MetaFilter posts tagged with Calendar

Animated Advent Calendar

Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:02:56 -0800

Animated Advent Calendar [via mefi projects] Want a way to count down the days till the Santa (with or without companion(s)) comes to town, but you don't want to go out and spend money on a disposable bit of proto-landfill with daily entries that don't dance? The Online Advent Calendar is your answer. The '08 version is also available for viewing.

Bulgarian Days

tellurian — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:09:25 -0800

Happy Bear's Day, a Saint Day on the Bulgarian Festival Calendar. Some others that caught my eye: Fire dancing Nestinars. Makaveyan Days – "all the sons-in-law gather in their fathers-in-law houses. After the meal the eldest son-in-law starts chasing the younger in the threshing-floor with a stick and beats them." Also The House of Humour and Satire in Grabovo [Proverb – A WORD makes no hole, a pinch tears no underskirt. Superstition – Sin 1. To give a child a spoon to play with].

All this and I didn't link to the Time Cube

metaBugs — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:45:54 -0800

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: How we count and perceive time is fascinating. Very early civilisations developed sophisticated calendars: the Sumerians 5,000 years ago in what's now Iraq; Stonehenge 4,000 years ago (and more recently, ManhattanHenge); the Chinese calendar system between 3,500 - 4,000 years ago; Calendars from North American societies dating from 500BC; the Julian Calendar from 45BC; and finally our current Gregorian calendar in 1582. Much younger but arguably just as important as the other calendars is Epoch or Unix time, the common time counted by UNIX and LINUX-based computers worldwide, providing a foundation for communication across networks. (previously) More recently, clocks have become crucial. Harrison's very beautiful series of clocks (H1, H2, H3, H4) were accurate enough to calculate longitude and opened the seas for reliable trade, exploration and systematic mapping. The spread of fast travel by rail lead to the standardisation of time zones, with towns in Britain and the USA moving from local solar time to "railway time". Knowing the right time rapidly became a commodity: three generations of the Belville family made their living by providing London's clock-owning homes and businesses with the correct time. Our best atomic clocks can now be accurate to within 1 second every 300 million years and are essential for systems like GPS and global communications. At the other end of the scale, the Long Now foundation wants to build a clock to measure 10,000 years. If you'd prefer something a little more practical, you could always get this wall-mounted 100 year alarm clock instead. We have a multitude of different clocks ticking away inside our brains and bodies. An healthy heart, for example, will keep a steady rhythm indefinitely without any signals from the brain. Our second best-known timekeeper is the suprachiasmatic nucleus. It keeps us on an amazingly accurate cycle that averages 24h11m +- 16 minutes, keeping our bodies to this cycle even if forced to live a 28-hour day or living in a light-free cave with no watch. This 24-hour cycle controls an amazing array of bodily functions, including hormone levels, body temperature, your immune system's activity and much more. It gets re-adjusted daily by sunlight so we can trick it into adopting longer days, which will be useful for when humans get to Mars. Jet-lag sufferers (whose "deep sleep" clock becomes detached from their REM sleep clock) know that this isn't nearly enough, so will be interested that eating breakfast after at least 16 hours without food beats jet lag by immediately kicking your cycle into "morning" mode, at least in mice and one Formula 1 driver (about 50 minutes in, probably UK only). Shorter times (fractions of seconds to hours) are counted by several different systems including the basal ganglia and the parietal lobe. The rate at which these clocks tick determines how fast we perceive the world and form memories; so by altering these ticks we can seem to speed time up or slow it down. It's well known that various drugs can affect our perceptions of time: Caffeine makes time go slower, anaesthetics make it speed up. THC can give a sense of timelessness, possibly by blocking a a clock circuit that measures time in the seconds to minutes range. Memory load, time of day and mood also have effects, but surprisingly, one of the biggest factors seems to be body temperature. Just like in The Matrix, fear really does make time seem to go slower, letting us pick out details that otherwise we couldn't perceive. Some people claim that they've learned to exploit this in sports and actually stretch their perception of time to see the ball moving slower to get an advantage. Finally, this is what started me down this train of thought: a thought-provoking radio programme from the BBC, in which an astrophysicist, a classicist and an author talk about what time means to them.

The Venus Calendar and Related Lore of the Dogon

sidr — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:08:21 -0800

The Venus Calendar and Related Lore of the Dogon by Philip C. Steffey, PhD.

Calendars o' governments

cashman — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:48:48 -0800

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.

Deliberately Inaccurate 2009 Calendar

alby — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:37:36 -0800

Deliberately Inaccurate 2009 Calendar [via]

NEVAR FORGET an important date ever again, with our handy-dandy calendar! Operators are standing by and listening to your call. Er, I mean waiting for your call. Yeah, that's the ticket.

grouse — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:34:53 -0800

"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). (via amzam, via Threat Level)

Nude doctors not suitable for children?

Susurration — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:54:26 -0800

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.

Are there any two better words together than "Free Slurpee"?

indiebass — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:24:40 -0800

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. I've only posted this because we all love free slurpees. Also: it is Cow Appreciation Day as well. I'd prefer to get free goods without having to dress up like a cow, but that's just me.

Blood Bitters 'n' Swamp Root

katillathehun — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:17:56 -0800

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."

Do They Know It's Advent?

the sobsister — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:34:22 -0800

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.

The Abysmal

hama7 — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:05:09 -0800

The Abysmal.

More hope in shadows

docgonzo — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:28:40 -0800

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

The strangest 107-year-old calendar you're ever likely to see

cerebus19 — Sun, 06 May 2007 16:10:57 -0800

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.

Beltane Fire Festival

homunculus — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 00:15:42 -0800

The Beltane Fire Society Fire Festival. Happy Beltane! [Some links NSFW.]

Archaeoastronomy in Peru

homunculus — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 22:38:46 -0800

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.

Off the Grid

Miko — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:32:23 -0800

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.

Once more around the sun

signal — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 09:13:29 -0800

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.

Geek goddesses/calendar girls

Tokil — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 01:18:07 -0800

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...

Summer begins today. No, really.

wanderingmind — Fri, 05 May 2006 10:53:21 -0800

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).

Google Calendar

aburd — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 21:03:41 -0800

Google Calendar has launched. It is compatible with yahoo, Outlook, and iCal and includes many other features.

Coincidental PSA

cgc373 — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 19:41:51 -0800

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.)

Leaked: Screenshots of Google Calendar App

charmston — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 12:55:00 -0800

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.

Beliefnet's Multifaith calendar

matteo — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 08:16:14 -0800

Monthly multifaith calendar of religious holidays and festivals.

Happy World Centennial Haiku Day!

fenriq — Sat, 07 May 2005 10:18:31 -0800

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.