Posted on January 1, 2007 Posted by John Scalzi 22 Comments
We’re 11 minutes into 2007, and I can already tell this is going to be the best 2007 ever! Because, honestly, what good thing ever came out of 2007 BC? Not a one, I tell you. Not. A. One.
How’s your 2007 so far?
Taunting the tauntable since 1998
John Scalzi, proprietor – JS
Athena Scalzi, editor – AMS
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First post of 2007! There, now we’ve got that out of the way.
New Year is good so far. Celebrating in Cleveland and already had the cops come visit because our fireworks were thought to be gunshots. Damn neighbors!
My 2006 is exiting nicely, with my boyfriend making risotto and rosemary potatoes for us to nibble while we watch movies. We still have a few hours to go here, so I can’t predict anything yet.
(I did spend part of the morning trying to figure out far our earth had moved from where ever it was in space last year at this time. Based on the speed of the sun, I came up with 4.25 billion miles, give or take a couple of million. Does somebody else want to apply some higher math to this and tell me?)
Happy New Years everyone!
Happy New Year! We got together with friends to ring in 2007, and I sure hope it’s a better 2007 than 2007 BCE, because that was not a fun year.
Hope everyone here has a happy new year.
K
P.S. I like the new page design. Very deco.
K
From the link noted in my name:
We will assume that the orbit of the Earth is circular (which is not exactly right, it is more like an ellipse, but for our purpose it will do just fine). So the distance traveled in one year is just the circumference of the circle. (remember that the circumference of a circle is equal to 2*pi*Radius)
The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is 149,597,890 km. Therefore in one year the Earth travels a distance of 2*Pi*(149,597,890)km.
Converting to miles, I get 584058636, or roughly 584 million.
This doesn’t quite sound right, but I’m not sure. What numbers did you use?
We had a nice, quiet New Years until the dork down the street blew off fireworks (sorry, Alex).
We’re in NJ though, so we didn’t call the cops on you I _swear_.
For some information on 2007 BC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_century_BC
Looks like those Egyptians were up to building funeral temples, and whatever else. Walking like Egyptians, I suppose.
Happy new year!
Now just a minute, Mister. In 2007 BC, they were doing some important work on taming horses. Those chariots weren’t gonna pull themselves.
Well, someone tried. Pliny the Somewhat Mentally Encumbered built a chariot expecting someone else to invent a power source for it. He called it a “Miata.” Sadly, Pliny was killed after cursing out a group of Germanic tribesmen for not inventing the Autobahn fast enough. It is the first recorded episode of someone being kicked to death by men in lederhosen, which were invented just for the occasion. Polka music soon followed, and an early dark ages fell on Northern Europe.
Yes, I’m up to late.
Happy New Year, all.
Happy New Year! :) There were fireworks going off outside for several hours, but it’s nearly 2am here now, and they’ve stopped.
So far I’ve been spending my time in front of the computer instead of out running around outside like I was told to do. I wrote a lengthy rant about email spam on my LJ (which I pasted into the URL field above this comment box, since the last time I tried to make a link it didn’t work).
Wait–I think one of you (Gordon) is referring to how many miles the earth moved within its orbit around the sun and the other of you (Pixil Fish) is referring to the distance the earth has travelled through space–as in through the galaxy as our entire solar system rotates through it. Well, and then there is the fact that the galaxy itself is moving.
Now see what I’ll be getting my head into a pretzel about for the next 42 minutes of 2006? What a party we are having here on the west coast, you see.
Where are my geeks to figure this out. GEEKS?
Happy New Year.
Whoa… Just got in. So far, my 2007 has been good, I think. Unfortunately, there’s a pretty good chance I won’t really remember it.
Aside from that, I will whine tomorrow. Yes. I will whine like a three year old with skinned knees. Bring me Gatorade and eggs, and I will love you forever.
Happy New Year to all. Hope everyone had a safe and good one.
Didn’t get a kiss at midnight, but did get a hug from a very cute redheaded waitress, so 2007 started off on pretty decent footing.
However 2006 was for y’all, I hope 2007 is even better for ya. And John, considering your Campbell Award and your Hugo nod, I guess that means you gotta work extra hard!
Happy New Year, everyone. I wish you everything you might wish for yourselves in the new year.
As for how it’s been so far? Friends, champagne, and Karaoke Revolution. Pretty damn awesome, thanks for asking, John.
Well,now that we’ve got rid of the last of the partygoers,great! It was a good party,though.Happy New Year!
But what about the other 2007s from the other calendar systems out there? The Gregorian calendar isn’t the only one out there. By the Chinese standard, it’s now 4704, which means that their 2007 was 2697 years ago. To the Kurds, it is currently 2619. The Hebrews consider it the year 5767. The Islamic calendar is only up to 1427, which means that they’ve got over a half of a millennium to their 2007. I’m not even sure what year the Aztecs would consider it if they were still around.
Just some food for thought. :)
Pixelfish, Gordon and Lisa,
Ur maykin my hed hert!
Pixelfish’s original question seemed to be “how far is she from the point she was at 1 year ago”.
Since we’ve orbited the sun completely, we are theoretically back at the spot from which we started. (Anything less than a year would be measured by a chord connecting two points along the path of the orbit.
Since we’ve returned to the original point on the orbit, the distance should be measured by connecting point A on the orbit to the spot where point A has moved to within the galaxy.
Or maybe just ask mapquest how far Pixelfish’s new office is from the old one.
My head really hurts, now.
P.S. The Whatever design changed RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF ME READING THIS THREAD. That’s not helping the head at all. Stand still, damn you.
So far, 2007 is absolutely bitchin. Lots of good coffee in the new mug my wife got me for Christmas, we’ve put the 500-mile return drive from Christmas vacation behind us, all my bank balances seem to be intact, and the children are playing a game in their jammies. Wait, I’m going to complete the whole thing . . . Ahh, yeah, now we’ve got a sweet musical double-bill going: The Bats at the National Grid, to be followed by Cesaria Evora’s Cafe Atlantico. *Now* we’re talkin’ . . .
Happy 2007, everyone! Make it excellent!
Uh, 2007 is okay so far. Not enough sleep, not enough party, not enough energy.
However, I got my health, good family, a great kid, and money in the bank.
Why I decided to move in one month, I am not sure. Oh, cuz the house we live in right now is frigging tiny.
HAppy 2007, whateverers. I’m sure mine will improve when I get some coffee, sex or some coookies.
Dude! Star Wars Geeks on the Rosebowl parade!
Midnight saw me roused from my fever ridden sickbed by the local fireworks, or it might have been the gale.
I’m now fed and watered, Torchwood starts in 20 minutes and I’m listening to Bob Harris play Joe Bonamassa. 2007 is definitely getting better.
I was thinking about how far the earth had moved total, including the distance our solar system had migrated. I figured that in relative terms, we were in almost the same spot, but that the sun had gone on in it’s normal trajectory along our local arm of the Milky Way. Technically the whole Milky Way is moving too, but that was too much for my brain to handle, so I settled for just the sun’s movement. (This site had a bunch of numbers, but I settled on the bottom one for no good reason: 486,000 mph.)
(Oh, and now that my new year has actually occured, I can say it’s shaping up nicely. We went and captured video of the fireworks on the Embarcadero of San Francisco, and then went home to finish our movie, slept soundly, and woke up to a bowl of Captain Crunch and cuddles. Sehr gut! I hope the rest of 2007 is as good as the first fourteen hours.)