Home Fires and calendar reform SPOILERS

Dave Tallman · 31 Jan 2011, 00:19 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:19:14 -0700
Subject: (urth) Home Fires and calendar reform **SPOILERS**
Message-ID: <AANLkTi=kCjgVrtcX2V63LsBD1_h8ATCnMuyCbxAFFykW at mail.gmail.com>

Mr. Thalassocrat wrote:

Perhaps it's a separation-from-nature thing. Societies destroying themselves
> by cutting themselves off from nature is a fairly common trope for Wolfe.
> Abandoning a calendar based on natural cycles fits with this, I suppose.

I found another clue -- Chelle's arrival day is specified as Day 180.
This suggests all days in the year are simply numbered from 1 to 400.
There is no need for hundred-day period names, because they can easily
be worked out from the top digit.

It's clear that there's no synchronization with the seasons. Day 180
is clearly in winter, and for us it would be around the end of June.
Probably years are measured in cycles of 400 days, so all ages should
be inflated by a factor of about 13/12. The system is absolutely,
chillingly logical and human-centric, completely cut off from nature.
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