Have you got a calendar for the new year yet? The calendar we use might not be all that rational, but we are quite used to it. This video from Jeremiah Warren will help you understand how our calendar came about. -via The Daily What

Tired of holidays falling on different days of the week year after year? So is former NASA astrophysicist Richard Conn Henry. That's why he designed the so-called rational calendar:

Irritated with inconsistency and beguiled by the possibilities of a steady-schedule world — “Every institution in the world has to change their calendar. Sports schedules. Every company. The dates of holidays have to be reset. And it’s all totally unnecessary,” he said — Henry went to work. [...]

According to Richard Conn Henry’s calendar, eight months would each have 30 days. Every third month would have 31 days. Every so often, to account for the leftover time, a whole extra week would be added.

The upshot: Years would proceed with clockwork regularity, with no annual re-jiggering of schedules required. Each day would occupy the same position as it had the previous year and would in the next. Were this 364-day calendar, known officially as the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar, adopted on the first day of 2012, both Christmas and New Year’s Day would forever fall on Sunday.

Brandon Keim of Wired Science has more: Link

Well, maybe. But I never could get used to the metric system. All those easily-divisible units….

Link -via Christopher Jobson

Sebastian Bergne’s calendar consists of a metal roller marked with the days of the week. It rests on a serrated wooden beam. Each day, roll it forward one slot to know what day of the month and day of the week it is.

Link -via Colossal | Designer’s Website | Photo: Moco

The idea behind the "Gregor" calendar scarf by Patrick Frey is pretty simple: pull the yarn as the day goes by to mark the date. It’s the knitted equivalent of tearing off the tear-off calendars! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via swissmiss

What a thrill it would be to turn over a page every month and find a new picture of a goat in a tree! You could have that delightful experience in 2011 with the Goats in Trees calendar. Link -via Breakfast Links

You all know that Betty White is enjoying a red-hot resurgence of her career after a Facebook campaign to have her host Saturday Night Live succeeded. Now, America's Golden Girl has her own pin-up calendar:

The 88-year-old Betty White will be available all year long with THE BETTY WHITE CALENDAR, a 24/7 tribute to one of America's most beloved actresses, comediennes, and winner of multiple Emmy Awards. From her new hit television comedy - Hot in Cleveland (TV Land) - to her #1 Super Bowl commercial (Snickers) with the not-dead Abe Vigoda - Betty is classy, earthy and unassuming . She's also got a fantastic sense of humor about herself - and that's our idea of a centerfold!

Betty White has dedicated herself to improving the lives of animals and this calendar is no exception: All of Ms. White's proceeds will benefit The Morris Animal Foundation based in Denver, Colorado.

The calendar will go on sale in September. Thanks Beth Wareham!

Previously on Neatorama: 5 Familiar Actresses in a Different Light | Betty White in a Metal Bikini Wielding a Flaming Chainsaw while Riding a John Ritter Centaur

(L) What’s Your Poo Telling You? (R) My Zombie Pin-up

More at our own Jill Harness’ article over at InventorSpot: Link

As they say, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” With this calendar, you get an apple every day of the month and it helps you keep up with the days as well. The Serviceplan advertising agency of Munich, Germany created the apple calendar for AOK health insurance. Every month, fill it with 28, 30, or 31 apples and adjust the numbered calendar behind the transparent tube. Then eat one apple each day and see the calendar advance. Too bad the calendars aren’t for sale, but you may see them in AOK branch offices. Link -via bookofjoe

At my office, lots of people use those giant desk calendars for keeping track of appointments, but if you just want to know what day a date falls on next year, check this out.  Grafish Design came up with The Small Calendar, and the method of usage is simple.  Start with the date, say the 19th, then follow that column until you intersect with the desired month: March 19th will be on a Friday!  Months are handily color coded for length, too.

Link.

“In the early 19th century … localities set their own time,” said Bill Mosley, a public affairs officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“It was kind of a crazy quilt of time, time zones, and time usage. When the railroads came in, that necessitated more standardization of time so that railroad schedules could be published.”

In 1883 the U.S. railroad industry established official time zones with a set standard time within each zone. Congress eventually came on board, signing the railroad time zone system into law in 1918.

The 1918 law assigned the Interstate Commerce Commission to oversee the time zones, and legislated Daylight Saving Time. Later, the decision whether to observe DST was left up to the states. Link

“It was just a fun thing to do,” said Gretchen Hoffmann, 42, who turned up the heat as Miss August 2010 by posing on a row boat, a purple boa strategically draped to highlight the starfish tattoo on her upper back. “I like the idea that the calendars are stereotype-busters. You don’t usually see [librarians] as tattooed and sexy. We’re not the little old ladies who walk around with buns.”

Link to story. Link to website. -via Metafilter

Ukrainian artist Yurko Gutsulyak has created what is probably the perfect calendar for pyromaniacs: the "days" made of individual matches that you can tear off and set alight.

Link – via Typography Served

Sure it’s a little bit sexist, but at least it’s creative! When Gee Seoul ad agency created this giant "calendar" ad for male deodorant Axe on the side of a female dorm. You get the message, I’m sure.

Larger pic at directdaily: Link

For Christmas I received a desk calendar “365 Wacky Web Sites.” One of the pages, Feb 2, 2009 should be of interest to you.

This was a complete surprise to me, and even to Alex! The post referred to is Top 15 Amazingly Fat Cats from 2006. Link -Thanks, Mike Ashley!

Susanna Hertrich created this prototype Chrono-Shredder as part of a student design project.

It represents the passing of time by shredding the days of the year– printed on a paper roll– at a slow constant rate.  To shred one day takes 24 hours.  There is no ‘off’-button.  As the seconds pass by, the tattered remains of the past pile up under the device.

If you’re interested in manufacturing the Chrono-Shredder, get in touch with Hertrich via her website.

Link – via ryanyeah

The month of January, named for the two-headed Roman god Janus, originally appeared towards the end of the calendar year, along with the equally dark and boing February, the last month of the year.

Then power brokers in Rome decided it would be more politically advantageous to inaugurate their new consuls in January, two months before the country typically went off to wage war in March, named for the Mars, the god of war.  The rest is history.

Link

Link | Original website [in Russian]

It’s Wednesday, the fourth day of the week. The binary number for 4 is 100. We use “heads” for 1 and “tails” for 0. So the left hand column has (top to bottom) heads-tails-tails = 100 binary = 4th day of week = Wednesday. (If you don’t already speak binary, no biggie. Start here or here and join us in a minute.)

It’s December, month 12, and 12 in binary is 1100, so the middle column is heads-heads-tails-tails.

Finally, the last column is all heads, since it’s December 31, and 31 decimal = 11111 binary.

Got that? Me neither. Link

The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service is the organization that monitors the difference in the two timescales and calls for leap seconds to be inserted or removed when necessary. Since 1972, leap seconds have been added at intervals varying from six months to seven years — the most recent was inserted on Dec. 31, 2005.

Link -via Metafilter

(image credit: Flickr user slack12)