The end of the world
R H Draney
was predicted by the Mayan calendar....
What I want to know is, if the Mayans were such great shakes at predicting
stuff, how come their calendar didn't mention anything special about 1697 when
the *Mayans* came to an end?...
R H "long passages from 'Criswell Predicts' available upon request" Draney
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Baird Stafford
R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
> Everybody's talking about the world coming to an end in 2012, and all because
> it
> was predicted by the Mayan calendar....
> What I want to know is, if the Mayans were such great shakes at predicting
> stuff, how come their calendar didn't mention anything special about 1697
> when
> the *Mayans* came to an end?...
You've got the Mayans confused with the Maya. Mayans are/were Superior
Beings From Outer Space (tm). The Maya were an American Indian people
of Mexico and Central America.
Bairs
--
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice
there is. -Yogi Berra
Lee Ayrton
> Everybody's talking about the world coming to an end in 2012, and all because it
> was predicted by the Mayan calendar....
>
> What I want to know is, if the Mayans were such great shakes at predicting
> stuff, how come their calendar didn't mention anything special about 1697 when
> the *Mayans* came to an end?...
Yeah, if they were so smart, how come they didn't predict the end of the
world in 2001, or the Great Computer Crash wen the clocks rolled over from
the 20th to the 21st century? Or the Great Harmonic Convergence in the
1980s? Or various asteroid near-misses?
Oh. Wait. Maybe because the world didn't end.
Never mind.
Richard Evans
no, I can't cite where I read it) is that the Mayan calendars ran in
cycles of [some large number] of years. Every calendar ended with the
end of a cycle and a new calendar began. The only reason there are no
calendars after 2012 is that there were no Mayans left to write one.
R H Draney
Ah, "legacy code"....r
Don Freeman
> Richard Evans filted:
>> The most reasonable explanation I've read of this whole belief (and
>> no, I can't cite where I read it) is that the Mayan calendars ran in
>> cycles of [some large number] of years. Every calendar ended with the
>> end of a cycle and a new calendar began. The only reason there are no
>> calendars after 2012 is that there were no Mayans left to write one.
>
> Ah, "legacy code"....r
>
>
--
-Don
R H Draney
Old systems programmers never die, they just take a dump....r
Don Freeman
> Don Freeman filted:
>> R H Draney wrote:
>>> Richard Evans filted:
>>>> The most reasonable explanation I've read of this whole belief (and
>>>> no, I can't cite where I read it) is that the Mayan calendars ran in
>>>> cycles of [some large number] of years. Every calendar ended with the
>>>> end of a cycle and a new calendar began. The only reason there are no
>>>> calendars after 2012 is that there were no Mayans left to write one.
>>> Ah, "legacy code"....r
>>>
>>>
>> Old COBOL programmers never die, they just have an ABEND.
>
> Old systems programmers never die, they just take a dump....r
>
>
Oh great! Here we are back with the Poo references.
--
-Don
Ray
Heck, my calendar ends December 31, 2009, only a few weeks away!
I'll have to go buy another one in January, after they go on sale.
--
Ray
(remove the Xs to reply)
Keith F. Lynch
I'm not! (Well, I wasn't before I started replying to your message.)
> What I want to know is, if the Mayans were such great shakes at
> predicting stuff, how come their calendar didn't mention anything
> special about 1697 when the *Mayans* came to an end?...
Mayans are still around.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Don Freeman
> R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>> Everybody's talking about the world coming to an end in 2012,
>
> I'm not! (Well, I wasn't before I started replying to your message.)
>
>> What I want to know is, if the Mayans were such great shakes at
>> predicting stuff, how come their calendar didn't mention anything
>> special about 1697 when the *Mayans* came to an end?...
>
> Mayans are still around.
The people are, the civilization not so much.
--
-Don
Lon
> Everybody's talking about the world coming to an end in 2012, and all because it
> was predicted by the Mayan calendar....
Yes, some are even sending up balloons with kids in them to search for
new habitats.
>
> What I want to know is, if the Mayans were such great shakes at predicting
> stuff, how come their calendar didn't mention anything special about 1697 when
> the *Mayans* came to an end?...
I've always wondered if the Mayans just ran out of rock space, and the
End Of The World Nutcases, just mistranslated the glyph for "continued
on that rock over there"
Lon
> Richard Evans filted:
>> The most reasonable explanation I've read of this whole belief (and
>> no, I can't cite where I read it) is that the Mayan calendars ran in
>> cycles of [some large number] of years. Every calendar ended with the
>> end of a cycle and a new calendar began. The only reason there are no
>> calendars after 2012 is that there were no Mayans left to write one.
>
> Ah, "legacy code"....r
>
Lon
> Don Freeman filted:
>> R H Draney wrote:
>>> Richard Evans filted:
>>>> The most reasonable explanation I've read of this whole belief (and
>>>> no, I can't cite where I read it) is that the Mayan calendars ran in
>>>> cycles of [some large number] of years. Every calendar ended with the
>>>> end of a cycle and a new calendar began. The only reason there are no
>>>> calendars after 2012 is that there were no Mayans left to write one.
>>> Ah, "legacy code"....r
>>>
>>>
>> Old COBOL programmers never die, they just have an ABEND.
>
> Old systems programmers never die, they just take a dump....r
>
>
thread.
Lon "atropos" Stowell
BillGill
Cheapskate! I don't wait till January. They go on sale right after
Christmas, so I can buy one to start out new on Jan. 1. I do wait a
couple of days after Christmas. I don't want to get caught up in the
crowd on the day after Christmas.
Bill
R H Draney
>
>Heck, my calendar ends December 31, 2009, only a few weeks away!
>
>I'll have to go buy another one in January, after they go on sale.
I recommend the Mr Winkle calendar....
How old *is* that dog now, anyway?...r
Warren Oates
wrote:
> Cheapskate! I don't wait till January. They go on sale right after
> Christmas, so I can buy one to start out new on Jan. 1. I do wait a
> couple of days after Christmas. I don't want to get caught up in the
> crowd on the day after Christmas.
Ah yes, the Feast of Stephen. Boxing Day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day
Good Holiday for this group -- no one seems to know where it originated.
One of my favourites, because, for one, after all the hype leading up to
Christmas which is then Suddenly Over, it's Not Quite Over at all.
It's also a good day to have close non-family friends around. It's a
legal holiday in Cunuckistan (and most of the Commonwealth).
--
Suddenly he realized that he was alone
with a giant halfwit on a dark deserted street.
-- Chester Himes
Jon M
And I expect to buy my new Mayan calendar in 2013. Maybe one with
dogs. I like dogs.
Jon "You can't have it. It's Mayan." M
Charles Wm. Dimmick
OK. You can have it. Its urine.
Keith F. Lynch
> Jon M wrote:
>> Jon "You can't have it. It's Mayan." M
> OK. You can have it. Its urine.
This pisses me off. On a scale of one to ten, you're-an-eight.
Derek Tearne
> Everybody's talking about the world coming to an end in 2012, and all
> because it was predicted by the Mayan calendar....
Indeed - and the thing that really puzzles me is this.
The cyclic nature of the Mayan calendar has been known for, well,
hundreds of years. Up until sometime last week I had always been under
the impression that the end of the each cycle was a call for
celebration, perhaps a human sacrifice or two and a big party - and that
the end of the great cycle would just mean a larger number of sacrifices
and a really really big party.
And yet, now everyone *except me* seems to know that they actually
predicted the end of the world - even though all our experience of
calendars would suggest that coming to the end of a calendar cycle in
any other system just rolls round to the next cycle - new year, new
century, new millenium etc. Just because the Maya came up with a longer
cycle doesn't mean they predicted the end of the world.
I think this is because, for all previous decades since time immemorial
there has been some other, more pressing, *end of the world is nigh*
prediction to capture the fears of 'prophet fearing scaredy cats'.
In the nearly 5 decades I've been on this planet I've lived through four
or five 'end of the world for sure' scenarios predicted by nostrodamus
etc. I've come to the conclusion that people need to believe the world
is going to end soon - so they can experience the joy of surviving near
certain death - but once each prophesied end has passed new rumours need
to be created to fill the cavern left by not knowing when the world will
end next.
So, we end up with an approximately ten year cycle starting with upto 5
years of relief - during which the more committed folks start to seek
out new predictions of doom - followed by a couple of years while the
new prophesies sink into the people's psyche followed by up to five
years of impending doom - before the world doesn't end as predicted and
the cycle begins again.
So, although the Maya rollover has been known about for centuries no one
could credibly suggest it was a prediction of the end of the world, as
there was always some other enterpretation of nostrodamus, or a major
portent like a comet, that was no more than ten years away - and we
can't have conflicting possible doom dates - that is just too confusing
- the world can, after all, only end once.
So, having survived Y2K and the turn of the millenium, the prophet
whisperers spent a few years seeking out the next likely portent of doom
- and it took them a while to focus on the Maya rollover as there is
this additional issue of the average skeptic in the street saying "If
this really predicts the end of the world, why hasn't anyone ever
mentioned it before now even though it's been known about for
centuries?" - which explains why it took slightly longer than normal for
the next EOW contender to appear post Y2K.
Of course it is a mild concern that we are coming to the end of the
succession of popes predicted by Malachy - who has a much much better
track record than 'vaguer than a pothead' nostrodamus - but still - I
expect to be doing my christmas shopping on the 22nd or 23rd of december
2012 just like normal.
--- Derek
--
Derek Tearne - de...@url.co.nz
Vitamin S - improvisation from Aotearoa/New Zealand
http://www.vitamin-s.co.nz/
Warren Oates
de...@url.co.nz (Derek Tearne) wrote:
> Of course it is a mild concern that we are coming to the end of the
> succession of popes predicted by Malachy - who has a much much better
> track record than 'vaguer than a pothead' nostrodamus - but still - I
> expect to be doing my christmas shopping on the 22nd or 23rd of december
> 2012 just like normal.
My father, who loved this kind of crap, had a story about Cardiff Castle
having had the heads of all the English kings (no queens, my Dad was
adamant about that) carved into a set of pillars and when there were no
more pillars, there'd be no more kings, and our current monarch's father
took up the last pillar and so on ...
Now, I can't for the life of me find any references to this.
Warren "Castel Caerdydd, to me Mam" Oates
Paul Tomblin
>> Everybody's talking about the world coming to an end in 2012, and all
>> because it was predicted by the Mayan calendar....
>
>predicted the end of the world - even though all our experience of
>calendars would suggest that coming to the end of a calendar cycle in
>any other system just rolls round to the next cycle - new year, new
>century, new millenium etc. Just because the Maya came up with a longer
>cycle doesn't mean they predicted the end of the world.
You think that's bad? The calendar on my desk ends at December 31, 2009!
--
Paul Tomblin <ptom...@xcski.com> http://blog.xcski.com/
Software planning seems to be based on denying plausibility.
-- Graham Reed
Derek Tearne
> In a previous article, de...@url.co.nz (Derek Tearne) said:
> >> Everybody's talking about the world coming to an end in 2012, and all
> >> because it was predicted by the Mayan calendar....
> >
> >And yet, now everyone *except me* seems to know that they actually
> >predicted the end of the world - even though all our experience of
> >calendars would suggest that coming to the end of a calendar cycle in
> >any other system just rolls round to the next cycle - new year, new
> >century, new millenium etc. Just because the Maya came up with a longer
> >cycle doesn't mean they predicted the end of the world.
>
> You think that's bad? The calendar on my desk ends at December 31, 2009!
THE END OF THE DESK IS NIGH!!!
Flee!!!
Run for the foyer!!!
Jared
> And yet, now everyone *except me* seems to know that they actually
> predicted the end of the world - even though all our experience of
> calendars would suggest that coming to the end of a calendar cycle in
> any other system just rolls round to the next cycle - new year, new
> century, new millenium etc. Just because the Maya came up with a longer
> cycle doesn't mean they predicted the end of the world.
It also says something about the effeciency of the Mayans that having
worked out when the world was going to end they made sure their
calendar finished on the same day so as not to waste any precious
days, months and years. Curious, in fact, that they had the
technology to work out when the world was going to end before the
technology to work out if it was Wednesday.
Jared "my Outlook calendar seems to go on for ever which is good news
for all" Head
Keith F. Lynch
> Jared "my Outlook calendar seems to go on for ever which is good
> news for all" Head
The Washington Science Fiction Association's online calendar
(http://www.wsfa.org/webcalendar/) only covers the next 7990 years.
It does list the club's meeting dates and locations for that period,
but if you want to plan ahead and want to know when and where meetings
are after that, you'll have to wait until they get around to updating
their calendar.
R H Draney
>
>Jared <bi...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Jared "my Outlook calendar seems to go on for ever which is good
>> news for all" Head
>
>The Washington Science Fiction Association's online calendar
>(http://www.wsfa.org/webcalendar/) only covers the next 7990 years.
>It does list the club's meeting dates and locations for that period,
>but if you want to plan ahead and want to know when and where meetings
>are after that, you'll have to wait until they get around to updating
>their calendar.
Panic! WSFA predicts world will end in 10000! Zager and Evans were right!
R H "it's in the pills you took today!" Draney
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
> On Nov 18, 4:39 pm, de...@url.co.nz (Derek Tearne) wrote:
>
> > And yet, now everyone *except me* seems to know that they actually
> > predicted the end of the world - even though all our experience of
> > calendars would suggest that coming to the end of a calendar cycle in
> > any other system just rolls round to the next cycle - new year, new
> > century, new millenium etc. Just because the Maya came up with a longer
> > cycle doesn't mean they predicted the end of the world.
>
> It also says something about the effeciency of the Mayans that having
> worked out when the world was going to end they made sure their
> calendar finished on the same day so as not to waste any precious
> days, months and years.
Imagine the problems with income tax otherwise. You don't want to go
through that /and/ the end of the world.
Incidentally, Google seems to be telling me that no one else yet has
used online the term "MXIImatosis". Do you think it'll catch on?
Should I trademark it now?
> Curious, in fact, that they had the
> technology to work out when the world was going to end before the
> technology to work out if it was Wednesday.
What does "{*]" mean to you? ;-)
Hatunen
cc talk-o...@moderators.isc.or�g <rja.ca...@excite.com>
wrote:
>Incidentally, Google seems to be telling me that no one else yet has
>used online the term "MXIImatosis". Do you think it'll catch on?
>Should I trademark it now?
Did you mean MMXII?
--
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
> On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:20:57 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie: Fnord:
> wrote:
>
> >Incidentally, Google seems to be telling me that no one else yet has
> >used online the term "MXIImatosis". Do you think it'll catch on?
> >Should I trademark it now?
>
> Did you mean MMXII?
O facepalm. Yes. I'm sorry, that was a stupid mistake to make. But
we still have it to ourselves! (For now.)
So I'm going to practice saying "emm-emm-ex-eye-eye-matosis" quickly
in case the opportunity arises to drop it into conversation at
parties.
It could be an uphill struggle. For Mayan End Times, the term
"Achocalypse" is already available. It has been used by Alan Moore.
And by Jonathan Ross. And there seem to be at least two recipes for
chocolate-and-coffee drinks named "Achocalypse Now" - I don't do
coffee but there's a mostly coffee one and a mostly chocolate one.
(Unless I'm misunderstanding the latter: does a hot chocolate plus an
espresso count as "mostly chocolate" or "mostly coffee"?)
David DeLaney
>On Nov 21, 2:17�am, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>> Did you mean MMXII?
>
>O facepalm. Yes. I'm sorry, that was a stupid mistake to make. But
>we still have it to ourselves! (For now.)
>
>So I'm going to practice saying "emm-emm-ex-eye-eye-matosis" quickly
>in case the opportunity arises to drop it into conversation at parties.
Try it as "meh-mex-eee-eye-mah-toh-sis".
Dave "even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Jared
orig...@moderators.isc.org <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> ...And there seem to be at least two recipes for
> chocolate-and-coffee drinks named "Achocalypse Now"...
Surely, a moccalypse?