaster666
Huh didn't know that. Cool!
What the heck are chicken waffles???!??! I've just seen them in the meat section of my online shop. Why? Who wanted that? They also have chicken donuts. Both seem so wrong. I cant imagine why anyone would want chicken shaped like sweets????
 
HowiMetdaSlayer
HowiMetdaSlayer
they're oddly good
nightshade said:
Yeah I know, but why did they not calculate days differently so we have 300 days in a year or something when they decided hours etc.
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They did. There are other cultures with other calendars that divide up the months and days differently. The contemporary Gregorian calendar evolved from the Roman calendar, and since the Roman empire was vast, there's few places in the world that didn't feel its influence.

Hence several of the months' names too are derived from Roman leaders or mythology (e.g. Julius - July; Mars - March; June - Juno; etc.)
 
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At least here in the states Chicken AND Waffles has become a fairly popular dish. I don't enjoy the combo myself, but it is at a lot of places, including some where it is the featured item.

From the description, I assume you're talking about a donut or waffle MADE of chicken? I assume someone is trying to take a shortcut.
 
The Week, is for the seven planetary gods of the Babylonians, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn (remember, Uranus and Neptune were unknown at the time). They were also held responsible for the Creation of the World. Obviously, the idea was eventually borrowed by the Hebrews, Romans, and the Germans, and made it's way to us.

The hours were based on the sun, and more precise time wasn't that important prior to the invention of clocks.

As far as midnight goes, remember, no clocks, no lamps. Night began when the Sun went down, and aside from monks and soldiers, no one cared. For soldiers, night was divided into four watches starting at six. For monks, you woke up for prayer in the middle of the night, which was longer, because, no electricity.
 
Kendar said:
At least here in the states Chicken AND Waffles has become a fairly popular dish. I don't enjoy the combo myself, but it is at a lot of places, including some where it is the featured item.

From the description, I assume you're talking about a donut or waffle MADE of chicken? I assume someone is trying to take a shortcut.
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Fried chicken AND waffles I can sorta understand. I'd try it. Like pancakes and bacon, which turned out to be yum. Its still weird and over the top to have such a sweet and fatty combo, but its probably as close as I'd ever get to overseas cuisine lol.

But yes these were chicken meat shaped like waffles and donut. Bizarre! Only 61% chicken according to the ingredients. Whats wrong with normal nuggets? Dino shapes must be superior to waffle shapes, or is it a different target audience?
 
I know why this exists, there should be more of it:

baconweave.jpg


The bacon weave taco shell.
 
So many guesses on what where and who gave the passing of time its names. Still you were all wrong,
for the answers go to Good Omens, episode one.
 
nightshade said:
Blue raspberry flavour. Did they just decide there was too many red fruits so raspberry got chosen to be a different colour.
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A local ice cream shop has blue raspberry along with chocolate, peanut butter, butterscotch and cherry as soft ice cream dip flavours. Blue raspberry is the one I always order.
 
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