Editing 1340: Unique Date
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | + | Many people make a big deal about dates when the digits follow an interesting pattern, such as 2000-01-01 or 2012-12-12. They might plan special events on these "unique" days. For instance, 2007-07-07 was considered a "lucky" day and had a record number of weddings. | |
− | + | Cueball points out that every date is equally unique, even when the digits aren't in a pattern. The {{W|Gregorian calendar}} is the current way to count time in years, months and days — a unique way to describe this is defined in the {{W|ISO 8601}} standard. Since time moves only forward, dates will never repeat. Nevertheless, [[:Category:My Hobby|his hobby]] of stating this fact every day would be incredibly annoying to his listeners. | |
− | + | The title text refers to the {{W|Long Now Foundation}}, who uses [http://blog.longnow.org/02013/12/31/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-and-10k-compliance-at-home/ five-digit years] (e.g. this comic's date would be written "02014-03-10"). This is an effort to encourage people to think in terms of long-term benefits, rather than only the coming years or decades. The {{w|Y2K problem}} was due to using only two digits to store the year, which would have made dates ambiguous when it rolled from 99 back to 00. Similarly, the {{w|Maya calendar}} had a repeating cycle of 52 years, and even their "long count" rolled over after 7885 years. As we currently use four-digit years this may cause a {{w|Year 10,000 problem|Y10K problem}}. | |
− | + | The Long Now Foundation designs a [http://longnow.org/clock/ 10,000-year clock] that should be able to run for this long — and in principle it could display every date up to 99999-12-31. Randall remarks that by coming close to the year 10,000, our civilization probably will follow this recommendation, unless our civilization is already extinct. | |
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− | The Long Now Foundation designs a [http://longnow.org/clock/ 10,000-year clock] that should be able to run for this long — and in principle | ||
A previous comic on date formats was [[1179: ISO 8601]]. Randall addresses date formatting confusion again in the title text of [[1467: Email]]. | A previous comic on date formats was [[1179: ISO 8601]]. Randall addresses date formatting confusion again in the title text of [[1467: Email]]. | ||
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
− | :[Cueball speaking to Megan and another | + | :[Cueball speaking to Megan and another person.] |
− | :Cueball: Whoa, it's 2014-03-10! | + | :Cueball: Whoa, it's 2014-03-10! Under our system, this day will ''NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!!'' |
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:My Hobby: Pointing this out every day. | :My Hobby: Pointing this out every day. | ||
{{comic discussion}} | {{comic discussion}} | ||
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[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] | [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] | ||
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]] | [[Category:Comics featuring Megan]] | ||
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[[Category:My Hobby]] | [[Category:My Hobby]] | ||
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