Miata Mailing List: November 1999, Message #13

sponsored by

> "That Italian American kid in South Florida" has been tossing comments
about
> this for the last six months or so and I wanted to know more...here's what
> the USNO has to say about it.   Way to go, Big A!
>
>
A!-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
> When Is the New Millennium?
> mil*len*ni*um \ \ n, pl -nia or -niums: a period of 1000 years
>
> The end of the second millennium and the beginning of the third will be
> reached on January 1, 2001. This date is based on the now globally
recognized
> Gregorian calendar, the initial epoch of which was established by the
> sixth-century scholar Dionysius Exiguus, who was compiling a table of
dates
> of Easter. Rather than starting with the year zero, years in this calendar
> begin with the date January 1, 1 Anno Domini (AD). Consequently, the next
> millennium does not begin until January 1, 2001 AD.
>
> bob
> Set ur Miata Clocks accordingly

Bob,

I've long since given up...

unfortunatelly, unlike the roundness of the earth (which was easily proven
once we got into space) this one isn't *visually* provable so it falls under
the category of all those things that are TRUE but obfuscated by widespread
ignorance about them.  You'll actually even hear some people say that
*mathematically* or *technically* it's correct BUT... of course I don't
listen to whatever comes after BUT 'cause that's where the absurdities start
and I've got a limited amount of brain so I'd like to spend them better
elsewhere.

It's funny that most people are perfectly comfortable with admitting that
the first ten numbers are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10  so the second ten numbers
are 11 12 13 ...   but they somehow are incapable of extrapolating that to
first, second etc. hundreds or thousands.  If God had given us 1000 fingers
maybe it'd be easier and I'm sure the jewelers of the world would love that
too.

Chances are very high that I and a bunch of other computer geeks <g> around
the country are going to be stuck on call this new years' eve... I'm sure
the media will at some point start pointing out how it's not that bad as
we'll likely get to celebrate the real dawn of the millennium.

Alessandro

P.S.  Watch the makemula machine cash in on this as they continue to push
this new years' eve as the dawn of the millennium and then do a complete
aboutface next march or so as they promote twice as expensive millennium
escapes for the *REAL* dawn of the millennium.

P.P.S.  Got some interest from local miateers to come see the jags... I'll
let you know more as the time approaches.  Do you know if there'll be like
food stands and such... our membership is very food-driven :-)

Alessandro & SnowWhite  <--- who's got her millennium clock set right since
she was adopted in '98 ... and is actually more concerned with this BS about
dailight savings time :-)