Steven Brust's LJ (RSS Feed)
02-29-2008, 05:13 PM
Sounds a bit more naughty than Leap Day, doesn’t it (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/new-words/040305-bissextile.htm)?
Back when I was in high school I qualified for one of those classes where they take the top scoring 10% on the pre-SAT and spend six weeks cramming you with vocabulary and SAT test-taking tips and tricks in order to boost your already high score by 10% or more. Setting aside the fundamental squick I have with that attitude for another argument, the first day of class I got into a debate with another classmate and the teacher. I can’t quite remember how it started, but it ended up in me agreeing to write a one page paper about the origins of Leap Day. My paper not only proved whatever point I’d been trying to make in my omniscient teenage ovaciousness (http://reesabrown.com/2008/02/04/inventing-words/), but the teacher was impressed enough to show the paper to all the other classes. The incident might not have won me more friends among my peers, except most of them already knew my geek tendencies and so it passed with little notice and no ridicule.
And you know? Leap Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_Day) really is cool, if one is looking for justification for scoffing at the construct of time in general and the silliness humans engage in measuring time in particular (and I certainly was, back then). Okay, so we have this calendar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar), and it’s almost right in measuring one revolution of our planet around its star at 365 days. Except it’s really more like 365.25, so every four years we add an extra day and that solves it, right? That’s what everyone knows about Leap Day.
Except that it’s really not 365.25 either, shockingly enough. And so they decided to fix it by saying that century years (ending in 00) couldn’t be leap years, and when that didn’t quite make it right, said that we do have leap years in century years divisible by 400. So while our ancestors in 1900 didn’t have one, we never noticed in 2000 because it was Leap Day as usual for us. Guess what? This still leaves a slight inaccuracy (go figure) that has lead to the proposal that years evenly divisible by 4,000 should not be leap years, but this has yet to be adopted as practice. Does that mean that by celebrating 2000’s Leap Day we have helped contribute to the eventual doom of the Gregorian calary system? I like to think so, because my brain likes to amuse me in hyperbole at times like these.
In any case, it’s a day and a time not quite like any other. I like to use it as a day to remember the arbitrariness of clocks, and* to savor and appreciate the different and unique quirks of life, and to take the opportunity to do at least one new thing or learn some new skill or meet new people. A time to remember that there’s a place for the nonsensical and wacky just as much as for comforting habitual routines, which are also a vital part of healthy human function.
And don’t even get me started on the leap second (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second).
(Originally posted at Words Words Words (http://dreamcafe.com/words/2008/02/29/happy-bissextile-day/) by reesa. Please leave any comments (http://dreamcafe.com/words/2008/02/29/happy-bissextile-day/#comments) there.)
(Original Post) (http://skzbrust.livejournal.com/77157.html)
Back when I was in high school I qualified for one of those classes where they take the top scoring 10% on the pre-SAT and spend six weeks cramming you with vocabulary and SAT test-taking tips and tricks in order to boost your already high score by 10% or more. Setting aside the fundamental squick I have with that attitude for another argument, the first day of class I got into a debate with another classmate and the teacher. I can’t quite remember how it started, but it ended up in me agreeing to write a one page paper about the origins of Leap Day. My paper not only proved whatever point I’d been trying to make in my omniscient teenage ovaciousness (http://reesabrown.com/2008/02/04/inventing-words/), but the teacher was impressed enough to show the paper to all the other classes. The incident might not have won me more friends among my peers, except most of them already knew my geek tendencies and so it passed with little notice and no ridicule.
And you know? Leap Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_Day) really is cool, if one is looking for justification for scoffing at the construct of time in general and the silliness humans engage in measuring time in particular (and I certainly was, back then). Okay, so we have this calendar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar), and it’s almost right in measuring one revolution of our planet around its star at 365 days. Except it’s really more like 365.25, so every four years we add an extra day and that solves it, right? That’s what everyone knows about Leap Day.
Except that it’s really not 365.25 either, shockingly enough. And so they decided to fix it by saying that century years (ending in 00) couldn’t be leap years, and when that didn’t quite make it right, said that we do have leap years in century years divisible by 400. So while our ancestors in 1900 didn’t have one, we never noticed in 2000 because it was Leap Day as usual for us. Guess what? This still leaves a slight inaccuracy (go figure) that has lead to the proposal that years evenly divisible by 4,000 should not be leap years, but this has yet to be adopted as practice. Does that mean that by celebrating 2000’s Leap Day we have helped contribute to the eventual doom of the Gregorian calary system? I like to think so, because my brain likes to amuse me in hyperbole at times like these.
In any case, it’s a day and a time not quite like any other. I like to use it as a day to remember the arbitrariness of clocks, and* to savor and appreciate the different and unique quirks of life, and to take the opportunity to do at least one new thing or learn some new skill or meet new people. A time to remember that there’s a place for the nonsensical and wacky just as much as for comforting habitual routines, which are also a vital part of healthy human function.
And don’t even get me started on the leap second (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second).
(Originally posted at Words Words Words (http://dreamcafe.com/words/2008/02/29/happy-bissextile-day/) by reesa. Please leave any comments (http://dreamcafe.com/words/2008/02/29/happy-bissextile-day/#comments) there.)
(Original Post) (http://skzbrust.livejournal.com/77157.html)