Timepieces! Ancient calendars, ancient clocks, beautiful clocks, atomic clocks and the clocks built into your brain that determine how you perceive time and form memories. All the good stuff is inside: [more inside]
posted by metaBugs on May 18, 2009 - 16 comments

The Venus Calendar and Related Lore of the Dogon by Philip C. Steffey, PhD.
posted by sidr on Feb 23, 2009 - 16 comments

2009 U.S. government wall calendar pdfs! We already hit the counterterrorism calendar, so let's look at the wall calendar pdfs for Biosecurity for Birds, Invasive Plants, Invasive Species, and Private Lands. We've got funky green and blue monochrome. There's a brief one from the CDC and one that overdoes it a tad from NOAA. Finally, one from the International Space Station and my favorite, the Overseas Security Advisory Council's A-OK Kids Safety Calendar (2.6 megs). A preview of March's drawing by 3rd grader Roxane Kokka with someone impaled on a tree will make sure you always ware your seat belt.
posted by cashman on Jan 11, 2009 - 7 comments

Deliberately Inaccurate 2009 Calendar [via]
posted by alby on Jan 10, 2009 - 54 comments

"The National Counterterrorism Center is pleased to present the 2009 edition of the Counterterrorism (CT) Calendar. This edition... contains useful information across a wide range of terrorism-related topics: terrorist groups, wanted terrorists, and technical pages on various threat-related issues" such as recognizing the effects of an anthrax infection. "The Calendar marks dates according to the Gregorian and Islamic calendars, and contains significant dates in terrorism history, as well as dates that terrorists may believe are important when planning 'commemoration-style' attacks." Conveniently available in both online multimedia format (deep link to the timeline itself), as well as a printable version (63 MB PDF). [more inside]
posted by grouse on Jan 8, 2009 - 11 comments

NAKED DOCTORS? A small group of male doctors from MedRecruit, a New Zealand-based recruitment agency for MDs decided to pose for a nude calendar in aid of charity. But the charity they chose - KidsCan - saw a nude calendar as totally inappropriate to a charity dedicated to meeting the needs of children. There's a happy ending: the calendar will now be sold to support the New Zealand Prostate Foundation. Get them while they're - well - naked ... just follow the link that says You are here: Home > Naked Doctors.
posted by Susurration on Dec 13, 2008 - 23 comments

Today is July 11th. In the Gregorian Calendar, that is the eleventh day of the Seventh month. The free world celebrates it as Free Slurpee Day. [more inside]
posted by indiebass on Jul 11, 2008 - 28 comments

Time, Tide, and Tonics: The Patent Medicine Almanac in America. "Almanacs have been a part of American life since its very beginning. One of the first books printed in English America was an almanac [pdf]. By the mid-18th century the almanac had become, after the Bible, the book most likely to be found in ordinary homes. Produced annually, almanacs provided practical information and entertainment."
posted by katillathehun on Mar 25, 2008 - 6 comments

Word Magazine's Advent Calendar. The Man in Black in a field of white. Diana + (Flo and Mary) in Santa hats. "Weird Al"'s post-apocalyptic Xmas. Thin Pistols/Sex Lizzy serenade Kenny Everett. Grace Jones uncrated for Pee Wee. And that's just the first five days.
posted by the sobsister on Dec 5, 2007 - 5 comments

The Abysmal.
posted by hama7 on Aug 6, 2007 - 17 comments

This morning in Vancouver, volunteers handed out hundreds of disposable cameras, available free to any low-income resident of the city's Downtown Eastside (DTES) neighbourhood. Pictures in the returned cameras will be entered in this year's "Hope in Shadows" competition, with winners getting prizes and one of 12 spots in next year's calendar. (It will be sold by specially-trained low-income folks, who keep half their profits.) Run by Pivot, a local legal activism group, "Hope in Shadows" is a succesful and "innovative empowerment through art" project and a chance for the residents of the DTES to define their community -- one most often defined by its poverty, addictions, violence and disease.
Previous winners: 2004, 2005 [1] [2], 2006
posted by docgonzo on Jun 9, 2007 - 13 comments

The Antikamnia Calendar for 1900 shows a policeman, a clown, and a newspaper editor (among others), with one slight but notable difference. The 1899 one is pretty neat, too, but not as useful (because 1900 matches 2007 day-for-day). More info and related pics here. via.
posted by cerebus19 on May 6, 2007 - 10 comments

The Beltane Fire Society Fire Festival. Happy Beltane! [Some links NSFW.]
posted by homunculus on Apr 30, 2007 - 23 comments

The Thirteen Towers of Chankillo in Peru may be the Western Hemisphere's oldest known full-service solar observatory, showing evidence of early, sophisticated Sun cults, according to archaeoastronomy professor Clive Ruggles. The 2,300-year-old complex featured 13 towers running north to south along a ridge and spread across 980 feet to form a toothed horizon that spans the solar arc. Last year, another ancient observatory was discovered in Peru by Robert Benfer. The Temple of the Fox is 4,200 years old, making it 1,900 years older than the Chankillo site, but wasn't a complete calendar.
posted by homunculus on Mar 3, 2007 - 8 comments

Time of the Season: Conceptual artist Chris Hardman of Antenna Theater has reimagined the calendar. His ECOcalendar abandons the grid concept, instead unrolling like a scroll to define days vertically. Each day appears in its unique position along the arc of gradual seasonal change, with graphics linking stars to tides to the terrestrial world . Radio interview here.
posted by Miko on Jan 22, 2007 - 17 comments

2007 Calendar: It contextualizes every hour, even on a year’s time scale: if someone marks the calendar, then looks back in even as little as an hour, they will be able to see time’s inexorable march. ...a sort of graph paper for personal life.
posted by signal on Dec 25, 2006 - 13 comments

Geek goddesses or calendar girls? Female IT professionals have posed for a provocative calendar to try and shake off their industry's geeky image and encourage young women to consider a computing career. Yup, that'll work...
posted by Tokil on Jul 10, 2006 - 93 comments

Happy Beltane! Today, astronomically speaking, is one of the four Cross-Quarter days, exactly midway between the solstices and equinoxes. To some people, that makes today the start of summer - after all, why would you begin the season that's supposed to be bright and hot on the day when the only direction to go is darker? (Yes, I know they say May 1 - the first site I linked to figures out the exact dates and times mathematically, so I'm more inclined to trust it).
posted by wanderingmind on May 5, 2006 - 16 comments

Google Calendar has launched. It is compatible with yahoo, Outlook, and iCal and includes many other features.
posted by aburd on Apr 12, 2006 - 89 comments

A friend notes that a friend of hers noted another person on LiveJournal who said his brother noted that Wednesday morning "at exactly two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be: 01:02:03 04/05/06." (In U.S. notation.)
posted by cgc373 on Apr 3, 2006 - 35 comments

TechCrunch has published screenshots of the upcoming Google Calendar application , codenamed CL2. "It includes now-standard web 2.0 features - Ajax, subscription feeds for integration with iCal and other desktop calendars, event creation, search, sharing, notifications (including SMS) and more." The login screen is even functional.
posted by charmston on Mar 13, 2006 - 35 comments

Monthly multifaith calendar of religious holidays and festivals.
posted by matteo on Jun 3, 2005 - 4 comments

Today is World Centennial Haiku Day 05/07/05
Rejoice good citizens, today is Haiku Day.
We're all well familiar with rape haiku (and grape haiku from the Mefi thread) but did you know about Scifaiku (science fiction haiku)?
Unless you don't follow the Gregorian Calendar, such as those following the Hebrew, Persian, Islamic , Chinese, or Hindu calendars. To them its just another day, I guess.
posted by fenriq on May 7, 2005 - 31 comments

Lakota Winter Counts. Lakota and other plains tribes counted time by winters. An appointed recorder would choose one major event to mark the year, depicting that event by name and symbol. Early records dating back to the 10th century were often painted on buffalo skins; more recent winter counts were recorded as text journals. These fascinating records offer insight into natural and historic events for our land that precede accounts of European settlers. - more -
posted by madamjujujive on Apr 26, 2005 - 12 comments

The Numeric Diaries... So cool. After entering, use the side arrows to navigate back and forth, choose from the drop-down menu, or use the thumbnails to view images going back to October 1, 2003. Some images mouse over or click through for further treats or links. And when you're done, you can visit the main site at Trezart for a lot more art and fun. (French language, via the archives of the great gmtPlus9)
posted by taz on Feb 16, 2005 - 4 comments

For 170 years, crossing the Channel from the UK to France would have brought you 11 days forward in time, and crossing back would have brought you 11 days earlier. Why? Because the Church of England wasn't about to adopt a new Calendar instituted by a Catholic pope. After all, if the old style was good enough for Caesar.... In fact, it took over 300 years for the new Gregorian Calendar to come into use throughout Europe, causing, no doubt, more than a few missed lunch dates as people forgot to convert between them as they traveled. There are, of course, many other calendars in use around the world, and no shortage of people suggesting that let's do the time warp again.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher on Jan 30, 2005 - 16 comments

The first annual PlayBot calendar. (Might not be SFW) "No robot was permanently harmed or injured during the shooting of the calendar."

posted by kika on Dec 27, 2004 - 15 comments

Static Calendar Proposal as seen on Slashdot This is something I found on Slashdot and thougt was interesting. Judging by the savvy website of the new calendar's creator, I doubt we'll be having "Newton" months anytime soon. Check it out.
posted by Glibaudio on Dec 21, 2004 - 30 comments

Today is the Ides of March. What is the Ides of March? It is March 15th in the ancient Roman calender, the first day of the Roman New Year and the first day of spring. The Roman calender refered to days by names not numbers, thus each month has an Ide day, although not always on the 15th. The Ides of March is best known as the day Julius Caesar was assasinated in the Senate (44 BC) and made famous by the Shakespeare line "Beware the Ides of March". It modern times it has come to symbolize foreboding and bad luck. Iggy Pop sang about it prophetically with todays current events, and in Rome where it all started it's a good day to Toga Party.
posted by stbalbach on Mar 15, 2003 - 7 comments

The year of the Ram!... or black sheep... or goat Dating since 2600 BC, the Chinese calendar is a lunar system of dating that goes in 12 year cycles. It is commonly seen on the place mats of your favorite Chinese eatery. Each year in the cycle is assigned a different animal, mine being the great, "clever to the point of genius" (i always remember that part) monkey - which happens to be next year. Any one make resolutions for this holiday? I wish I knew more about this but apparently there are traditional ceremonies for it. A little advice for the year ahead.
posted by phylum sinter on Feb 1, 2003 - 9 comments

A 32,000 year old etching on an ivory mammoth tusk is linked to the constellation Orion which may have been used as a primitive "pregnancy calendar" designed to estimate when a pregnant woman will give birth. The oldest known drawing of a star pattern, it was created by the mysterious Aurignacian people about whom we know next to nothing save that they moved into Europe from the east supplanting the indigenous Neanderthals.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 26, 2003 - 17 comments

As President-for-Life, you have schools, cities, airports and even a meteor named after you. What is left?
Saparmurat Niyazov, President of Turkmenistan, intends to rename the calendar. January for himself and April may be reserved for his mother.

Crazy guy.
posted by i_cola on Aug 8, 2002 - 13 comments

Your Most Important Appointment is with yourself. Which is why you should participate in the Hour of Presence.
posted by jacobw on Apr 13, 2002 - 9 comments

Electric December Interactive advent calendar. 24 days of unique interactive presents and emailable cards from some of Bristol's finest creative talents. Including Aardman Animations, Insanely Great, Bristol Old Vic, Burrell Durrant Hifle and many more. [More info below]
posted by MintSauce on Dec 11, 2001 - 1 comment

A Very Nice Advent Calendar (and you can't peek ahead), courtesy of hoopla. [via harrumph]
posted by plinth on Dec 9, 2001 - 7 comments

Ever wonder about the Islamic Calendar? finishing up the month of Rajab about Oct 16 "The number of months with Allah has been twelve months by Allah's ordinance since the day He created the heavens and the earth. Of these four are known as sacred" (Holy Quran, ch., v 36)Muharram, Rajab, Dhul Qadah and Dhul Hijja are considered to be sacred months. Fighting during these sacred months is considered to be a sin. I am so ignorant of other cultures.
posted by redhead on Oct 12, 2001 - 7 comments

I reckon this is a really good idea. You can search for festivals and events pretty much anywhere, from classical music to bizarre. I've only found one made-up event, although I've got my doubts about the Baby-Jumping Festival.
posted by Mocata on Jul 27, 2000 - 0 comments

eGroups yanks calendaring app, eats people's data, doesn't appear to care. This Is Bad.
[ From TBTF via Considered Harmful ]
posted by baylink on Apr 27, 2000 - 4 comments