This is a clever idea, but could you provide more information? I see how it would make sense intuitively, but is there any evidence suggesting that doing any work, regardless of what it is, for a certain amount of time can improve performance/focus on a very specific task?
If I ‘work’ for forty hours next week on reading LW, it will have a direct improvement on other areas, say on how much school work I would be comfortable doing?
I disagree. Certain landmarks will seem more important than others, such as intelligence ‘tests’, like the day a machine unequivocally passes a Turing test. In hindsight, we should be able to further isolate and identify those important landmarks that led to, or directly caused, the singularity.
Furthermore, historians being historians, I am quite convinced a date WILL be included in the history books, regardless of merit.