Problems with Mars (opens in new tab)

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36 pointswarriorkitty9y ago6 comments

6 comments

I think Kim Stanley Robinson's R/G/B Mars series covered a workable Mars calendar in detail, FWIW.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy

It's interesting that the recent SpaceX announcement of a Mars colonization plan included 100 colonists. (OK, it was "at least" - perhaps it will be 101)

shpx9y ago

Except this time around we'll keep it simple, no time zones and expressed as YYYY solofyear.decimalofsol.

0010 372.5000 represents midsol of the 373rd sol of the 11th year since humans landed on Mars.

x1798DE9y ago

See this essay on why living without time zones is probably a bad idea: https://qntm.org/abolish

Having no time zones would probably work if you were geographically restricted to one area (as will probably be true on Mars for some time), but when you get to the point where you're covering a large enough part of the planet, you're going to need them, even on Mars.

I also think you'll find that no matter what you do you it won't be long until people start being fuzzy with how thye express dates and times.

Pxtl9y ago

Didn't Java already cover this when they introduced the abstract Calendar class, of which GregorianCalendar would be one of many subclasses?

wlievens9y ago

Actually Java has a proper well-designed api for dates and times since Java 8.

mabbo9y ago

It's lovely. I've given talks internally at my company to show everyone how great it is, and why using it prevents bugs.

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