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National Debt Clock Overflowed, Extended By a Digit
hackingbear writes "The National Debt Counter, erected in 1989 when the US debt was 'merely' a tiny $2.7 trillion, has been moving so much that it recently ran out of digits to display the ballooning figure: $10,150,603,734,720, or roughly $10.2 trillion, as of Saturday afternoon. To accommodate the extra '1,' the clock was hacked: the '1' from "$10.2" has been moved left to the LCD square once occupied solely by the digital dollar sign. A non-digital, improvised dollar sign has been pasted next to the '1.' It will be replaced in 2009 with a new clock able to track debt up to a quadrillion dollars, which is a '1' followed by 15 zeros. That should be good enough for a few more months at least, I believe." Adds reader MarkusQ, "I know Dick Cheney has assured us that 'Deficits don't matter' but I can't help wondering if we should be fixing the problem rather than the sign."
Deficits don't matter. All that matters is that your dogs are bigger and meaner than the debt collectors'.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
The largest bit became a one? It overflowed?
So now it's negative?
We're rich! So that's how we were going to pay for the bail-out, SS, medicare, medicaid...
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Why don't they just make it an analog clock? The hands could simply spin around faster and faster as the situation worsens, which would be much more amusing. The numbers are fairly meaningless anyway.
Adds reader MarkusQ, "I know Dick Cheney has assured us that 'Deficits don't matter' [CC] but I can't help wondering if we should be fixing the problem rather than the sign."
Why does this guy hate America so much?
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Now is the perfect time to convert to the decimal system!
National debt goes from $10.2 trillion to only $10.2 billion (10^6) without paying a single cent of it!
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
OMG the dollar sign is static... it's the end of the world!!!!
You're right. After the upcoming total economic collapse, we'll need the clock to be able to display the debt in terms of Chinese yuan or Euros. The current design does not allow for that.
Just convert to hex
Better yet, convert to base 36, so we can use the entire alphabet. Every once in a while, the value displayed would spell out something interesting like HOLYSHITWEAREFUCKED.
Sort of a Moore's Law for debt, eh?
Every 2 terms of republican presidency, the national debt increases by a factor of 10. :D
Incidentally, anyone know what 1989's $2.7 Trillion is in today's dollars?
And when that (inevitably) threatens to overflow, do it in scientific notation. The Neocons and their supports won't understand it, and hopefully leave economic policy to people who don't think you can fix the economy by praying in public for lower gasoline prices.
HOLYSHITWEAREFUCKED = $182,396,328,105,409,846,882,664,606,244.00
You certainly would be.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Better dead than red!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."