A little error crept into Letter 17. Usually my erroneous comments are pointed out to me by a cast of thousands, but in this case I spotted it myself.
I asked if Julius Caesar was killed in a leap year? I then made a mistake in defining the implementation of the Julian calendar as 46BC, it appears that it was actually 45BC. I correctly said 44BC was not a leap year but my logic was wrong, because the good old Romans fouled up the calculation of leap years anyway, and the resultant mess was not sorted out until AD 12.
Talk about being right for the wrong reasons. I realise that none of this makes one iota of difference in the grand scheme of things, but I realise that you lot are a bunch of purists who will hold a grudge for any little errors that I introduce. Mea culpa.
The full (and now hopefully correct) answer is this:
"The Julian calendar has 1 leap year every 4 years: Every year divisible by 4 is a leap year. However, this rule was not followed in the first years after the introduction of the Julian calendar in 45 BC. Due to a counting error, every 3rd year was a leap year in the first years of this calendar's existence. The leap years were: 45 BC, 42 BC, 39 BC, 36 BC, 33 BC, 30 BC, 27 BC, 24 BC, 21 BC, 18 BC, 15 BC, 12 BC, 9 BC, AD 8, AD 12, and every 4th year from then on. There were no leap years between 9 BC and AD 8. This period without leap years was decreed by emperor Augustus and earned him a place in the calendar, as the 8th month was named after him. It is a curious fact that although the method of reckoning years after the (official) birthyear of Christ was not introduced until the 6th century, by some stroke of luck the Julian leap years coincide with years of our Lord that are divisible by 4". Source: The MIT Calendar FAQ
Note: Emperor Augustus of course was none other than Octavian, Caesar's heir and nephew by marriage, the blighter who murdered poor little Caesarion (Ptolemy), the love child of Caesar and Cleopatra. Presumably to remove the competition. What a bunch.
I heartily concur that Calendars are the result of good luck rather than good management.
The Plover eggs survived garden services (thanks to the bricks). Three healthy junior plovers are now stomping around, giving Mom and Pop grey feathers.
To the amazement of all who know him, Biggles won First Prize in Beginners Obedience. The rosette is bigger than he is. A more complacent and well fed Beagle I have yet to see.
Jones has now recovered from his kennelcough episode and managed third in B section. Diva of course got a First. Typical.
I was taking the late afternoon air yesterday on my front step. Not a massive edifice, but wide enough to support my portliness in comfort. Miss Chiff was lying on the low wall nearby, looking demure.
A large white and grey cat came strolling up the drive towards us. I was observing the splendidness of the newcomer until my attention was drawn to the uncouth behaviour of my companion. Elongating herself and fluffing out her hair, Miss Chiff was demonstrating her genetic relationship to the Lion and literally roaring. A disturbing sound at close range.
The newcomer acquired a hunted look in her eye (my own cat-like esp suggests that the intruder is female) and paused in mid step. Bad move.
A grey streak, with claws extended and emitting furious shrieks dashed forth, clopped the unfortunate newcomer in some obviously tender spot and became generally objectionable.
The intruder gave tongue to piteous cries and departed hotfoot. The cause of the mayhem returned to her perch with sundry growls and rumblings. The female of the species is definitely deadlier.
At 3am this morning I was rudely wakened by further ghastly yelling and noises of fighting. There is no peace. If it isn't NATO and the Yugoslavians, it is the damn cats.
All this talk of hair raising reminds me of the latest debacle with my unfortunate and illfated Win 3.1 486. I was busy typing something or other and dreadful crackles, sparks, black smoke, smells of burning and most innovative graphic effects announced the demise of my beloved VGA monitor.
This sort of thing strains ones backup systems to the limit. My system has now been jury rigged so that basic service is restored. But now begins the hassle of rebuilding the preferred environment. All the joyful little things like teaching Win 98 to like Ghostscript, scratching out obscure I/O drivers and desperately casting about for Iomega tape software that works with Win 98 Fat 32 formats. Oh, the joys of computing.
But it looks like the end of the road for the good old 486. It got struck by lightning last year and has never been the same since. A slow attrition has taken place. First the floppy drive refused to boot, then the sound card blew up, and now this.
It is after all the machine that has provided the testbed for all my Y2k testing since 1995. Now that it has participated in producing some of the solutions, it is ironic that it will never see the fateful day.
I am having one of my Zen haiku periods.
After all, I am a child of the sixties, and though I rejected the Beat Generation nuts like Ginsberg and Watts and their idiotic drug crazed crap then, as now, some of the old junk still sticks.
For those who luckily missed the sixties, Haiku is a 17 syllable poetry form, the Zen form stressing simplicity and intuitive perception.
And Zen, (from zenna - "quiet mind concentration") is the Japanese derivative of Bodhidarma's Ch'an Buddhism (introduced from India via China in the 12th century), which was so attractive to the hippies of a bygone era. Who knows, modern-day yuppies may even be into Zen.
But I am a "Guppie". Geriatric Urban Poor Person, and Zen is after all extremely cheap.
The high-priest of Soto Zen, Dogen (1200-1253), emphasized work, practice, discipline, and philosophical questions to discover one's Buddha-nature in the "realization of self". He preferred zazen, seated meditation, for its own sake, over study. Koan (paradoxical questions), tea-drinking, and sudden enlightenment are elements of Zen practice.
All very well for the "me" generation, but I do find some of the elements useful. I can do it sitting down, I substitute coffee for tea, I don't take any of it too seriously, and anything to do with Y2k is de facto a koan paradox.
When my portly form is sitting crosslegged on my low-slung japanese bed, sipping coffee next to a sleeping cat and brooding darkly on the iniquities of Y2k, my Buddha-like self seems apparent.
But the primary thrust is meditation (I substitute "waiting for inspiration") and intuition. My mind is usually blank anyhow, I don't need meditation to achieve that.
Goldratt also recommends realising and vocalising intuition.
Some of my intuitions have been less than useful. Such as getting involved with Y2k in the first place.
My rebuttal to IBMs angry "Letter to the Editor" in 1986 contained some Zen-like philosophical questions (I had been reading Musashi at the time and got a bit carried away), which is probably why it never got published.
Another useful tool is a "koan", a superficially nonsensical question or riddle used by a Rinzai Zen master to help a pupil achieve satori (enlightenment).
A koan supposedly cannot be understood through the processes of logic; its solution requires attainment of a higher level of insight.
An often repeated example is "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" An answer would be that the word "clapping" by definition involves two hands, and therefore this particular koan is unanswerable.
Well, perhaps for pedestrian minds. The obvious answer is "Silence". Or, for the irreverent, "Swish, Swish".
Another example, in the South African context, as we are now barraged (on TV and radio) with sayings such as "One hand cannot wash itself".
Intimating that we must now all get together and integrate, but which for me conjures up images of dipping one hand into water and sloshing it about, or not washing at all.
Some of my current Y2k koan:
"They say Y2k is a problem, but they also insist that Y2k is not a problem. What is their problem?"
"To deny Y2k assumes it must exist.
If Y2k exists it cannot be denied."
I don't think I have quite mastered koan yet.
De Bono uses similar constructs with his "PO" operator (and various other stuff).
Anything that stimulates the little grey cells.
Enlightenment for me is "getting a brainwave". These are usually fairly loopy and produce no tangible benefit, but it least it gives me something to do.
You may have gathered that I don't take it all that seriously, but utilise some of the bit and pieces in my own woolly way. Maybe I have invented "Slug Zen".
When somewhat depressed, I produce my "dark" haiku.
Black Night December - - - - - (5) Kanker Blights Millennial Bud - - - - - - - (7) Helpless Knowledge Weeps - - - - - (5)
This usually drains my bile, and allows me to continue in lighter vein. I have a lot of fun cheating with the syllables. Making decisions on whether Y2k is two syllables or three (it can be either), or how to spell "American" as a slurred monosyllable, is more fun than brooding on Y2k Denial.
Y2k 's comin' - - - - - (5) Y'all dancin' in the street - - - - - - - (7) Bye bye Ms 'merican Pie - - - - - (5)Miss Chiff is also acquiring a Buddha-like tranquillity. Gestation is not an option as her bits have been removed. It must be the chicken diet. She sits sphinx-like on the best parts of the bed and meditates with eyes closed. Cats are Very Zen.
From the above you will no doubt have gathered that Y2k is not causing me to overwork. The local media seem to have switched off completely. Only CNN seems to mention it. We had Gwynneth Flower of Action 2000 on yesterday morning and the UK appears to be going through the same cycle of complacency. I noticed that 40% of medium and small business in the UK are still doing nothing. Our number I suspect (total thumbsuck) is nearer 70%.
There is some benefit I suppose in being cut off from the net. I have been rereading some of my Y2k classics. Such as K.C. Bourne's "Year 2000 Solutions for Dummies", "A business guide to the Year 2000" by Lynn Craig and Mike Kusmirak and "The Year 2000 Computer problem", the little book that Jonathan Whelan produced for Nedcor.
I have also been dredging out my audio archives and relistening to the Yardeni T minus 500 and T minus 400 conferences. Amazing how much information slips through the cracks of memory.
I am also whiling away my time by reading "Classic" Y2k documents onto tape for my visually impaired legal beagle pals.
And Cinderella is in process of being migrated onto CD. A trickier process than I first thought. This has led to much needed pruning and reorganisation. But I wonder if anybody will ever see the final product, as interest is really waning fast.
Y2kwise things are so quiet that one would think the problem had been solved overnight. Now that the elections are over and everybody has played musical chairs and moved on to another portfolio, Government apathy on the topic appears to have reached its zenith.
The only visible signs of activity on the Local and Provincial government front is that the deadline for Contingency plans has moved from June 30 to July 31. A deferral being as good as a holiday. I think I will stock up on candles after all.