The Next Three Days are the x86 Days

Pinky wrote in to note that "Today, tomorrow and the next day are the only days we'll get dates like this: 2/8/6 3/8/6 4/8/6 like the x86 computers :-)" And yes folks, in the August news cycle vortex, even this strikes my fancy. In recent years we've seen numerical giants like 3/1/4, 6/6/6 and 1/2/3, but now really, what do any of us have to look forward to? Is our future dull and meaningless without cool numbers in dates? Oh the humanity of it all ...

Comments

what about the lucky sevens?

[metasecure]

In Canada, where m/d/y is more common we already experienced this on February 8, March 8 and April 8, respectively.

Life is good living three steps ahead of the taco.

Personally I look forward to the lucky 7's, 7/7/7, a day where CmdrTaco and I can celebrate our slot machine winnings together.

Re:what about the lucky sevens?

[yfkar]

Dd/mm/yy seems to be far more common than mm/dd/yy.

Here's a list of used date formats in various countries. Looks like Canada has them all. ;)

m/d/y (month, day, year) is used by:

* Canada (Although most official documents use the y-m-d format, the m/d/y format is also understood due to influences from the United States.)
* Federated States of Micronesia
* Palau
* Philippines (formerly d/m/y. May still be found in certain contexts)
* United States (Although Independence Day is often referred to as "the Fourth of July.")

Re:what about the lucky sevens?

[carnifex0]

Maybe we should all use the "Official" ISO date format - YYYY-MM-DD and avoid confusion. I have a system that I administer that uses the ISO dates, and every single one of my users hates it.

Re:what about the lucky sevens?

[amliebsch]

That's what the military and most "with it" government organization use. I've also adopted myself because (a) it is completely unambiguous and (b) I'm an asshole.

Re:what about the lucky sevens?

[1u3hr]

Just curious...how many places do it d/m/y vs. m/d/y. I'd never seen the d/m/y thing till a couple of years ago....

Basically, everywhere except the USA. You don't get out much do you?

If you do plan on travelling, also note that in the rest of the world we use degrees Celsius for temperature -- 30 degrees is hot, not cold, so pack appropriately. But most surprising of all, not everyone in the world speaks English!

Re:what about the lucky sevens?

[sholden]

Every place that speaks English does too, except the USA (and a handful of Pacific nations who caught it from the US).

Re:what about the lucky sevens?

[Tower]

>I am a native English speaker and have said "It's the 2nd of August, 2006" all my life.

Well, then... congratulations - For the first time in your life, you are correct!

Re:what about the lucky sevens?

[ReplicantSD1]

All my life, in my surroundings, if someone asked you the date something was going to happen, you'd say "August 22nd"

Wow, what a boring place. What did you guys do for the other 364 days?

It's funny. Laugh.

[linvir]

Behold:

It's funny. Laugh.

Stay your flamethrower, thou saucy fellow. Nay, let us instead rejoice in the most accurate story in the history of this fine website.

Saturday

[The G]

Instead of getting dates of their own, Saturday and subsequent days will be known as "Pentium", "Pentium II", "Pentium IV", "Pentium 5", "Pentium 6", and of course "Xeon".

Re:Saturday

[ToxikFetus]

Of course, Itanium already had its day on April 14, 1912.

A slight oversight it would seem

[A Dafa Disciple]

"today, tomorrow and the next day are the only days we'll get dates like this: 2/8/6 3/8/6 4/8/6"

Ummm... you mean this century right?

I'm still surprised this made the front page. I mean, I'm a geek, but even I think this is lame.

Re:ISO 8601 Please!

[Timesprout]

Whats ISO 8601? Here in Europe we use ISO 0186 for date formats.

What about yesterday?

[bcat24]

The 80186 was also an Intel processor, wasn't it?

The Best Day Already Was...

[Snowcap557]

I still remember 12:34 pm on May 6, 1978 as the best such thing of all time. It was 1234 on 5/6/78!

Re:SORRY!

[Spad]

Sorry, but here in Europe, where the current calendar system was invented, we put the day first, so today is 2/8/6!

What about the 586?

[eno2001]

The i586 DOES exist. Same as the i686. I don't care what Intel marketing pushed down people's throats, I still call them 586 and 686 systems. So does the Linux kernel...

d/m/y?

[Digital Vomit]

"today, tomorrow and the next day are the only days we'll get dates like this: 2/8/6 3/8/6 4/8/6 like the x86 computers :-)"

Has Y2K taught you nothing? Using a single digit to store the year? You are among programmers! Hang your head in shame!

Donald Becker quote

[DragonHawk]

In a discussion involving both 3Com's 3C509 and 3C905 network cards, Donald Becker came up with this gem:

"3Com only purchased rights to the numbers '3' '5' and '9'. Intel
owns '4', '8', '6', and '2'. '0' and '1' are still in the public
domain."

ISO date vs DoD date

[DragonHawk]

"That's what the military and most "with it" government organization use. I've also adopted myself because (a) it is completely unambiguous and (b) I'm an asshole."

You don't say whose military or government. The US DoD, at least, is large enough that there are multiple "standards". I've seen MM/DD/YY (08/02/06) and YYYY-MMM-DD (2006-AUG-02) most often, I think. The ISO date form is YYYY-MM-DD (2006-08-02) or YYYYMMDD (20060802).

Personally, I find the mixed number/letter forms like "2006 AUG 2" and "2 Aug 2006" work best when dealing with other humans who speak the same language. It's unambiguous -- there's only one sane way to interpret it -- and the letter/number distinction stands out more than dashes. For computers and other kinds of filing, though, the ISO form definately wins. It makes sorting so much easier.

I'm a Mac user...

[Blakey Rat]

I'm a Mac user, how long do I have to wait for 6/80/40?

What about time for pi ?

[Asprin]

3/14/15 9:26:53

Mmmmmm.... pi...

See, there's still stuff to look forward to!

Long live the UNIX timestamp

[toofast]

Today is 1154536012. None of this mm/dd/yy bullcrap.