My cranky rank about Pope Gregory XIII and his so-called "calendar reform"

[struggle4progress]

Poll question: My cranky rank about Pope Gregory XIII and his so-called "calendar reform"

Everybody knows we celebrate leap day every fourth year, but never on every hundredth year unless it's a four hundredth year

Bad news! Having just run the numbers, I can tell you this scheme just won't work any more after about 5000 years: in the 66th or 67th century, your calendar's gonna be permanently off by a day

Pope Gregory XIII really blew it! :spank:

Fortunately, you can fix it with the fixes I have found to fix it with!

First, we shouldn't generally suppress leap day every hundred years: we should suppress it every 128 years! That one simple correction of Pope Gregory's mistake makes the calendar good for over 8500 years!

Second, we shouldn't not suppress leap day every 400 years, we should not suppress it every 8576 years. That second simple correction of Pope Gregory's mistake makes the calendar good for more than a million years!

The Gregorian calendar first took effect in 1582. We were OK on leap days for a while after that, but 1700 should have been a leap year and 1712 should not have been! Also 1800 should have been a leap year and 1840 should not have been! Similarly, 1900 should have been a leap year and 1968 should not have been! We sort of accidentally celebrated leap year correctly in 2000 -- but mark your calendars because 2096 cannot be a leap year!

You see? Very easy! Also do be sure to celebrate leap day in 10160, because that will be the first time you don't suppress a 128th year leap day!

[MrCoffee]

1. That, and the English and French Templars missed their meeting and the Plan fell apart

[struggle4progress]

2. I blame the Illuminati for that

[abq e streeter]

3. that's because it wasn't really reform

but a nefarious plot to make everyone buy new calendars from his campaign contributors in the private calendar industry.

[madinmaryland]

4. Here's what I think about that...

[struggle4progress]

8. That pancake won't be there next leap day

Just sayin ...

:shrug:

[cloudbase]

5. I'll wait until

Microsoft comes out with the service pack and download it then.

[SoxFan]

6. I'd consult the brain trust in GD about this matter

[Zomby Woof]

7. A cranky rank?

Which one? Private? Captain? General? Sergeant?

[Orsino]

9. The Pope promised us eternal life...

...but after Lieberman got hold of it, we ended up losing eleven days.