Happy Leap Day!

This year we got an extra day because a solar year lasts 365 days and 6 hours. Every four years, these extra hours add up to another day, a day we have decided to insert into our calendar at the end of February. (Developed in ancient Rome by Julius Caesar and therefore named after him.)

Without the leap year correction, every four years the calendar year falls behind the seasons by one day. After 754 years, the seasons would be 180 degrees out of phase with the calendar. The first day of autumn in the northern hemisphere would be March 21st instead of September 21st. After 1508 years, the calendar would go all the way around the seasons and would once again be synchronized with the sun.

Now things are back in order, or are they?

Not quite. Even 365.25 days is not the exact duration of a solar year - it's a fraction shorter.




The Gregorian calendar, named after calendar reformer Pope Gregory XIII, solves this problem by leaving out three Julian leap-days every 400 years. Algorithmically, if the year is divisible by 100, avoid the leap-day UNLESS the year is divisible by 400.

Are we done yet? Not quite! There is still some drift.

The modern calendar does one final tweak on this: if the year is divisible by 4000, leave out the leap-day despite the Gregorian recommendation above.

And to account for variation beyond this, we insert leap seconds. However, I won't really concern myself with this in my lifetime.



Rather, I will go out and enjoy the beginning of spring (in the northern hemisphere...)

Ron Paul about the Phony Reserve

Ron Paul about the Federal resereve Bank (which, by the way, is a private enterprise and just as federal as FEDEX, the parcel delivery service is) :

"If you didn't have an accommodative Federal Reserve, Congress' deficits would cause very high interest rates. Because we run up the deficits, and if we couldn't borrow money and the Fed wasn't there, interest rates would respond by going up until we could find the money we need. The Fed spoils Congress into getting away with deficit spending. But in the long run, it's devastating because that destroys the value of the currency, and that destroys the middle class, destroys investment, creates malinvestment and bubbles."

Inflation will kill your savings!

When Bernanke panicked and lowered interest rates in response to the whining crowd of stock market investors, credit became cheaper: a lot cheaper, in fact, the interest rate in the USA dropped from 4.25% to 3% within a few days. This is a savings of 29,4% to the “grasshoppers” who borrow money freely and a minus of 29,4% to the “ants” who toil all summer long to save for the winter.
People who saved got punished, while those who got in over their heads are being rewarded.
And the punishment will be extended to the very limits of society as inflation will make life more expensive for everyone.
Buy Gold.

Speeding in Japan can be expensive

I was caught speeding at 170 km/h en route to Hakuba. It was getting late and we had fun in the car and just as Cyd pointed out that I was going too fast and I started to slow down, I saw the flashing red lights in the rear view mirror.

They pulled me over at the nearest highway exit / toll station that allowed for parking. I had to join the two policemen in their unmarked patrol car. The radar screen on their dashboard showed: 112 km/h.

3 points off my license and a 25,000 Yen fine (ca 250 USD)

The speed limit in Japan is 80 km/h.

Had they not cheated on the radar, my license would have been revoked and the fine would have been 10 fold. At first, I tried bargaining for a "chuui" which is a warning without a fine, but when I realized that they were already more than generous, I just agreed to the fine and put my signature and fingerprint under the ticket.