Warsh, war and AI wariness
July is over and August is here. July was named for Julius Ceasar not long after his assassination in 44 BCE. August was named after Augustus (Octavian), Caesar’s successor and the first emperor of Rome, in 8 BCE. Legend has it that Augustus added an extra day to August so that “his” month would be the same length as his predecessors’, but that is just a story. Among Julius Caesar’s many accomplishments was the introduction of the Julian calendar. Although it was amended by Pope Gregory in 1558 to change the way leap years are calculated (the Gregorian calendar omits three leap years every 400 years, the last time was 1900 and the next time will be 2100), it is remarkable that someone who lived 2 000 years ago would broadly recognise the way we think and measure time today in terms of days, weeks, months and years.