So many people unable to use Wikipedia

After some of the questions on the last post I went digging.

And found this on the sabbath. Which makes it clear that originally the Jewish Sabbath was Friday sundown -> Saturday first star, making Sunday the first day of the week (strangely, I already knew this). However, in the Christian tradition Sunday is _not_ the day of rest prescribed in the Old Testament - it's the Lord's Day, marking the resurrection - and is thus a day of rest _and_ the first day of the week.

There are groups of Christians out there who celebrate on a Saturday - but then there are groups of Christians out there who do just-about everything.

I'll also quote this:

In Jewish and Christian tradition, the first day of the week is Sunday. Both the Hebrew and Ecclesiastical Latin languages number most of the days of the week. In Hebrew, Sunday through Friday are numbered one through six, while in Ecclesiastical Latin, Monday through Friday are numbered the second through the sixth days of the week (feria). For Christians and Jews, Sunday remains the first day of the week. Most, though not all, business and social calendars in North America mark Sunday as the first day of the week.

In most of Europe, and some other countries, Monday is considered to be the first day of the week and is literally named as such in languages such as Mandarin (pinyin Xīngqí Yī, literally means Weekday One) and Lithuanian (pirmadienis - means First Day).

The ISO prescribes Monday as the first day of the week with ISO 8601 for software date formats.

I, of course, start my work on a Monday, finish it on a Friday, and thus the Week End starts at sundown on a Friday and finishes at midnight on a Sunday, meaning my week starts on a Monday. I'm happy to be aligned with ISO 8601 :->

Blogs are the enemy of dissent

Or, to be precise, their bloody awful commenting systems are.  Bad enough that they are all single-threaded (which is a great way to turn a set of conversations into a screaming babble), but the lack of notifications to replies makes it impossible to tell if you're having a conversation or simply shouting into the wind, while the over-the-top moderation that most blogs use means that I can go back to somewhere I've commented several times to see if the moderator has approved my comment yet, before giving up in disgust.

And then writing about it on LJ, where your comments will appear instantly (providing you have an LJ account or an OpenID), I'll know the second you post them, and other people will be able to engage you in conversation without as little confusion as is possible on the internet.

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 11-14-2008

• 'Ruggedised, weaponised' raygun modules now on sale
  No word yet on how easy it is to head-mount them on sharks
  (tags: lasers future technology war)
• Science fiction special
  New Scientist interviews some writers on the future of SF, does a few polls and reviews a few books.
  (tags: sf reviews)
• Customs duty removed on items under £105
  Was £18 on items outside the EU. VAT still applies, of course.
  (tags: shopping economics)

Dum de dum, dum de dum, dum de dum, diddle de dum. Ooooweeeeeooooooo

[Poll #1297483]