See?

This is me not gossipping about Madonna. :)

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So sad...

I don't know what's worse: that there are Torchwood books, or that of course I will be getting them.

Namely: Border Princes, Slow Decay, Another Life.

And, just for the record, here are the upcoming DW books (featuring Martha Jones as companion): Made of Steel, Wooden Heart, Sting of the Zygons, The Last Dodo.

[Note: these links do not earn me money, as I can never be bothered playing that game.]

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Consciousness raising...

The latest E-Skeptic to come out has an interesting debate linked to, between Michael Shermer and Deepak Chopra. They are talking about Chopra's latest book, "Life After Death: The Burden of Proof".(*)

I'm sure you can guess the side I agree with, but there is the usual talking past each other, and a lot of attacks on things that the other side doesn't talk about, but it is still worth reading.

(And I finally give in and create a new label.)

(*) Burden of proof is something I want to talk about later.

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Bring out the sun!

Brrr... it is summer right? You wouldn't think so by the weather. Over the past few days it's been brass monkeys down here, and I'm not the only one to think so.

Coldest on Record according to the newspaper, and we all know that statistics are believable right?

The sun is staging a come-back now, but with people already heading back to work it seems a little on the late side.

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A hundred score and seven years ago

A year is a fairly artibary unit, but we have them, and moreover they are increasing as we count them, which means we are counting away from something. Something that happened 2007 years ago.

When this type of counting was first initiated in 525 AD, it was calculated that it was 525 years from the birth of Jesus Christ (as that was considered the most important event to those who were doing the calculating). However, current scholars believe that Christ was born at least 4 BC if not earlier (due to Herod), so it's good to see that accuracy was built in from the beginning. But hey, what's a few years when designing a new calender system? At least, they were making the point that this event was a new beginning and everything referred to it.

But what of CE? 2007 AD = 2007 CE, so what happen 2007 years ago to initiate what is called the "common era"? (Also called the "Christian Era" which would be more accurate, but not very secular based if that is the point of changing notation.) Well... not a heck of a lot. At least, from a secular standpoint. Sure, the Greeks and Romans were doing amazing things, but why then and not some other event in a nearby year?

Or, even better, why not some other point entirely for a secular beginning? Why not the first recorded note of civilisation? Or why not when America was established as a country? (Let's face it, America thinks it's the greatest country in the world, so it would certainly favour an American-centric view like this.) Why choose the same starting point as the religious dating you're objecting to? WHAT'S THE FRICKIN' POINT???

Heck, why not switch to the Chinese or Mayan dating system? When you come down to it, it's only for forming a common basis and one can easily convert from one to the other.

But if you really want a new, entirely secular and, probably, rational standpoint, you can't just adopt another system and change one or two items. Either go whole hog and start from scratch, or just lump it and deal with it. The rest of us are capable of doing that...

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ADBCE

Keeping with the new year theme, let's talk context.

We are counting the number of years, referring to some point from where we started counting (and I'll talk more about that starting point tomorrow). Currently, we are the 2007th year of...

Well, that's the thing. Most people on the street would say "AD", as in "Anno Domini" aka "Year of Our Lord". But there is a... I'm not sure if 'movement' is the right word, but I'll use it anyway... a movement to secularise the year counting, which has been going on for a while. But if you don't know you're in 2007 CE, I won't blame you.

This has to be one of the more subtle "attacks" on religion, because hardly anyone is aware of it! I know for a long time, I had come across CE here and there, and was able to infer they were talking about years, and moreover, that a CE year seemed the same as an AD year, but never knew that CE stood for "Common Era".

Now, by now, I'm sure you know my position on religion, but this, to me, seems really pointless. A lot of our common terminology stems from some religious or political event that is buried in the past, but for some reason "AD" has been selected for special treatment. It's not like there's some conversion rule, AD = CE! And BC = BCE! (That's "Before Christ" and "Before Common Era").

Doing this is just going to confuse people, and, presuming it ever became noticable, will just become another case of "rally the troops, the evil ones are attacking religion!" (which, maybe, at the heart, really is the point).

But what about the days of week, based on Norse mythology? Or the months of the year, numbered from the latin, but also throwing in Roman mythology and emperors?

Minor evolution does happen to language over time, but I'm not seeing this as a change sweeping over nations, so I hope I will be forgiven for still saying that we are now in "2007 AD".

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12 months later

So here we are, at the start of a new year. And...?

What is it about humans that make this cyclic period so exciting? And why choose this particular part of the cyclic period to make big hooray? (Let alone the rest of the planet only slowly joining in over the next 24 hours at their psychologically appropriate moment.)

I feel the same way about birthdays. It's an entirely artifical moment created by our definition of time, which is entirely forced upon nature. That nature doesn't care is just one of the reasons why we have to make adjustments every now and then.

Never mind Christmas, this is really the time to say "bah, humbug!"

Edit: Hey, I see the Bad Astonomer is on my side! He really goes to town on the whole calculating time side of things...

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