Quantember
I introduce to you the Quantember calendar:
Take a moment to savour the symmetry of this calendar. What’s the idea? Basically, rather than having months with weird, random and non-multiples-of-seven number of days, I propose that we move each day to have 28 days in them. This “simple” move has a variety of benefits:
- No confusion about which dates are on which days
- You can easily remember what day something lies despite being in different months or different years
- Easier to calculate distance between two dates
- The calendar looks nicer
- Every year’s calendar is reusable – why should wwe need to wait 8-9 years to reuse a calendar?
- Leap days feel less random – why are they in Feb?
Finally, in order to allow for this consistency, New Year Eve and the Leap Day are not assigned a day. They’re just called “New Years Eve”. What day is it today? New Years Eve. For simplicity, where necessary, people can call the former a Sunday, and the latter a Monday.
Now, I know there are some criticisms, so let me take them individually:
Farmers/Computers/Systems can’t cope with having a random day which breaks the 7-day cycle
Oh yeah, systems can’t cope with a one-in-365-day exception, but they seem to manage months with weird intervals fine? Puh-lease. Moreover, fewer and fewer people work on New Years Eve, so why does it need to abide by the 7 day cycle? There are eight days from Christmas Eve to New Years Eve, so people take a one week break since Christmas Eve, and “one week” later they come back on the next Monday! How simple is that!
And for the record, it’s now easier to deal with dates on computers.
Now all the public holidays are different! I’ll have to memorise everything all over again.
Yes, but how much easier will it be when you do! ANZAC day will always be a Wednesday! My birthday will always be on a Sunday! Those are all the public holidays you need to know.
But this is haaard. How will I transition?
Fine, bookmark this link. For illustration I’ve made the week start on a Friday, just like in 2016. Once we have convinced everyone we will roll out per my calendar.
What is Quantember?
Because I created this idea I get to name the remaining month. I am naming it after my app (previously Qdiem), called Quantember.
Have you heard of Robespierre?
All hail the Cult of the Supreme Being.
Isn’t this unnecessary?
No.
The inconsistency of dates to days helps people. Like, otherwise my birthday would always be on a Tuesday.
Just celebrate your birthday on the nearest weekend, that’s what everybody does! Apart from birthdays, I can’t imagine any other day when having this inconsistency would make things better.
I want to support this movement.
Share this post with your friends. You can use the hashtag #Quantember on Twitter. I will be printing Quantember calendars by request for $15 + shipping/handling. Contact me if you want to get really involved.