Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
If I had a shop, and you bought something for $17, and handed me $20, I would give you $1 change and tell you “it’s a sign of the times”.
It isn’t my calendar, I didn’t create it, it is the notation used in books and papers written over last several hundreds of years.
Or more appropriately…
“The 2000s was the decade that started on January 1, 2000 and ended on December 31, 2009.”
-Wikipedia
Father, re:”“it is the notation used in books and papers written over last several hundreds of years.
From the text of:
“Security, work, and relief policies. 1942”
78th Congress 1, 1st Session j
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
/Document No. 128
“At the opening of the new decade, January 1940, a total
of 9,163,000 persons were estimated to be unemployed.
The figures just cited understate the total number of
workers affected by…”
Oh, you mean except government documents…
And what did I say, the vast majority are misinformed or undereducated. Wiki is a jumping off point, not a source for the final answer. Thank you for proving all my points.
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
— Pres. Kennedy, May 25, 1961
When Kennedy said this he intended that we would complete the mission before 1 Jan 1971. Historians are in agreement on this.
You all only prove how far we have fallen.
Europeans celibrated the new Century on 1 Jan 2001. Again, you all prove how far we have fallen.
I am glad to have spent time trying to educate a box of rocks in you two.
Are transcripts of politicians retoric noteable learned papers?
I’m sure you can wallow in the evidence you collect learned ones.
Father, I haven’t seen any examples to support your argument. How about providing a few?
What other 2000 year old mistakes do you suggest we embrace in perpetuity.
Well let’s see, the decade started with Windows 2000. It ended with Windows 7.
It started with Bill Clinton, and ends with Barack Obama. Less fun.
Movies: 2000 – Gladiator | 2009 – Avatar? – more fun.
Federal Debt: 2000 – 5.6T | 2009 – 12T – way less fun.
US GDP: 2000 – 9825b | 2009 – 13271b – good but not great.
Unemployment rate: 2000 – 3.9% | 2009 10%+ – definitely sucks.
Top Selling Car: 2000 – Ford F150 | 2009 – Ford F-Series – no imagination for 10 years?
US Population: 2000 – 281,421,906 | 2009 – 308,406,611 – sounds almost static don’t it?
World Population: 2000 – 6.07b | 2009 – 6.79b – ???
Father, since you call yourself father, you likely have a child. For the first year of that child’s life, it’s age was counted in months… why? because it was 0 years old. The first 365 days of that child’s life was the 0 year just as the first year of a decade, or century or millennium begins with the zero year, not the 1 year.
Father is right. If this decade was counted from 2000 to 2009 and the previous decade was counted from 1990 to 1999, then the very first decade AD would have to have been counted from 0 to 9. Which doesn’t make any sense, because there has never been a “zero” year. Our current calendar has been counting from 1, i.e. the first year after the birth of Christ. The previous year is 1 BC.
By Skeptic’s faulty logic, the first decade would have had 9 years: from 1 to 9. The year 10 would belong in the second decade, from 10 to 19. Nine years a decade does not make. The first decade is counted from 1 to 10, the second decade from 11 to 20 and so on, until the current decade is counted from 2001 to 2010.
Skeptic has become attached to the same stupid notion that permeates computer programming, that we must count things from zero, with basically two goals:
1) Be pedantic about Math just because you studied Computer Science and you’re very proud of it, like a teenager wearing their Uni’s jersey;
2) Increase the likelihood of off-by-one errors in array handling; OR making array iteration or element picking all the more annoying by forcing programmers to write constant adjustments such as {while/for (size_of_array – 1)}…
Counting from zero, save in Math theory and mental masturbation, is an astonishingly bad idea. It just gets in the way, it doesn’t make anything easier or more accurate.
The general public isn’t usually familiar with Math or computer programming. The general public usually figures “the 80s” must be the years that begin with an 8 just because it’s what it sounds like. You probably may refer to those years that way, that’s fine and usually irrelevant, but let it be clear that that particular decade began in January 1981 and finished in December 1990. The general public doesn’t get that right out of laziness in their thinking. It’s another kind of “off-by-one” error.
Luc, by your logic Jesus was 1 year old on the day he was born.
No, by my logic that was the first year, hence year number 1. The previous year is 1 BC, equivalent to “minus 1,” but there is no “year zero” in History.
Technically, since 1/1/0011, every year has been the end of a decade.
Luc, logic doesn’t make a year disappear. A mistake does. Now adjust your toga and bow to Imperator Caesar Augustus.
Regardless of your illogical hold on ancient mistakes, you are now a minority. Check any major newspaper.
Ok, so there were no year zero in history, but it es equally true that the first year of a child’s life IS his year zero, so the notion is not outrageously illogical. Not to bring small children into this argument, I have just turned 50, and it would be ridiculous if I say “I’m still in my forties”
What really is, if not illogical, cause of confusion, is considering 1990 part of the eighties, 1980 part of the seventies and so on (as would be to refer to myself as still in my forties). It is way more elegant to follow common sense and accept calling “the N-ties” every year of the form ??N?, from the first day of ??N0 to the last day of ??N9.
But then we still have this unconfortable absense of a year zero, so I’d say, the hell with it! Let there be a whole year zero between 1 AD and 1 BC, and be done with it! Most dates that far are approximate anyway.
Thomas, good one. I would take that even further. Every year since the beginning of the universe, has been the beginning of a decade.
#48
Well, if we’re being pedantic, every day (minute, second etc.) since 10 years from the start of the time was the beginning of a decade. ;->
#49
Pardon, the end of a decade.
I agree with John. I lost my Mother and Father, my job at H-P was outsourced by the Republican extremists, I’m broke and working at Wal-Mart. It doesn’t get much worse that that.
#1 Todd Peterson:
“What is crappy about the decade? It has been one of the best in recorded history.”
I’ll have some of what he‘s having!
Goodbye and good riddance to the Aughts!
Maybe it’s just rose-colored glasses (or Hope), but I expect things to continue to slowly improve this year.
Best wishes for a good 2010, everyone!
Bah! Next you’ll be telling me that 1901 was in the Twentieth Century! Pedant!
You know what? It’s always been shitty.
I’m tired of hearing people, being all nostalgic, about how good things were in the “good old days.” I submit to you all that there never were “good old days…”
We have been in a perpetual turmoil, epidemics, crisis after crisis, and always hearing the phrase “In these troubled times…” all the time for millennia. Yet trying to make it seem as if that phrase was invented just recently?
If the past was really all that great, then the bible would read like a child’s fairy tail, and would end with “happily ever after” but it didn’t! The world has been fucked up since the dawn of time. Pull your head out of the past (or your ass) and DEAL WITH today, Please! thank you.
Why doesn’t your photo have a Cr to replace the H?
Re: Dates
http://tinyurl.com/yacyyh8
Year zero is not used in the widely used Gregorian calendar, nor in its predecessor, the Julian calendar. Under those systems, the year 1 BC is followed by AD 1. However, there is a year zero in astronomical year numbering (where it coincides with the Julian year 1 BC) and in ISO 8601:2004 (where it coincides with the Gregorian year 1 BC) as well as in all Buddhist and Hindu calendars.
As usual, with all that’s going on in the world, the big topic of discussion here is when does a decade begin. Sad.
Excellent information, LibertyLover. Key paragraphs:
“In some contexts … elapsed time year 1 begins exactly one full year after the starting point, and THE FIRST YEAR IS YEAR 0 (meaning that zero full years have elapsed since the starting point).”
“The third millennium of the Gregorian calendar began on 1 January 2001 … This is a direct consequence of the absence of a year zero in the anno Domini era. Had there been a year zero … This also applies to centuries and decades.”
So I, just turned 50, am not in my forties due to my having a year zero, while the “official” decade is still the 00s even though we are in 2010, because of the calendar not having one.
One can say this is the difference of NAMING years vs COUNTING years: the year named “1” is the year zero.
I stick to my proposal of declaring a year zero. Of course then we may be forced to declare a MONTH zero and a DAY zero (and a zero hour, but this is already so).
@ Uncle Dave.
And as usual everywhere, there is someone complaining and not proposing solutions. You may start by trying to steer this discussion toward solving the world’s problems, if you think that would help even a little.
ps. This was a crappy decade indeed.
You say tomaato, I say tomahto; 6 of one, half dozen of the other; Terrorist, freedom fighter.
Oops, scratch that last one. I’m not trolling here.
I’m 23 now and have spent the last decade in either high school or university. I hope to remain in school for at least half of the next decade because quite frankly, I’m afraid to stick my head outside of my educational institution and “meet” my place in the economy.
Any advice for me when that time comes, Mr. Dvorak?
I have sent a couple emails in the search of the “truth”. The facts have been established by all parties.
Let me ask you this, as so many seem to need to bundle up a period into an even, nonordinal, set: if the 70s didn’t include 1980, then you must accept that Jimmy Carter was the first president of the 80s, yes?
I think everyone would agree that Carter was a “70s” era president. You see, defining an era isn’t as nice as those faulty nostalgic memories would have us believe.
To me (YMMV), the 1980s as a cultural phenomena started in 1976-77 with the Bicentennial, Star Wars (and soon after ET and Raiders), and ended around 1986-1988.
The 90s started by 1988 with the end of the Regan feel-good era, South Dakota vs Dole and MADD, and the last vestiges of the cocaine period, and fully contained the first Gulf War, and ended by 1996.
The millennia era started about 1997 with the explosion of wealth and the Internet, and ended in 2001 with the dot com bust and the Terrorist Attacks. The current Period of Crap began in 2001 and we’ll have to see if the crap continues this year or turns around.
Ya know the argument about if there was a year zero or not is largely irrelevant, since no one was really counting the years accurately in the past two millennia.
Roman emperors were adding/removing and renaming entire months because they COULD; it was in their power to do so. Adding months named after themselves (e.g. Augustus, Octavius).
We have changed calendar systems far too many times to even claim that 2010 is exactly that many years since Christ’s birth. I think we all agree that Christ wasn’t automatically 1 year old the moment he was born.