One year and 23 days to the end of the decade....

[Flying_Monkey]

I do love people who think they can tell people when their symbolic moments should be. Because that's the point. People aren't 'morons' for celebrating the end of the decade this year - this is when it feels right. That's what symbolism is all about.

 

[661-Pete]

Believe me, FM, I wasn't taking the 'moron' bit personally! As you say, people ought to be free to choose when to celebrate a certain event, and not to castigate others for choosing differently. After all, don't the Russian Orthodox celebrate Christmas on January 7th ( because of the calendar difference)? They're not 'wrong' any more than western Christians are 'wrong'.

In my field of work (embedded software), I'm constantly up against the dilemma that computers and microprocessors like to store numbers internally starting from zero (e.g. 0 to 99), whereas humans prefer to see things numbered starting from one (e.g. 1 to 100). So I'm constantly adding one to a number, before displaying it to a user, and then subtracting one from a number, after the user types it in. Plenty of opportunity for software bugs here! I suppose that biases me towards preferring decades to begin with a year ending in '0'.

 

[Davidc]

Yeah 2011 is the decade start same as 2001 was the millenium start.

Who really cares?

Snore.

Snore.

 

[Over The Hill]

Having a bit of a QI moment here -
Are you saying that 1960 was in the 50s? If so I am a decade older than I thought I was.
Does it not make more sense to call the 60s 1960-1969? So it seems I am with the morons on this one?

Otherwise when Christ was 6 months old we would still be in BC!

 

[gavintc]

Oh, lets keep Christ and the year 0 out of this. It is a numbering system to differentiate one year from another year. I 'like most morons' will celebrate at the end of the month. If you want your own 'purists' and rather quiet party next year - crack on.

 

[yenrod]

... but how many morons will be letting off fireworks a whole year early at the end of the ninth year of the decade, just like at the end of 1999?

Just for a few minutes on NYE/NYD - 12pm etc...you get a real sense of out of control'ness...

Though, seeing a big police jaguar cornering sideways on the other side of the road at speed, whilst walking along the pavement, around that time didnt do anything to make me feel secure.