10/10/10 — a Nice Day To Celebrate the Meaning of Life 296
Posted
by
timothy
from the luckily-it's-not-a-thursday dept.
from the luckily-it's-not-a-thursday dept.
st2000 writes "My wife noted that tomorrow's date is 10/10/10. This was probably some time after Illinois whomped Penn State's butt. I pondered that for a moment, noting that 101010 was a valid binary number. Then it dawned on me that 101010base2 was 42base10. Verifying that this truly was the answer given after typing 'meaning of life' into Wolfram's web site, I thought I was onto something." You may say he's a dreamer, but he's not the only one.
In hex it's 2A (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Just thought I would point out... (Score:5, Interesting)
Richard Feynman on the meaning of life (Score:5, Interesting)
I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything, and in many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about a little, but if I can't figure it out, then I go to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me.
Re:Just thought I would point out... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not 10/10/10, it's 10/10/2010 which is not so terribly remarkable.
Killjoy! Do you walk into every party and bring people down???
12/12/1212 and all significant repedative dates have already passed centuries before you were born and as there are only 12 month's there's nothing with complete repetition..
Unless the calendar changes in some sort of civilization raising event, you've only got 10/10/2010 at 10:10:10, 11/11/2011 at 11:11:11, 12/12/2012 at 12:12:12 (both local and GMT) to go take some pics and tell your grandkids about.
It's just geeky cool and significant as a talking point for your kids and grandkids when they grow up. The calendar itself has arbitrary aspects, so why not have fun with it and why ridicule others for having some fun with it?
Re:It's (Score:1, Interesting)
>The Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything
Mousy answer. It's what you get if you multiply six by nine.
Re:Just thought I would point out... (Score:1, Interesting)
Do you think there was a Y1k panic?
Re:Just thought I would point out... (Score:3, Interesting)
What happened then? [wikipedia.org]
Re:Just thought I would point out... (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes. [bu.edu]
No (Score:2, Interesting)
Most countries use the sensible, human readable and most important information first format of DAY-MONTH-YEAR. This is sensible, which is why Americans have nothing to do with it.
YEAR-MONTH-DAY is easier for machines to sort. But forces the human mind to read the least important information first, after all, if I make an appointment with my doctor for 2010-10-11, the year and even the month are given. I want to know the DAY.
MONTH-DAY-YEAR is just silly. No sensible country or civilization uses it. So no sense in wasting time discussing why it is so silly, everyone with a brain knows why this is so.
Cue flamebait moderation from a silly part of the world :)
Note that such moderation handily points out WHY we can't just switch to a global standard that would avoid a hell of lot of confusion.