It's yesterday's stardate (trekkie nerd stuff) as of his post.
I never knew how the "stardate" was derived, but basically it goes from January 1st 2323 and either counts forwards or backwards (hence his negative number to get to today). There are 1000 stardates in our standard year.
So, throw out one perfectly good calendar that western civilization uses, replace it with one that "sounds" like it is a multispecies/multicultural one that isn't focused on the origin date of any particular religious faith, but still keep it Earth-centric since it is based on a standard Earth year. Hide the hubris.
There's got to be some effective constant measurable decay or radiation pulse out in the galaxy that would make a better calendar.
