From rob@twcny.rr.com Thu Sep 13 17:40:00 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: rob@twcny.rr.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_1); 14 Sep 2001 00:40:00 -0000 Received: (qmail 5159 invoked from network); 13 Sep 2001 22:51:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 13 Sep 2001 22:51:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mailout5.nyroc.rr.com) (24.92.226.169) by mta3 with SMTP; 13 Sep 2001 22:51:06 -0000 Received: from mail1.twcny.rr.com (mail1-0 [24.92.226.74]) by mailout5.nyroc.rr.com (8.11.6/Road Runner 1.12) with ESMTP id f8DMp2o09694 for ; Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:51:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: from riff ([24.92.246.4]) by mail1.twcny.rr.com (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-59787U250000L250000S0V35) with ESMTP id com for ; Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:50:00 -0400 Received: from rob by riff with local (Exim 3.32 #1 (Debian)) id 15hfJc-0000Qk-00 for ; Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:50:36 -0400 Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:50:36 -0400 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] (from lojban-beginners) pi'e Message-ID: <20010913185036.E748@twcny.rr.com> Reply-To: rob@twcny.rr.com References: <01091301045709.27443@neofelis> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.20i X-Is-It-Not-Nifty: www.sluggy.com From: Rob Speer On Thu, Sep 13, 2001 at 09:45:19AM -0700, James F. Carter wrote: > Lojban ought to include itself in the world cultural community, and adopt > the ISO-8601 date order, ignoring baseline issues on the grounds that the > original decision was a mistake brought about because nobody at that time > had thought about the subsequently resolved functional issues. > > A lot can happen in 16 years. It's gone full circle - this is exactly the issue which was being argued when I first joined the Lojban list. I think the reasoning behind day-month-year is so that you can easily elide the month and the year. However, since then, we've come to understand selma'o PA better. If you say "the 16th", it's apparent that what is meant is 'the next time the day is the 16th' but you're omitting a lot of information. This could be accomplished in year-month-day with {no'o pi'e no'o pi'e 16}, or just {pi'e pi'e 16}. And then the horrible kludge with names for years isn't necessary. (renonopananc? Why don't we just call it Year of the Fruitbat and be done with it?) pi'e is supposed to be like a decimal point except in a mixed-base system. It takes a very strange system to put larger place values *after* a decimal point. -- Rob Speer