I have a question about calendars

August 17, 2009 4:55 PM

Can anyone see any benefit to a calendar that (1) identifies those months within a range of years that share the same days of the week and dates of the month, and (2) identifies those days of the week within a range of years that have less than 53 occurences in any particular year?
posted by CollectiveMind to science & nature (13 comments total)

I lost you on the 53 occurrences. Otherwise, I can see benefit from knowing which months look the same during some time period.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 5:06 PM on August 17

JohnnyGunn: there are 52 Tuesdays in 2009, for example, but 54 Fridays.

But no, I don't see why that matters. Maybe for some kind of event scheduling? For example, Tuesday is half-price movie night in many places.
posted by rokusan at 5:28 PM on August 17

From a business perspective, I'm not sure I understand any benefit to such a calendar, as I'm not quite sure as to what positive your calendar is providing. Many companies solve uneven month lengths (28 vs 29, vs 30 vs 31 days) and month starts by working with a fixed fiscal calendar based on tax requirements, and altering month length by 4 and 5 week months (2-4s and 1-5 = 13 weeks = 1 quarter). With the first/last week of each year there is sometimes some level of accounting, most companies have some minor accrual process to align the finances for each year with minimal effort.

Going further in retail, construction, and automotive, a week in December looks drastically different from a week in May, so I can't see any value of date to date comparison.

Going even further (fourth maybe 5th read of the question) if its a question of normalization of a given year, or a given month (June last year had 4 Mondays, whereas this year it had 5 Mondays) is usually solved again by allowing the business-start of the month to be independent of the first of the month. When taken in aggregate, generally one or two days difference as to the day may account for some financial differential, but it is so minuscule (tenths of a percent) to most companies profits that it should be about useless.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:29 PM on August 17

OP, perhaps you can enlighten us with what you think the benefit of such a calendar would be.

Given that this is 2009, it seems to me that any benefit that your calendar would purport to render is surely already being rendered by technology if there were, in fact, a need for it (which would surprise me, but I'm piqued now).
posted by Admiral Haddock at 5:39 PM on August 17

This can already be done with our current calendar...?
posted by DU at 5:42 PM on August 17

Frankly, I can't see any use for it whatever.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:39 PM on August 17

My answer is No.
posted by crapples at 7:00 PM on August 17

Expanding on NanukTheDog, the National Retail Calendar is 4-5-4, with the year length adjusted by adding a fifth week to December, to make, as much as possible, the same major retail events fall into the same periods. Once you know the start of the year, it's trivial to calculate the period of any date.
posted by orthogonality at 7:10 PM on August 17

Rokusan, there are 52 Tuesdays and 52 Fridays in 2009.
posted by CollectiveMind at 7:50 PM on August 17

2009 was just an example to explain (?) what you meant. I think.

(I didn't count. I should have said "for example there might be...")

But you're still not helping us understand your question!
posted by rokusan at 10:13 PM on August 17

I've got my answer. Thanks.
posted by CollectiveMind at 5:23 AM on August 18

creepy...
posted by segatakai at 7:23 AM on August 18

I used to have a keychain that did this. It had a grid like this:

 Feb Feb*    Jan Jan*
 Mar             Apr Sep
 Nov Aug May Oct Jul Dec Jun
----------------------------
   1   2   3   4   5   6   7
   8   9  10  11  12  13  14
  15  16  17  18  19  20  21
  22  23  24  25  26  27  28
  29  30  31

The figure with the names of the months repeated on a wheel that spun, with years on the same wheel. If you put 2009 under the pointer then it lined up like this, telling you that August 2 falls on Sunday. To point at 2010 you would shift the month/year wheel one place left: next year August 1 is on Sunday. In leap years use the starred months for January and February.

I thought it was Super Cool. I think it was marked for 1985 through 2010 and I carried it in my pocket for a couple of years in the 1990s.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 7:57 AM on August 19