Happiest of new years to you!

[vanmyers86]

Wishing all the writers and editors here the very best in 2020!

I am thinking back on Y2K, of all things, and the crazy people who thought the world would end that night. My then-husband had to do a shift in the newsroom that night in case planes started plummeting from the sky or something, while I spent NYE 1999 with half a dozen fabulous gay guys in Washington, DC. I was the only woman there, and I will never forget it - or the hangover I had the next day.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Wishing all the writers and editors here the very best in 2020!

I am thinking back on Y2K, of all things, and the crazy people who thought the world would end that night. My then-husband had to do a shift in the newsroom that night in case planes started plummeting from the sky or something, while I spent NYE 1999 with half a dozen fabulous gay guys in Washington, DC. I was the only woman there, and I will never forget it - or the hangover I had the next day.

You do know that aircraft, in every time zone, was on the ground when that time zone and its attendant computers (navigation, flight control, that kind of thing) clocked over at midnight, "just in case"? People might mock it now as a major non-event, but at the time it was taken very seriously, as evidenced by these cabinet papers just released:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-01/y2k-millenium-bug-cabinet-documents/11832892

 

[vanmyers86]

Yes, I remember it well. My ex used to cover that industry (which is why he had to work while I got to go gallivant with my friends) and it was a huge deal - until nothing happened. And really, just about anyone who used computers for their work (i.e., practically everyone) worried about what might happen.

Add to that the usual nuts predicting the world would end that night, and it was quite a New Year's Eve!

 

[eroticstoryspinner]

Happy new year to y'all too

 

[Blind_Justice]

Hey ho, I made it in one piece. Just a lovely evening with lady love, both cats and the surprisingly entertaining "Wonder Woman" movie. At least until the fireworks went off. One kitty disaapeared under the bed, the other watched all the funny lights standing upright on the windowsill.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Happy New Year to everyone.

 

[SamScribble]

Happy New Year, girls and boys. May this be your best year ever.

And, yes, I still can't quite believe that it has been 20 years since we celebrated the turn of the millennium. Maybe if I had known that I was going to live this long I would have taken more care of my body. Or maybe not.

 

[Misshotndeep]

Happy New Year!!!

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Happy New Year (plus 45 min) from the east coast of the US.
Many wishes for happy, healthy, and prosperous year for all of you. Plus wishes for days and days of rain for our Aussie friends. May the next trip around the sun be full of mirth and empty of woe.
I'm really glad I found this community this year.

 

[KeithD]

Just back from celebrating New Year's with the same couple we've clocked in every new decade with for the last six ones--yes, that's fifty years, every change of decade despite both couples having lived nearly half their married lives in foreign countries. Getting it done has sometimes involved foreign travel. Happy New Year's to all.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You do know that aircraft, in every time zone, was on the ground when that time zone and its attendant computers (navigation, flight control, that kind of thing) clocked over at midnight, "just in case"? People might mock it now as a major non-event, but at the time it was taken very seriously, as evidenced by these cabinet papers just released:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-01/y2k-millenium-bug-cabinet-documents/11832892

And the reason we didn't have any memorable Y2K disasters was because people put a lot of time and effort beforehand into identifying them and fixing them. Most critical systems got covered, but there were plenty of low-level glitches and a few major ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem#Documented_errors

It's like saying "why do we need handrails on staircases when so few people ever fall down them?"

 

[ElectricBlue]

Just back from celebrating New Year's with the same couple we've clocked in every new decade with for the last six ones--yes, that's fifty years, every change of decade despite both couples having lived nearly half their married lives in foreign countries. Getting it done has sometimes involved foreign travel. Happy New Year's to all.

So far as a calendar is concerned, 2020 is actually the last year of the second decade of the twenty-first century, which is the first century of the third millennium. Given that counting starts at Year 1, a century must always ends in 00. It therefore follows that a decade must also end in a zero. You've actually got another year to go.

But that is impressive - congratulations on a long life and long friendships.

 

[Javahead]

Happy New Year, y’all. I’ll leave the decade-termination debates to those who want to argue ‘em; like academic debates between tenured faculty, the acrimony arising far exceeds any possible prize of victory.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Happy New Year, y’all. I’ll leave the decade-termination debates to those who want to argue ‘em; like academic debates between tenured faculty, the acrimony arising far exceeds any possible prize of victory.

Simple maths, simple logic, how can there be a debate? That's the advantage of maths over words, there is far less ambiguity. 2 always follows 1 when you're counting forward (Bramblethorn will prove me wrong on this, I have no doubt).

Show me a calendar with year zero - to the best of my knowledge counting years goes from 1BC to 1AD (or 1 CE depending on your religious inclination), and then proceeds as a matter of convenience in decades, centuries and millennia.

And if you really want to mess with your head over time, Google "the ten-thousand year clock" which is actually being built somewhere in an American desert.

 

[Javahead]

Simple maths, simple logic, how can there be a debate? That's the advantage of maths over words, there is far less ambiguity. 2 always follows 1 when you're counting forward (Bramblethorn will prove me wrong on this, I have no doubt).

Show me a calendar with year zero - to the best of my knowledge counting years goes from 1BC to 1AD (or 1 CE depending on your religious inclination), and then proceeds as a matter of convenience in decades, centuries and millennia.

And if you really want to mess with your head over time, Google "the ten-thousand year clock" which is actually being built somewhere in an American desert.

Since the AD dating system wasn’t devised until somewhere in what is now counted as the 6th century, and there is considerable debate about possible birth dates for Jesus (going by biblical references to known events it was quite possibly 3 or 4 ‘BC’), I’d say neither side of the decade debate is in firm footing.

As a computer guy, I like zero based counting for aesthetic reasons. But I can see the other side’s arguments, too. How about I hold your beers while you guys thrash it out?

 

[Handley_Page]

I seem to remember learning that the concept of ZERO [ 0 ] is a product of Arabian mathematicians in or round the sixth century.

As found on the 'net:-

May the New Year bring you significantly more joy than the holidays did.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Simple maths, simple logic, how can there be a debate? That's the advantage of maths over words, there is far less ambiguity. 2 always follows 1 when you're counting forward (Bramblethorn will prove me wrong on this, I have no doubt).

Show me a calendar with year zero

...you rang?

The Gregorian calendar does indeed go straight from 1 BC to 1 AD, but it's not the only game in town. Buddhists and Hindu calendars have a year zero, and astronomers find it useful too.

And then there's the hideous mess that is Old Style vs. New Style dates - an event recorded as "February 1, 1700 AD" probably happened 99 years before "February 1, 1800 AD" in England, but 100 years before in Scotland.

Re. the original point of contention: if you want to celebrate "the 202'nd decade AD", then you'd better wait another year, but if you just want to celebrate "the end of the decade" you're free to decide when your decades start and end, and the 2019-2020 changeover is as good as any.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Since the AD dating system wasn’t devised until somewhere in what is now counted as the 6th century, and there is considerable debate about possible birth dates for Jesus (going by biblical references to known events it was quite possibly 3 or 4 ‘BC’), I’d say neither side of the decade debate is in firm footing.

As a computer guy, I like zero based counting for aesthetic reasons. But I can see the other side’s arguments, too. How about I hold your beers while you guys thrash it out?

Christ has nothing to do with it. There is an internationally recognised standard, ISO 8601:

"In general, ISO 8601 applies to representations and formats of dates in the Gregorian (and potentially proleptic Gregorian) calendar, of times based on the 24-hour timekeeping system (with optional UTC offset), of time intervals, and combinations thereof."

"ISO 8601 prescribes, as a minimum, a four-digit year [YYYY] to avoid the year 2000 problem. It therefore represents years from 0000 to 9999, year 0000 being equal to 1 BC and all others AD."

So the first century AD is Years 1 to 100. All else follows logically on, in increments of ten. Therefore 2020 is the last year of a decade, not the first.

ISO standards are authoritative in our modern world. This is how time keeping systems are understood and harmonised between nations - for example GPS. A nine year error would cock up your satnav quite badly, I think.

 

[Javahead]

Christ has nothing to do with it. There is an internationally recognised standard, ISO 8601:

"In general, ISO 8601 applies to representations and formats of dates in the Gregorian (and potentially proleptic Gregorian) calendar, of times based on the 24-hour timekeeping system (with optional UTC offset), of time intervals, and combinations thereof."

"ISO 8601 prescribes, as a minimum, a four-digit year [YYYY] to avoid the year 2000 problem. It therefore represents years from 0000 to 9999, year 0000 being equal to 1 BC and all others AD."

So the first century AD is Years 1 to 100. All else follows logically on, in increments of ten. Therefore 2020 is the last year of a decade, not the first.

ISO standards are authoritative in our modern world. This is how time keeping systems are understood and harmonised between nations - for example GPS. A nine year error would cock up your satnav quite badly, I think.

And is ex post facto handwaving by people who wanted to use the currently accepted dating system in computation.

The ISO is just a codification of how it works in practice, and how to apply the rules consistently. And it solves the year-zero problem for calculations. While totally ignoring the arbitrariness and probable errors when the system was established.

From my viewpoint, arguing about how to calculate decades is more aesthetic than anything else, given the root uncertainty. And watching people try to prove their preference as ‘correct’ has more than a bit of the flavor of arguments about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

But it is fun to watch.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

On Y2K, I agree with Bramblethorn. This was one of those oft-ignored instances of an anticipated problem getting an appropriate and (almost entirely) effective response. I was keenly aware of the COBOL debugging that went on at the time.

On calendar stuff: Unlike the year, the decade is not a duration with a physical reality (beyond that of the ten consecutive years it is taken to include). It’s a term of convenience, so it can be used conveniently. If one says “the twenties,” that can be taken to mean the years 2020 through 2029. If one insists that the years 2021 through 2030 be grouped, the proper term would be The Third Decade Of The Twenty-First Century.

On the well-wishing that started this thread, I wish the best to those here, and those elsewhere, and all who inhabit the ecosystem.

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5116173&page=submissions

 

[SimonDoom]

Happy New Year, everyone!

 

[BelleCanzuto]

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/i_love_the_20s.png

 

[YDB95]

I was also in DC that night. Small world!

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

Just back from celebrating New Year's with the same couple we've clocked in every new decade with for the last six ones--yes, that's fifty years, every change of decade despite both couples having lived nearly half their married lives in foreign countries. Getting it done has sometimes involved foreign travel. Happy New Year's to all.

What a wonderful way to celebrate the new year and lasting friendship!

 

[SolarRay]

A very Happy New Year to all -- may the champagne and stories continue to flow!