...I've been trying to figure it out and have finally given up. It certainly looks interesting, but how does it work?

Sorry to waste your time :( (The blurry photo certainly doesn't help, plus since taking this pic i've labelled the months, which does make things a little clearer.)

It's a timeline of 384 days, laid out on a wiggly curve: the colours indicate months, and every Saturday is numbered with its date.

The idea was that it might be easier to remember dates if there were some 2D structure to them, rather than just a monotonous grid of numbers?

Meh, just an idea. You have to agree though, it is at least pretty :)

Oh, don't worry; it wasn't much time, and the reference materials, even though I didn't understand much of them (physics/engineering student, not CS), were quite interesting.

Hm, why 384 days? That might explain why I'm counting 14 of the things I believe to be months.

That makes sense. Instead of just having a number to remember, you've got a number and a physical structure. In addition to adding redundancy, those are, as I understand it (though, again, physics/engineering, not neurobiology), two different types of memory, and this might be quite helpful to someone better at remembering physical structures than numbers.

Oh, yes.

Haha, yes! The redundancy / different types of memory thing was exactly what i had in mind when i came up with this design :) Have yet to see if it actually works, however; requiring folks to learn the 2D 'shape' of a year is a BIG initial cost, but hopefully making temporal stuff easier to think about would be a worthwhile payoff...

384 = 8x8x6, which makes for a convenient layout and is happily a little longer than a year (so like, in the example shown i can have both a bit of this last year's December and of January-after-next showing at once).

I'm not sure what the bit of last year's December is useful for (Hm, actually, unless it's for people who want to get next year's calendar early!), but having some of next January could certainly be convenient. Just so long as one actually remembers to mark both calendars.

Meh, just set the layout epoch to the 21st of December cos of the Mayan calendar rollover thing (id est: i thought it was funny).

Anyway, Feliz Navidad dude! Best of luck in the new year / b'ak'tun :)

:)

The same to you!