this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2026
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Today I Learned

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[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 33 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Janus was also the god of choices, not just doors

[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 54 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I chose not to include that.

[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)
[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 40 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Because I could. Because we are in the month of choices. (I was trying to be funny. Obviously not succeeding.)

[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My fault, I am autistic and jokes like that are hard for me to get over text. i am sure other people will get it lol

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 11 points 4 months ago

That's ok, shark fucker 4:20. Nobody's perfect.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

I can see why those go together.

[–] madcaesar@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

Fun fact Janus was also the God assles chaps, hence his obsession with yar anus

[–] zikzak025@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Can we start a petition to move September/October/November/December to have September land where July currently is, and then current November and December become Undecember and Duodecember to make the numbers line up again?

[–] Akasazh@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

First you most become a despot, after that you can force your way

[–] wischi@programming.dev 3 points 4 months ago

You could just go back. Before the romans changed the start of the year to January, it was March. That way the "climate" would still be roughly what you expect from a September and not two months of. In another comment I linked to a calendar proposal called SAC13 that incorporates exactly that (it also fixes many other issues the Gregorian Calendar has).

[–] goodboyjojo@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

Cool fact. I didn't know that

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think this decision was shit because it made the eighth month, october, into the tenth month, ruining the naming convention

[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

You'll have to take that up with Julius depending, of course, if you're going to the same place he is.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

Julius hasn't been forcing people to keep it this way.

[–] morphballganon@mtgzone.com 2 points 4 months ago

... the ground?

[–] nogooduser@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

I watched a video earlier saying that it was for an administrative reason.

https://youtube.com/shorts/pTE6YfrcOU8

[–] wischi@programming.dev 4 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Looking for a better calendar without arbitrary new year 🤣

https://sac13.net/

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Just pick a solstice. Done.

[–] wischi@programming.dev 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Good start. Now you need a better leap year rule to reduce the calendar drift. Make sure September, October, November, December are now months 7, 8, 9, 10 (because that's what there names imply) but don't just rename them or they won't fit the time of year people expect them to be, then make all months equal and we are almost there 🤣

[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You don't need to adjust for calendar drift if you start the year on a soltice.

[–] wischi@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago

True, but that would lead to the same mess the Iranian calendar has, that you can't calculate which year will be a leap year. This leads to fragmentation, lot of custom implementations of algorithms that are more or less accurate for the next hundred years.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I prefer the opposite: The 'Pataphysical calendar

  • every day has a name, as well as a number
  • the last day of the month exists on the calendar but doesn't happen in reality (with some exceptions)
  • every month has a Friday 13th
[–] wischi@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Never heard of that one before. What's the point of having an imaginary 29th?

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

it emerged out of the surrealist movement via Alfred Jarry.

For reference his play "Ubu Roi" (Ubu the King) starts with the word "merdre" (often translated at "pshit" or "shitski") - which after it was uttered in the first performance, caused a 15 minute riot in the theatre.

The purpose, such as it is, is that you can make it "unimaginary" for a leap year etc, or if you need an extra day in a month for whatever reason - and it doesn't alter the rest of the year.

[–] wischi@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I still don't see the benefits. It's a bit like saying that every Februar (in the Gregorian calendar) had 29 days but sometimes it's imaginary and sometimes it's not.

Would you phone calendar show "imaginary days"? Could you schedule meetings on imaginary days? If yes - that would probably be a complete mess, and if not - why even call it "imaginary day" if it's not a day at all.

Seems a bit like a bandaid that tries to make it more symmetric/pretty. We could expand all months to 32 days in the Gregorian calender and just call some of the days imaginary. That way all months would be the exact same length 🤣

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

there are no benefits really. it was part of the surrealists who were doing things to be provocative

[–] wischi@programming.dev 1 points 4 months ago

Looks like it worked 🤣

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)
[–] wischi@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago

I'm not a fan of base 10. I'm really like the consistency of the metric system but base 10 is/was a mistake and base 6 or 12 would have been way better for everyday use (including clocks) because of the number of prime factors. 6 and 12 are what's called superior highly composite numbers (SHCN) which make them great choices for bases in a number system because it simplifies a lot of manual everyday calculations, especially divisions.

[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That could work. I especially like that it doesn't start over again like the 12 hour clock.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

I use 24 hour time and imo that would be a much simpler fix to move that into being a standard.

[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And fix the prefixes Sept, Oct., and Dec to align with the months while you're at it.

[–] wischi@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You should take a look 🤣 did that, or better said that's a side effect of starting with march.

[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

Oh yeah. Didn't notice the "starting in March" part.

the gateless gate

what is meant by it i think is that it's a non-physical gate, i.e. you don't even notice it while you're stepping through it. it's like the event horizon of a black hole. or a rainbow, when you get closer to it, it seems to be shifting away, until suddenly it fades and starts re-appearing behind you.