Comments on: A Perpetually Rotten Idea

By: Maledict

Maledict — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:31:48 +0000

You people live in a country that will not change to metric measurement systems, and you complain about perpetual calendars?

By: MG Ellington

MG Ellington — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:03:32 +0000

I would be utterly scre…ok well it wouldn’t work for me.

By: CN Suresh

CN Suresh — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:20:03 +0000

I may as well check with my my wife; she sure is good at these things [ if Days & Dates could be termed such; I am sure ‘timeanddate.com’ may possibly take offense to my observations .
Never mind; after all it is my mind. Now, we are trespassing into Months/Years !!!

By: CN Suresh

CN Suresh — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:14:30 +0000

Well, what day is today, here in Rabat, Morocco…………Maybe Wednesday, the 2nd December, 2009. Do correct me at the earliest, before I start forgetting again !

By: Low Math, Meekly Interacting

Low Math, Meekly Interacting — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:11:34 +0000

My wife tells me what day it is. That’s how I know. So I always know what day it is, because she ALWAYS knows what day it is. And what day some Thursday weeks form now will be, too. Just try getting out of dinner with the in-laws with her around. “Sorry, honey, I plum forgot?” Pffft. She nukes that one with a preemptive reminder faster than I can run out the door that morning.

Some people have these things in their heads, I just know it.

By: rob

rob — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:46:42 +0000

i thought perpetual calendars violated the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

By: Bee

Bee — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:13:50 +0000

These calendars are frequently used in banks, post offices, other public service offices etc. You don’t use them to tell yourself what day it is, but tell others what date to put into the forms. I don’t know what’s bonkers about that.

By: cbda

cbda — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:34:42 +0000

Sometimes the family wants to buy me a calendar and/or clock and my response is always
“what do I need a calendar/clock for? I have a _computer_!”

The computer keeps better time; adjusts for DST automatically; alerts me to pending scheduled events; displays a calendar for any chosen month or year, etc. etc

By: Sili

Sili — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:09:45 +0000

They’re convenient for public venues, though.

I may occasionally know what date it is, but that doesn’t stop me from looking up to check at the postoffice, for instance, when I have to sign for something.

At the library, though, we just used a tear-off calendar.

But, yes, for the rest of us, they’re pretty useless.

There’s a rhyme? I’ve always counted on my knuckles until I learnt it by heart. (And I still mess up February.)

By: Mel

Mel — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:41:34 +0000

I remember having a perpetual calendar I think you would have liked. It was basically two brass discs that were pinned together. The upper disc was printed on it’s top half with a 31 day month and on it’s bottom half with the years arranged in columns (because of space it was only good for 40 years or so). There were windows above the calendar and below the years through which you could see the lower disc. On it was printed the months and weekdays in concentric circles. By positioning the desired month under the year the days of the week would align themselves over the calendar. The whole thing wasn’t as big as a silver dollar and fit easily in the watch pocket in my jeans. The only hard part was remembering how many days this month had! (I could never remember the rhyme so I used the fist method). I believe they were made for Jack Daniels, but this was back when people were walking on the moon and we were waiting desperately for the Internet to be invented. I can’t find anything like it now.

By: Brian Too

Brian Too — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:30:57 +0000

@Julianne,

No, sorry, I disagree. You see if the Inca had invented the perpetual calendar, we’d be spared all this nonsense about 2012!

That alone justifies the existence of perpetual calendars. What happens when the year ends? You go to a big party, perhaps imbibe, face an uncomfortable kissing moment, then sleep it off and resolve not to do it again. I think even the Inca knew that! Other than that not much at all…

Oh, but I do enjoy the opportunity to buy some beautiful calendars to hang in my cube and elsewhere.

By: JD

JD — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:16:00 +0000

Or you could be a geek like me and memorize the Doomsday algorithm.

http://rudy.ca/doomsday.html

Side-effect: I used to be really good at knowing instantly what date today was. Since I’ve started using the Doomsday algorithm, I can never remember what date today is but I can always “find” it within a couple of seconds.

By: Blake Stacey

Blake Stacey — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:07:18 +0000

Well, that just means the consumer has to exercise a little discretion in making a calendar purchase! (-:

I mean, why shouldn’t Sturgeon’s Law apply to calendars, as much as everything else?

By: Julianne

Julianne — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:12:04 +0000

Alex & Blake — I agree about that some perpetual calendars have their place. However, if you look at the pictures above, which are representative of most of the ones sold these days (largely as decorative objects), they depend on some person to turn some cube to the right face, or slip in the correct piece of paper. Every day (or month).

By: Blake Stacey

Blake Stacey — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:59:15 +0000

It’s a useful thing to have if you want to answer questions like, “Will the 23rd be a Friday?” or “Will tomorrow be the second Tuesday of the month?” (which I had to know in order to move my car for street cleaning, back when I owned a car). Of course, we’ve software for these things, but it doesn’t hurt to have a backup in case your cell phone battery dies, particularly if the backup looks nice on the wall.

And, of course, only one person in the vicinity of the calendar actually has to update it, and that only has to happen once a month.

By: gene l

gene l — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:54:29 +0000

Think of all the scantilly clad young women who would become unemployed

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:33:51 +0000

Writers, investigators, historians and others find it useful to be able to determine the day/date for a broad range of years. You can do it online easily (timeanddate.com), but occasionally some of us choose to be in places without internet access (to be able to focus better) or lose it because of a challenged ISP. In those situations, a perpetual calendar can be a good thing to have.

For the most part, they’re not very helpful, although I suppose you could argue it reduces waste for those who absolutely must have an IRL calendar :–)

By: Elayne Riggs

Elayne Riggs — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:25:52 +0000

I use calendars all the time (about 80% for work and 20% at home) and love the idea of a perpetual one, but yes, it ought to be automated.

By: Stephen P

Stephen P — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:02:43 +0000

Perpetual calendars (at least the less twee ones) were once exceedingly useful in offices: one person would set the date at the beginning of the day and then everyone else would use it. Nowadays of course they are merely decorative – if you like that sort of thing.

By: g

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:53:34 +0000

A calendar doesn’t tell you what day it is. (At least, many don’t and I don’t think doing so is the main function of a calendar.) It tells you the correspondence between days and dates, which some people find easy to forget. Updating the date on a “perpetual calendar” requires only that you be able to remember a day and date for a minute.

(None the less, I also think the idea is pretty silly.)