Interestingly, that is not the case. Month names can differ in different languages. I discovered the hard way that Ukrainian has completely different names for months when I had to connect to a Linux machine in Kyiv with Ukrainian locale (I can read Cyrillic, but the abbreviated month names meant nothing to me). The name for August is “serpen” by the way, and it is similar in some other Slavic languages. Also Arabic has its own month names based on Akkadian, August is “ab” but an Arabized version of the word August is also commonly used and understood. Finally, in Mandarin and presumably other Chinese languages, Gregorian months are only referred to by their number, so we are in “bayue” (lit. eight(th) month).

The start of the calendar has to be arbitrary, there’s no way around that as it’s not feasible to measure the time since the beginning of the universe with good enough accuracy.

As others commented, the Julian Day is a time measure that is actually used in astronomy, and Unix time is a time stamp standard (not really a calendar, although it could be if we got used to it) that is mostly a way to store time points, not really to consume them before converting to a more readable form.

But as a scientist who is wholly irreligious, I’m not overly bothered by using the Gregorian calendar, even though it has Christian (and a lot of pre-Christian) elements. Its annoyances (different numbers of days in each month, weeks not aligning with years, leap years etc.) are due to the fact that we decided to measure time in these arbitrary units. At least it’s universal in the modern era (often in conjunction with another calendar), and everywhere you go people understand what “August 5, 2024” means (although August might have to be translated to the target language, since the names of the months are not universal).

That’s more than you can say about non-time units of measurement (I’m looking at you, imperial and US customary units!!)

It’s a way for the vehicle owner to broadcast to the world that they have a small dick.

This is a sign on the road to Budapesht near the border between Ukraine and Hungary. There’s the weird insistence in Ukraine to do a one-to-one transliteration of Cyrillic to Latin without much thought, so Ш just becomes SH… Google Maps link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/YyzH7xx7gWNJCcqA6

Not all galaxies are spirals, and spiral galaxies may (kinda) stop spinning after galactic mergers make them into ellipticals with low net angular momentum.

It’s exaggerated but yes, this map really reminds me of many large Chinese cities. It’s probably true every major city has a People’s Square. I think the map is based on Beijing.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way 🇨🇦🏴‍☠️🇨🇦

These two had the misfortune of being in the grey zone between background and supporting characters. It’s fine for a show not to focus on the bridge crew (who’s at the helm on the Cerritos?) but Detmer and Owosekun got a raw deal because sometimes it seemed like they were gonna have some character development. Like in season 3 that Detmer had this bizarre beef with Stamets out of nowhere, and that was probably the only episode where she got more than a couple of lines.

I’m not surprised that the actresses chose their other projects (they were probably at the bottom of the totem poll of the show in terms of pay).

I probably wouldn’t have noticed they were missing, but in episode 3 Michael introduced Rayner to the crew and said “You’ll meet Owosekun, Detmer and the rest of the crew in a little bit”, and then later Tilly said “I’ll send Commander Owosekun in”, off screen of course. Lame.

Discovery got even worse after season 2.

On behalf of UofT, what an honour /s

It caught me by surprise. When they filmed the short trek some years ago there was a university-wide email about filming going on, but this time nothing.

Both DSC and SNW are filmed in Toronto, and we’ve seen landmarks from the city before (e.g. Aga Khan Museum, Ontario Place); and of course “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” took place entirely in the city in the 2020s and featured it heavily.

吃鸡 literally means “eat chicken” but it’s just an expression and here it refers to gaming. Like “eat crow” is an English idiom that makes no sense if translated literally to other languages.

It’s interesting, but I don’t think viewing order has to be chronological. If someone is adamant about watching everything, I’d recommend they go by production order.

Somebody should tell him decibels go into the negative numbers

Maybe fifth time’s a charm…

Over the past 5 years I bought just one stamp.

The really weird thing is that I actually got it.

While it’s a stupid question which he wouldn’t have asked a white guy, it’s not wholly illegitimate. Shou Zi Chew has major business ties to Mainland China, which is not a secret.

This walk was anything but simple…

BJ almost certainly stands for Beijing here (although the company is apparently Qingdao-based). You see it a lot in China, including very oblivious “I ❤️ BJ” T-shirts worn by old ladies.

No.