Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Does our old calendar need an upgrade?

Is our calendar perfect? Far from it. The number of days in each month are uneven, its quarters are unequal, and it's impossible to determine when on which day any random date will fall.

But it turns out, there are many, many other - arguably better - ideas to reform it.

For instance, there's the 13-Moon Calendar. Inspired by the ancient Mayan Long-Count calendar, this proposal to reform the current Gregorian calendar re-names all the months, and introduces other innovations, including an extra month, which approximates many ancient calendars.

The Symmetry454 Calendar is a proposal by a Toronto university professor. It features four exactly equal quarters of 28-, 35- and 28-day months, making it easier to compare fiscal quarters. It's beautiful symmetry contrasts with the chaotic Gregorian.

The 13-month "Sol" Calendar updates an Old Idea - the 13-month year tied to the lunar cycle. This calendar's 13 months are all 28 days long, making it easy to remember the length of months. A leap year is added to the last month, December, and a new month, Sol, is added between June and July.

The New Earth Calendar is a bit of a hybrid - mixing the best elements of proposals like the Symmetry454 calendar and the 13 months of the Sol calendar.

Finally, the 30x11 Calendar is what its creator calls a "Gentle Update" of our current calendar. All of its months are 30 days long, except December, which rounds out the 365 or 366-day year with 35 or 36 days. It makes it incredibly easy to determine what day number each day on the calendar holds, and makes it easy to remember days.

All of these calendars - and MANY MORE - can be found EXCLUSIVELY on the new Abbott ePublishing eBook "A New Calendar for the World" available on the Abbott ePublishing website.

Monday, November 29, 2010

New eBook: Advent Messages of Hope for Harried and Hurting People by Patricia Cole Williams


Just published by Abbott ePubilshing: "Advent Messages of Hope for Harried and Hurting People" by Patricia Cole Williams

During the Christmas season, it's easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of shopping, wrapping presents and baking cookies that one forgets the true meaning of the holiday - to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

The Advent season is designed to refocus our lives on Christ. In this beautiful and moving eBook, Patricia Cole Williams presents a detailed package of prayers meditations that do just that.

From the introduction:

"Frankly, the whole idea of the holidays is so exhausting to many people that they dread what should be the most wonderful time of the year. Instead of looking forward in eager hope and exultant expectation, people are grumpy, unhappy, broke, focused on everything that’s wrong in their lives and families and the world. Really, it’s just too much for most of us. Many people would rather skip the holidays. Or they manage to soldier through, knowing that eventually January will come, bringing with it calm and ordinary days. I propose we stop."

This wonderful eBook is just $1.99!

Buy here: http://www.abbottepub.com/advent.html (Available in .pdf format. Kindle-ready. Readable on your desktop or laptop with a free eBook reader from Adobe.)

Abbott ePublishing is a publisher of interesting, affordable electronic books. They can be found online at abbottepub.com.