
Saudi Arabia adopts the Gregorian calendar - tosh
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21711938-hauling-saudi-arabia-21st-century-saudi-arabia-adopts-gregorian?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/saudiarabiaadoptsthegregoriancalendar
======
tboyd47
Like always, normally reputable news organizations throw all semblance of
journalistic principle out of the window when it comes to the Saudis.

The title should read: "Saudi Arabia adopts the Gregorian calendar _in paying
government employees_." According to arabnews.com, this brings the public
sector in line with how the private sector is already being paid.

So no, they won't be "running the state" based on the Gregorian calendar.
Ramadan will still be observed in the month of Ramadan.

And how is the decision not to award employees 11 extra days' pay because of
an administrative change a case of "globalisation favouring rulers at the
expense of the ruled?" Just a year ago, when the king awarded all the
employees bonuses, wasn't the Economist accusing him of trying to buy his
subjects' loyalty? He can't win, it seems.

As for the Wahhabi clerics complaining of a "slippery slope," who are they?
And what is the technical term in Arabic they used that translates to
"slippery slope?" To claim that any official cleric in the Kingdom would speak
out openly against the ruling family is, frankly, ridiculous.

All of this article is utter stupidity, as if the author read half of a
headline in an Arab paper and extrapolated it to mean the conversion of the
entire country to Christianity.

~~~
anonu
You raise some good points about how the article portrays the issue. Here[1]
is another reputable source with some more information that confirms some of
what you say.

You also got me thinking about what "slippery slope" would be in Arabic. It
could be directly translated but the idiom would lose its meaning. Regardless,
I think the point the article's author is trying to convey is that religious
conservatives are wary of the slow creep of Western concepts into their
society.

[1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-
ar...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-
calendar-gregorian-switches-to-pay-workers-less-save-money-a7342331.html)

~~~
Fnoord
> You also got me thinking about what "slippery slope" would be in Arabic. It
> could be directly translated but the idiom would lose its meaning.
> Regardless, I think the point the article's author is trying to convey is
> that religious conservatives are wary of the slow creep of Western concepts
> into their society.

I went to Slippery Slope article on English Wikipedia and then clicked on
Arabic. This is a way I often use with languages I regularly use (such as
English, Dutch, German, and Spanish) in order to figure what something means
in one of those languages. I wanted to describe this process because I believe
it can help others in a similar situation. An alternative is Wiktionary, but I
find it working less good.

So, the Arabic Wikipedia entry for Slippery Slope is [1]. Using Google
Translate, I ended up with it meaning also "Nose of the Camel". This is
apparently an Arabian tale.

Quoting: _The Camel 's Nose In The Tent.

One cold night, as an Arab sat in his tent, a camel gently thrust his nose
under the flap and looked in. "Master," he said, "let me put my nose in your
tent. It's cold and stormy out here." "By all means," said the Arab, "and
welcome" as he turned over and went to sleep.

A little later the Arab awoke to find that the camel had not only put his nose
in the tent but his head and neck also. The camel, who had been turning his
head from side to side, said, "I will take but little more room if I place my
forelegs within the tent. It is difficult standing out here." "Yes, you may
put your forelegs within," said the Arab, moving a little to make room, for
the tent was small.

Finally, the camel said, "May I not stand wholly inside? I keep the tent open
by standing as I do." "Yes, yes," said the Arab. "Come wholly inside. Perhaps
it will be better for both of us." So the camel crowded in. The Arab with
difficulty in the crowded quarters again went to sleep. When he woke up the
next time, he was outside in the cold and the camel had the tent to himself._

Disclaimer: I know practically nothing about the Arabic language.

[1]
[https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D9%86%D8%AD%D8%AF%D8%B1...](https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D9%86%D8%AD%D8%AF%D8%B1_%D8%B2%D9%84%D9%82)

[2]
[http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1800611/posts](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1800611/posts)

~~~
somedangedname
Good to see that the Free Republic is as rabid as I remember it being.

------
willholloway
I'm going to take this opportunity to shamelessly self-promote my own attempt
at creating an entirely new calendar system, inspired by Paul Graham's
Maker/Manager Schedule essay.

It's called Maker Time, and the current Maker Time is 35. Here is it's pitch:

Your clock has it backwards.

* Time is infinite, but our time on earth is not.

* Clocks should count down, not up.

* Time keeping should be based on meaningful celestial events like the year (one earth rotation around the sun) and the day (one rotation of the earth)

* Each unit of time should be based on a viable period of work for makers.

* Maker Time is reset on January 1st each year. The year is divided into 1095 blocks (1098 in leap year). Every 8 hours the count decreases by one.

Here is a browser-based Maker Time clock:

[http://willholloway.net/makertime.html](http://willholloway.net/makertime.html)

Here is a github repo for a simple Maker Time API Flask server and the algo
for calculating the current Maker Time if one wants to implement it. I still
hope it catches on.

[https://github.com/willholloway/makertime](https://github.com/willholloway/makertime)

~~~
artursapek
Interesting idea. Do people not find stressful a clock counting down on them
constantly? I've always been stressed out by the idea of time "running out" in
various contexts (games, tests in school). So much so that it hinders my
performance.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Not as much if there's no real impact other than that it's going to be reset.

Watching Maker Clock count down from 1000 each year of the rest of my life
would not be too stressful. I will grant that a clock that counted down from
50,000 or so to zero on my expected deathbed would not be as zen-like as the
Maker Clock purports to be. Just calculating that number is zen-like, but a
daily reminder would not be.

A warning: if you're stressed out by the idea of time running out, don't click
this link. But I found this graphic description of the years, months, and
weeks in a typical life to be surprising: [http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-
weeks.html](http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html) I don't typically
think of a year or a week as lasting as long as it appears to in those images.

~~~
artursapek
I will never see a waitbutwhy link and not click on it. Thanks, this is
actually fascinating.

------
ajlburke
If you're on a Linux/MacOS/BSD machine, "ncal -p" on the command line gives
you a nifty list of when various countries switched to Gregorian.

Interesting factoid: Russia's "October Revolution" actually took place in
November in most of the rest of the world!

(edit: I had originally said ncal works on all "POSIX" systems but that turned
out to be incorrect)

~~~
jgrahamc

        $ ncal -p
         AL Albania        1912-11-30      IT Italy          1582-10-04
         AT Austria        1583-10-05      JP Japan          1918-12-18
         AU Australia      1752-09-02      LI Lithuania      1918-02-01
         BE Belgium        1582-12-14      LN Latin          9999-05-31
         BG Bulgaria       1916-03-18      LU Luxembourg     1582-12-14
         CA Canada         1752-09-02      LV Latvia         1918-02-01
         CH Switzerland    1655-02-28      NL Netherlands    1582-12-14
         CN China          1911-12-18      NO Norway         1700-02-18
         CZ Czech Republic 1584-01-06      PL Poland         1582-10-04
         DE Germany        1700-02-18      PT Portugal       1582-10-04
         DK Denmark        1700-02-18      RO Romania        1919-03-31
         ES Spain          1582-10-04      RU Russia         1918-01-31
         FI Finland        1753-02-17      SI Slovenia       1919-03-04
         FR France         1582-12-09      SW Sweden         1753-02-17
         GB United Kingdom 1752-09-02      TR Turkey         1926-12-18
         GR Greece         1924-03-09     *US United States  1752-09-02
         HU Hungary        1587-10-21      YU Yugoslavia     1919-03-04
         IS Iceland        1700-11-16

~~~
mafribe
Sorted:

    
    
        1582-10-04 ES Spain
        1582-10-04 IT Italy
        1582-10-04 PL Poland
        1582-10-04 PT Portugal
        1582-12-09 FR France
        1582-12-14 BE Belgium
        1582-12-14 LU Luxembourg
        1582-12-14 NL Netherlands
        1583-10-05 AT Austria
        1584-01-06 CZ Czech Republic
        1587-10-21 HU Hungary
        1655-02-28 CH Switzerland
        1700-02-18 DE Germany
        1700-02-18 DK Denmark
        1700-02-18 NO Norway
        1700-11-16 IS Iceland
        1752-09-02 AU Australia
        1752-09-02 CA Canada
        1752-09-02 GB United Kingdom
        1752-09-02 US United States
        1753-02-17 FI Finland
        1753-02-17 SW Sweden
        1911-12-18 CN China
        1912-11-30 AL Albania
        1916-03-18 BG Bulgaria
        1918-01-31 RU Russia
        1918-02-01 LI Lithuania
        1918-02-01 LV Latvia
        1918-12-18 JP Japan
        1919-03-04 SI Slovenia
        1919-03-04 YU Yugoslavia
        1919-03-31 RO Romania
        1924-03-09 GR Greece
        1926-12-18 TR Turkey
        9999-05-31 LN Latin

~~~
alricb
This is a bit anachronistic, since Canada in 1752 was still part of France,
depending on how you see it (Acadia had been in British hands since 1710). I
also wonder what political entities are counted for Germany.

~~~
ucaetano
For Germany it's the year the Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire
adopted it. The Catholic part had adopted it ~120 years before.

------
HCIdivision17
What is the sort of mayhem we can expect to see on the IT side of this
transistion? It seems like there is already a ton of infrastructure in place
for them to deal with the dynamic nature of their current calendar, so how do
they move to the Gregorian without tripping overthemselves? (Never mind the
cultural hurt that will follow, though I'm not sure why they're losing
holidays - wouldn't those just follow under different Gregorian days, like
Easter does?)

~~~
SloopJon
I tested support for the Islamic (Hijri) calendar last year. The tabular
variant can be handled at the locale level for the most part. The observed
variant, on the other hand, is a bit of pain, as it depends on whether someone
claims to have seen the new crescent moon (hilal).

Since a lot of people depend on Saudi observations, I imagine this will be
influential. People grumble about Saudi Arabia, but they set the trends.
They're kind of like California that way.

~~~
HCIdivision17
I had no idea there was that sort of requirement - I guess I had just assumed
it was systemized. It sounds fascinating - are there ever conflicts that need
to be resolved?

~~~
amerkhalid
All the time. You will see Muslims in a same city celebrating same festival a
day apart. I think some serious Muslims get into arguments but most people
just enjoy an extra day of festivities.

~~~
HCIdivision17
I have long held that there aren't any good solutions to the date/time issue
(like naming things and cache invalidation :), other than just find some way
to hitch to UTC, but you've shown me a case that just... wow. I can't imagine
trying to make a computer system integrate with that style of timekeeping. Is
there any hope? Or is it actually the solution to give up and switch to
something a bit easier like the Gregorian calendar (or whatever)?

~~~
gumby
> wow. I can't imagine trying to make a computer system integrate with that
> style of timekeeping.

I don't mean to harsh on you but I feel you have it completely backwards. The
computers should do the heavy lifting to adapt to how people want to live, not
the other way around. If people want flexible calendars that optimize for
strange things let the computers do the heavy lifting for them.

I have been quite sorry when countries have attacked their languages or even
alphabets in a misguided way to support computers (consider the letters ll and
ch in Spain which were "reformed" just in time for the "improvement" to become
irrelevant) when the responsibility lies with the computer.

This is not only a computer issue: cities and suburbs were restructured for
automobiles, and even the law changed (the invention of "jaywalking" at the
behest of car manufacturers) rather than forcing the machines to adapt to the
needs of humans.

Technodeterminism is simply a weakness of will.

~~~
lemmings19
You suggest making absolutely _no_ compromises in order to move technology
forward?

Not everything we do is without question; we do some pretty dumb stuff. Why
not improve our systems where it makes sense to?

~~~
gumby
Almost, yes. Certainly I advocate that the technology adapt much much much
more to humans than the other way around! After all, who decides what
"improvement" is?

The cry of "progress!" has resulted in plenty of destruction as well as
benefit, not to mention mountains of premature optimization (think of those
elevated freeways into cities that created dead zones and had to be dismantled
only decades later, or for that matter the alphabet changes I mentioned).

We used to vary the length of the hour; now we have a second that is fixed and
we vary the length of the human day in order to match the rotation of the
earth. I happen to think that's a good optimization but I have friends who
argue vociferously that those leap seconds are a bad idea. Who's right (hint:
on all topics _I_ am).

And there are no absolutes: some languages let their spelling fluctuate (e.g.
English), some fix it somewhat rigidly (e.g. French) and some change it
systolicly to re-align with perceived practice (e.g. German) -- who is right?
I speak all three daily and frankly I consider the German practice the worst
of the three. But enough people prefer it so why not?

Sure there's tons of stupid practice (e.g anti-vaxxers). But at the end of the
day technology (τέχνη) is an art in service of humans, not the other way
around. And to tie this back to HN: if a business doesn't think that way it
will not survive.

------
tosh
I find it fascinating that in the footer of the article it reads …

"""

This article appeared in the Middle East and Africa section of the print
edition under the headline “The prince’s time machine”

"""

Sounds like the online version of the Economist is starting to play around
with less clever titles. To optimize for social media traffic perhaps?

~~~
nine_k
If a clever title does not express the gist of the article, it's a poor title.
A clever but unclear title feels like clickbait, one weird trick that prevents
me from clicking it.

You may have a clever subtitle when the article is already before the reader's
eyes.

------
pavlov
Calendars are all kinds of crazy. But can you imagine the pain we would have
if the French Revolutionary decimal clock had actually taken hold?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time)

In some countries, a second would be 1/86400 of a day. In others, it would be
1/100000\. Awesome potential for insane bugs!

~~~
UweSchmidt
Sounds like the better system, and by making compatible with the metric system
(easier to calculate velocity etc.) maybe we'd all be on metric by now?

------
crudbug
I always liked the simplicity of 28 days/month fixed calendar [0] - 13x28 =
364, with delta time as global holidays.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar)

~~~
Aldo_MX
Unfortunately, it will never get adopted...

~~~
crudbug
Yes, its more about religious rituals than simple logic.

------
cwmma
From wikipedia[1] it looks like the previous countries to switch were Turkey
in 1926 and Greece in 1923

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar#Adoption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar#Adoption)

------
binarycheese
Now let's just cross fingers and hope the US will adopt the metric system

~~~
blakeyrat
The US has adopted the metric system just as completely as, say, the UK has.
(Watch UK television and look for how many times the script will say "miles"
or "pints" or "pounds" for weight or even better, "stone"!)

The UK in daily use has as many imperial measurements left as the US does.
Americans are just more honest with ourselves about it.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
> The US has adopted the metric system just as completely as, say, the UK has.

I've lived in both, that's inaccurate.

The UK is mostly metric with exceptions (MpH, pints, pounds & stone for
"people weight") but in all other ways it is metric, cooking is in metric
(grams, liters/milliliters), parts are in metric, temperature is in metric
(centigrade), and most measurements are metric (metres, cm, mm, etc). It is a
metric country with a few leftovers.

The US conversely is imperial with exceptions. Meaning most "day to day"
activities are in imperial units with certain industries (like science) and
activities (?) being metric. But if you go buy a cookbook in a US bookstore
then good luck finding a metric one unless it is an international cookbook (it
will be in "spoons" "cups" "ounces" and so on). You buy a new cookbook in the
UK and it is almost certainly metric unless it is from a used book store.

So, no, the UK has adopted metric much more thoroughly than the US. To use
made up percentages, the UK is 65% metric, the US is 20% metric. Again, I've
lived in both for a decent chunk of my life.

~~~
blakeyrat
I guess everybody in the UK switched to metric, except the few who write the
television shows.

------
blazespin
The only date that matters is the number of seconds since January 1st, 1970.

~~~
JdeBP
TAI seconds or UTC seconds? (-:

------
sethbannon
So there is hope America finally switches to the metric system!

------
valarauca1
Do computer systems in the Kingdom of Saud report date/times according the
lunar calendar?

Or did they?

~~~
sleepychu
The Islamic Calendar has had support in Java since 8 introduced the Date and
Time API. I don't know if OS support was around, Wikipedia is sparse on the
topic.

[#] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar#Computer_supp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar#Computer_support)

------
jpatokal
Handy factoid: Saudi Arabian visas list the date and length of validity using
the Islamic (lunar) calendar. For example, a three-month visa issued on
"38/02/22" (22 Safar 1438, 1 March 2016) is valid until 38/05/22 (22 Jumada
al-Awwal 1438, 28 May 2016), not until 1 June 2016!

------
pavel_lishin
> _Still, Saudi Arabia is not alone in wrestling with ancient calendars. It is
> 1395 in Iran, 2628 in Kurdistan, and 5776 in Israel’s Knesset. Nor is it
> just the Middle East that is out of sync with the times. It is 2559 in
> Thailand, though only year 28 (of the Heisei era) in Japan._

Can someone explain the difference between the years in Iran and Saudi Arabia?
It seems that Iran uses the Solar Hijri calendar, while SA used the Tabular
Islamic Calendar, but I don't really understand why the years are different.
Is it because one is solar and one is lunar, increasing the year count more
quickly?

(I also had no idea that Japan's years reset with every emperor.)

~~~
ralfd
Japan also uses the Gregorian Calendar. I think the Emperor era designation is
an informal thing, as in daily life it would be to complicated.

~~~
TorKlingberg
The Imperial era years are quick commonly used on official forms. If you live
in Japan you will soon learn the current year and the year you were born. The
Gregorian Calendar years are also common, and the New Year is on the same day.

------
mdrzn
> _" Still, Saudi Arabia is not alone in wrestling with ancient calendars. It
> is 1395 in Iran, 2628 in Kurdistan, and 5776 in Israel’s Knesset. Nor is it
> just the Middle East that is out of sync with the times. It is 2559 in
> Thailand, though only year 28 (of the Heisei era) in Japan."_

Does anyone have a map of the world with current year written on every nation?
It would be nice to see which countries are in which year, depending on their
calendar.

------
mikhailfranco
Saudi Arabia is so resistant to change that a local joke claims "Vision 2030"
_is_ using the hijri calendar.

Another good one is that in Saudi Arabia, _" 24/7"_ means 24 hours a month, 7
months a year.

------
Animats
When the Saudi government built their giant tower clock near the Kaaba in
Mecca, there was talk of running it on Mecca solar time. But that didn't
happen.

At least we have only one prime meridian, despite Jules Verne.

------
transfire
> Nor is it just the Middle East that is out of sync with the times. It is
> 2559 in Thailand, though only year 28 (of the Heisei era) in Japan.

That just might take the reward for most western-centric statement of the
century.

------
IseeUsaudi
Like clockwork, anytime there is a terrorist attack linked back to the
extremist Sunni style Saudi Arabia exports and teaches in its Islamic centers
we get some PR about how they are modernizing.

------
tosh
link for getting around the paywall:

[https://google.com/search?q=economist+saudi+gregorian](https://google.com/search?q=economist+saudi+gregorian)

~~~
tzs
HN automatically provides a link to do that. It is labeled "web" and appears
on the line below the title.

~~~
tosh
Wow, thanks!

