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Happy Pi Day

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the inevitable-number-patterns dept.

I just wanted take a break to wish everyone a Happy Pi Day. It's 3/14, so I hope you are all enjoying your day off, and remember not to bother checking your mailbox.

11 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. Is it Twelvember yet? by mangu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    3/14 is the third day in the fourteenth month.

    Oh, I see, they are using middle-endian notation.

    1. Re:Is it Twelvember yet? by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For fuck's sake, can we all please stop insisting that a particular arbitrary way to represent dates is better? It's pretty asinine how this gets brought up so much.

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    2. Re:Is it Twelvember yet? by NevDull · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It's simple to say that it's a matter of being difficult, but for most purposes of person-to-person communication, isn't the month often more relevant than the day of month when conveying information?

      "Which year?" is solved for most purposes by assuming the current year and getting a sense of tense for correction.

      "Which month?" gives me an idea of the sense of urgency for paying attention to your story. If something's happening this month or next, or happened last month, it's likely more significant than if you start out telling me December when the current month is March.

      "Which day?" without the month ends up making one scramble for context.

      While YYYY-MM-DD makes sense for those of us who get the importance of sorting, for people, "March 14, 2011" conveys information in what I think to be descending order of importance for people, and to then transcribe it as 3/14/2011 isn't so damn evil...

    3. Re:Is it Twelvember yet? by AntmanGX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Which day?" without the month ends up making one scramble for context.

      And here's me thinking that most people, when given a day, will assume that you mean either the current month, or the next if that day has already passed. Using your logic, you're telling us that somebody saying "Fancy going to the cinema on Saturday?" would only serve to confuse people as they would then wonder what week you're talking about.

      I don't buy it.

    4. Re:Is it Twelvember yet? by gfreeman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      isn't the month often more relevant than the day of month when conveying information?

      No. Seeing as we're right in the middle of the month it's a bit redundant to refer to tomorrow as "March 15th". Tomorrow is most easily communicated as "The 15th" (day of March).

      If I were to say "The 15th ..." you'd have only 12 options, whereas "March ..." has 31 options. So I put it to you that the date is more important than the month.

      --
      Ceci n'est pas un sig.
  2. And just as important. by barfcat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd also like to wish everybody (and also remind them) a happy steak and BJ day. It's exactly one month after V-day which we all know is for the women. This holiday evens out the universe.

  3. Almost there... by nate+nice · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Only 4 more years until 3/14/15. That's the big one and I expect math departments the world over to go overboard on the candy and soda that day.

    --
    "If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer ..."
    1. Re:Almost there... by Haedrian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We could easily extend that to

      3/14/15 9:26:53 am

      And have a real big bash.

  4. Re:Actually it is 14/3 by Eevee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    According to ISO 8601, today is 2011-03-14.

  5. We should celebrate Tau day instead by ndogg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We should free ourselves of the tyranny of Pi, and celebrate Tau.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG7vhMMXagQ

    --
    // file: mice.h
    #include "frickin_lasers.h"
  6. Wrong day! by Shompol · · Score: 1, Insightful

    22/7 should be the Pi day!