- and any other notable times. Sorry, readers in the UK will have to wait until next month for this.-- hippo, Jul 08 2009 Bongggg... http://www.cccbr.or...rdings/grttomox.wavModestly suggest this for your 12:34:56 7/8/09 chiming pleasure [pocmloc, Aug 06 2009] Times news story http://timesnews.ty...for-your-diary.html"At the anointed hour, a chap on Facebook warns: "Planes will fall from the sky." Meanwhile, a poster on DavidIcke.com writes: "There must be some huge cosmic significance to this hugely significant cosmic coincidence."" [hippo, Aug 07 2009] Appropriate day for this (shameless self promo) Floating_20holiday_...the_20same_20number10:10:10 10/10/10 happens twice today [doctorremulac3, Oct 10 2010] ni-yun http://www.atlantat...ory.info/part1.htmlOT, but I owed [doctorremulac3] a cite [mouseposture, Oct 10 2010] ICAO Spelling Alphabet http://en.wikipedia...O_spelling_alphabetYou guys are all crazy, and still crazy. [blissmiss] [Boomershine, Oct 10 2010] Scrollum Wormius http://dofuswiki.wi...ki/Scrollum_WormiusI have no idea.... [Boomershine, Oct 10 2010] Written on a piece of paper. http://www.whattimeisiteccles.com/ [mouseposture, Nov 22 2011] Pi http://two-n.com/pi/Searchable Pi for [xenzag] [neutrinos_shadow, Nov 11 2012] Does pi contain all finite sequences of numbers? http://www.askamath...n-the-digits-of-pi/ [hippo, Nov 12 2012] Does pi contain 1000 consecutive zeroes? http://mathoverflow...e-zeroes-in-base-10 [hippo, Nov 12 2012] average working hours in the US http://www.bls.gov/...ease/empsit.t18.htm [Voice, Nov 10 2013] number of workers in the US http://www.bls.gov/...ease/empsit.t17.htm [Voice, Nov 10 2013] Large data centers are industrial scale operations using as much electricity as a small town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_center [Voice, Nov 10 2013] http://www.theguard...age-memory-contests [hippo, Mar 13 2015] "Official" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601How we are "supposed" to write dates & times. [neutrinos_shadow, Feb 23 2022] It's the other way round. They get it in the States today but we have to wait until next month.OK for other times too?-- nineteenthly, Jul 08 2009 Yup, I just realised I'd typed "US" when I should have typed "UK" - it's still early...-- hippo, Jul 08 2009 You could make it even more unique if you added incrementally significant location co-ordinates, and to cap it all a particular altitude above sea-level. Throwing in something to do with a weight measure, a temperature, and an angle of inclination would obviously be taking it too far.-- xenzag, Jul 08 2009 (Damn! - I'm still trying to work out what's special about 21:34 7/11/18 in ISO 8601 format...)-- hippo, Jul 08 2009 It's a 'phone number?-- nineteenthly, Jul 08 2009 Ah! - a kind of Fibonacci series, but not the usual (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34) one.-- hippo, Jul 08 2009 For a moment, I thought that's 4 5 6 1 2 3.-- jutta, Jul 08 2009 Top Gag, Jutta!-- gnomethang, Jul 08 2009 OK. Got it eventually ... force not particularly strong over here at the moment-- kindachewy, Jul 08 2009 <smacks forehead>-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 09 2009 What a difference a day makes. There should be a special chime for when one finally gets this. Or a loud *BOING* at the very least.-- blissmiss, Jul 09 2009 A reminder for those who want to set a reminder for tomorrow. Midnight tonight doesn't count. This might have been a good opportunity to test the old 'If everyone in China jumped simultaneously...'-- shudderprose, Aug 06 2009 not long to go...-- hippo, Aug 07 2009 I can barely contain myself - only 2 hours to go.-- Twizz, Aug 07 2009 What's going to happen?!
Is it going to be like New Year's? Or even more of an anticlimax?
(I'm joking, I'm going for a tequila when it strikes...)-- theleopard, Aug 07 2009 Link added - classic stuff.-- hippo, Aug 07 2009 Be sure you don't miss 09:09.09 09/09/09 tomorrow...-- hippo, Sep 08 2009 Erm... How might I miss it?-- Dub, Sep 08 2009 Blink.-- egbert, Sep 08 2009 Okay, let's take a head count. Who's missing? That will identify the baker who hijacked the Mexican Airliner. It's gotta be one of us...God only speaks to *us* through the dates on the calendar, right???-- blissmiss, Sep 10 2009 <patiently waiting for 14:13.12 11/10/09...>-- hippo, Sep 10 2009 I was in the bath but my daughter knocked on the door to tell me i'd missed it.-- nineteenthly, Sep 10 2009 Nice iphone app-- danman, Sep 11 2009 How many special dates and times are there in a year, on the whole? If there were enough, the non-special ones would become the special ones.-- nineteenthly, Sep 11 2009 ...and your specialness threshhold.-- hippo, Sep 11 2009 It also depends on the unit of time, for instance the ten millionth second in the year.By the way, it's "threshold" because in Anglosaxon it was spelt "þrescold", not "þresc hold".-- nineteenthly, Sep 11 2009 [Ian] oops, yes, and I always forget about the 'real' ellipsis character.-- hippo, Sep 11 2009 Today's ISO formatted date is palindromic: 2010-01-02-- hippo, Jan 02 2010 So the time was ten ytnewt, was it?-- nineteenthly, Jan 02 2010 We've been doing that for twenty-six years and two days now, [bigsleep].
I think we should engage in a really important project where we identify something special about every date, time and date and time combination from now on until doomsday instead of whatever trivial tasks occupy us otherwise.-- nineteenthly, Jan 02 2010 <submarine-style warning klaxon>Palindrome alert - It's 01.02.2010 today!</sswk>-- hippo, Feb 01 2010 sp: <Aroooogah!>your text here</A>-- gnomethang, Feb 01 2010 ooh, it's nearly 10:10:10 10/10/10-- hippo, Oct 10 2010 10:10.10 10/10/10 here in about 10 minutes.-- shudderprose, Oct 10 2010 Beaten to it by about 10s.
2011 is prime so in the early hours of 2nd Feb next year we'll have the first string of prime numbers since late November in 2003.-- shudderprose, Oct 10 2010 //And then all life as we know it ends// Life as we know it is always ending. Continuously.-- mouseposture, Oct 10 2010 Could sell a book to the gullible about harmonic convergence. Say it's the perfect time to rub crystals on your chakras and start auming or something. (Not sure how to spell the stupid kind of om, only the measurement of resistance ohm)-- doctorremulac3, Oct 10 2010 [doctorremulac3] You think it's a coincidence that "Ohm" and "Om" differ by only one letter? The ancient mystics understood the Oneness of All. Definitely an opportunity there, for a best-selling self-help book by an engineer type. Would talk about harmonic convergence, etc., but with diagrams of phase space and the complex plane. The readers' level of incomprehension would be the same as with all the other books but people would be sooo impressed with the (suitably watered-down) math. Go for it!-- mouseposture, Oct 10 2010 I've always known I could make a lot of money as a charlaton, but not sure how I'd sleep at night. I went to Catholic school and the only part that stuck was that morality stuff.
I'd probably blow it anyway. Some old lady would hand me her welfare check to align her shakras and I'd break down and say "Look hon, this is all bullshit. Go buy yourself some food."
Back to the topic of number sequences, I'd like to tell a riddle I made up.
What's the one number in this sequence that's different from the others? (Hint: Numerically they're all different so that's not it.)
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10?-- doctorremulac3, Oct 10 2010 8's the only one with 2 enclosures.-- FlyingToaster, Oct 10 2010 Yea, that's one.
I may need to work on the hint so it's not too annoying.
Seven is the only number with two syllables.
I should probably have the hint eliminate all the other answers like that one. Unfortunately then the hint might read like a 3 page legal disclaimer which might tend to bore.
Incidently, I haven't found anybody who likes this riddle yet. In fact it seems to piss people off.-- doctorremulac3, Oct 10 2010 1 It's the only repeated one.
edit: //it seems to piss people of/ Well, sure. It's an ill- posed question. For *each* number in the sequence, there's an infinite number of reasons why that one is the correct answer.
edit2: Telephone operators used to be taught to pronounce digits so that they were distinct from each other even over a noisy transmission line; the pronunciation for "nine" was two syllables ("ni-yen") <link>.-- mouseposture, Oct 10 2010 I thought it was "nine-ah."-- mitxela, Oct 10 2010 No kidding? I always thought that was just a comedy affectation for comedians imitating operators, usually while holding their nose to sound all nasally for some reason. You learn things from this site.
How about: "When you read this sequence of numbers, 9 of them share one thing in common. Which one doesn't? (Hint, the answer has nothing to do with math)"
The hint would be in the reading. A numeric answer wouldn't have anything to do with reading. For instance, ten is a two digit number whether you read it or not.
Maybe I'll try that one next. A physics/math major buddy of mine hates the thing and can write about why it's a sucky riddle to the 35th decimal point. But I think he was just pissed because he came up with an array of about 20 answers, all having to do with math.-- doctorremulac3, Oct 10 2010 [d3] I found a cite for you, since you did me the honor of taking me seriously <link>.
Beware of XKCD #169.-- mouseposture, Oct 10 2010 Yup, from that link: "The word please was supposed to be pronounced "pleeyazz", the number nine was to be pronounced "niyun", and the word line was "liyun".
Yea, that makes sense. I wonder how much of the reason they only hired women for these jobs was because the higher frequency of a woman's voice was easier to hear over these early comm lines?-- doctorremulac3, Oct 10 2010 I'm only 9:10 10/10 still. You guys are all crazy, and still crazy.-- blissmiss, Oct 10 2010 //You guys are all crazy, and still crazy.//
What is your point, exactly, [bliss]?
I'm surprised no one mentioned that the military and commercial aviation crowds (ICAO) pronounce many digits and letters differently than they are spelled. [link]-- Boomershine, Oct 10 2010 [doc] //I wonder how much of the reason they only hired women for these jobs was because the higher frequency of a woman's voice was easier to hear over these early comm lines?//
Probably plenty of the reason...that and women just like to talk on the phone more, of course. (JOKE!!!..you learn, eventually.)
<rant>While we are on the subject(?), has it occurred to anyone just how much actual audio quality we lost with the invention of cell/mobile phones?
Just before cell phones really took over the market (and our lives), major improvements in audio BW and signal-to-noise ratios were implemented (remember Sprint's "hear the sound of a pin dropping" ads?). We traded most of that for portability. And, for someone who mostly uses a land line (me), it was a BIG loss. About 1/4 of the calls I get drop out sometime in the conversation. About 1/4 of the conversations themselves are about the quality (or lack of it) of the audio. I usually can't remember what the rest is about.</rant>-- Boomershine, Oct 10 2010 Why were women hired as telephone operators? Engineer: because their higher-pitched voices were easier to understand [Boomershine] imitating troll: because they like to talk MBA: because they'll work for lower wages Feminist: because they'll work for lower wages
So, "because they'll work for lower wages" gets a plurality of votes. Since truth is chimerical, defined only by consensus, that is, therefore, the true reason. QED
Re sound quality, here's another half-remembered telco history fact: in the early days, Bell Telephone did a lot of what we would now call basic research in psychophysics, to work out just how narrow the bandwidth could get, while preserving intelligibility of human voices. The fidelity of analog, wirefull telephony wasn't all that good -- but the developers knew how good it needed to be, and kept it inside those specs.-- mouseposture, Oct 10 2010 [doc]//harmonic convergence//
!!! I always thought that was 'harmonica virgins'! (What the hell is a harmonic convergence, anyway? Catholic school didn't teach us THAT...just blessed virgins, not the harmonica kind. Have you recovered, btw?)-- Boomershine, Oct 10 2010 [mouse]QED, maybe, except for //Feminist: because they'll work for lower wages//
Make that "because men get higher wages." Subtle difference to some, but not to the feminist.-- Boomershine, Oct 10 2010 Yea, I noticed that. (The loss of sound quality when cellphones pretty much replaced analog phones)
Another thing that's not talked about much is how much quality was lost in the digitization of music especially when the entire signal path from instrument to listener's ear is digital.
Compared to digital, analog recording was a very inefficient method of transferring sound information which has worked to it's benefit. You have to tweak, squeeze, expand, roll off, gate and do so many other tricks to get the sound from a to b but along the way the tape, tubes, discrete electronics along the signal path would make for a very pleasant sound at the finished product.
Case in point: stand in a room with a drummer playing a set complete with cymbals. It's a painful experience that hurts your ears. Analog recording has such a hard time getting all those transient peaks that hurt the ear that you'd really have to try to get them through to the listener. With digital it's all right there in all it's painful, un-listenable glory. In fact with analog the trick is to get the signal to the listener, with digital it's more about holding back everything that doesn't sound good.
That's why you can listen to old music for much longer without getting ear fatigue. Not to mention the fact that songwriting and talented preformance are artforms that are pretty much dead. Not sure what the smart kids are doing these days but they're certainly not getting into music.
[end rant]-- doctorremulac3, Oct 10 2010 [Boomershine] Economists' simplifying assumptions are a pet peeve of mine, & I think you just neatly encapsulated one, there. I may have a use for that example.-- mouseposture, Oct 10 2010 [mouse] Not sure why they are a pet peeve to you, but I would consider "they'll work for lower wages" the simpler assumption...and the right one. Mine was the 'cover-your-ass PC' version.-- Boomershine, Oct 10 2010 [mouse]//The fidelity of analog, wirefull telephony wasn't all that good -- but the developers knew how good it needed to be, and kept it inside those specs.//
They had to make compromises with the technology/bw available.
The same thing occurred in the development of radio, and especially television, which required a huge BW for the times. Analog color TV systems were a nightmare of technology, in part because broadcast standards required them to accommodate the previous B & W system.
Where were we?-- Boomershine, Oct 10 2010 Talking about clocks making a special chime for interesting date / time combinations.-- doctorremulac3, Oct 10 2010 Spooooooooooky...-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 10 2010 British Army Infantry Doctrine: "Hold until Relieved".-- 8th of 7, Oct 10 2010 //Where were we?//
//Talking about clocks making a special chime for interesting date / time combinations.//
Really? Where the heck do you see that? I can't scroll up past the harmonica virgins stuff. I run out of scrollum.-- Boomershine, Oct 10 2010 You can get tablets for that, now.-- 8th of 7, Oct 10 2010 It got embareassing.-- pocmloc, Oct 10 2010 //You can get tablets for that, now.//
Really? Some kind of pills? Where do I get them?
...<searching> [link] "Scrollum Wormius"?-- Boomershine, Oct 10 2010 You can get them from loads of places. They're no good bcause they don't work; but you can get them non the less. Like Ginseng, or Royal Jelly, or Ginko Biloba ...-- 8th of 7, Oct 10 2010 Ginseng, Royal Jelly, or Ginko Biloba all work great. Just not for the person buying it.-- doctorremulac3, Oct 10 2010 This got gross. Now it's almost 10:10 10/10 agin...go figure.-- blissmiss, Oct 11 2010 "4" 'cuz it's the only one where the number of letters in the word equals the number: ... f o u r .-- FlyingToaster, Oct 11 2010 heh-- blissmiss, Oct 11 2010 It'll be ten past eight here later tonight.-- shudderprose, Oct 20 2010 As I was sending txt messages to my friends at 20:10, 20/10/2010 last night, I realised I should have done it earlier in the day, at10:20:10, 20/10/2010; although getting that level of prescision from the phone company probably wouldn't have worked...-- neutrinos_shadow, Oct 20 2010 15:14:13, 12/11/10
tomorrow afternoon!
Set your special chimes!-- pocmloc, Nov 11 2010 Hey, it's 11/02/2011! Later, it will be 20:11, 11/02/2011. (Yes, I'm a geek...) I'll see you all again at 11:11:11, 11/11/11. (And maybe at 20:11, 20/11/2011.) It all depends on which date format you choose - I prefer dd/mm/yyyy (always 8 digits).-- neutrinos_shadow, Feb 10 2011 "1", because it's //the one number//.-- spidermother, Feb 11 2011 Argh! I missed 6:07:08 9/10/11 yesterday!-- hippo, Oct 10 2011 Well pay attention tomorrow at 11:10:11, 11/10/11-- pocmloc, Oct 10 2011 I'm a bit slow... 20:11, 20/11/2011 was yesterday (for me, here at the beginning of the earth...). Some of the rest of you can still catch it.-- neutrinos_shadow, Nov 20 2011 I've got the time written on this piece of paper /eccles-- BunsenHoneydew, Nov 21 2011 Class quotation Mr Honeydew!-- gnomethang, Nov 23 2011 I missed 16:15:14 13/12/11 yesterday. Really, this needs to be a phone app, with different chimes for sequences of numbers, repeated numbers, palindromes etc. Then, this concept could be expanded with additional special chimes for lunar eclipses, Earth-Sun-Moon syzygy, etc.-- hippo, Dec 14 2011 This has evolved into a collection of special times missed by [hippo].
It's an arbitrary designation but if it was a free app I'd probably install it.-- tatterdemalion, Dec 14 2011 Happy palindrome!-- DrBob, Feb 21 2012 I'm waiting for later this evening: 21:02:20.12 21/02/2012-- hippo, Feb 21 2012 //this needs to be a phone app// I like that idea, you should be able to create some relatively simple regex string that you could apply to date/time strings set to various locale defaults, that would output a positive when matched with some numerically auspicious values.-- zen_tom, Feb 21 2012 07:08:09 10/11/12 this morning...-- hippo, Nov 10 2012 just think... somewhere within the infinite sequence of the digits of pi are the exact time, day, and year of any permutation that anyone can outline. True, false or unprovable? (where's that damned Gödel when I need him?)-- xenzag, Nov 10 2012 [xenzag] good question. I don't know the answer, but have added some links.-- hippo, Nov 12 2012 I will be at the roulette wheel on my birthday. 12/12/12, at 12:12:12, I place a $12 bet on number 12. Wish me luck.
I like the idea of an app for palindromic/series dates.-- Klaatu, Nov 15 2012 Aaand, it's just gone 12:12, 12/12/12 here at the start of the world. It's the last time for a long time a date/time line-up like this can happen.-- neutrinos_shadow, Dec 11 2012 Only 5 hours to go here! (I'm temporarily in Canada)-- hippo, Dec 12 2012 Only just over 88 years, [neutrinos_shadow] (01:01 01/01/01). Some ’baker who is here today may live to see it. Do you think they will post on this thread when they do?-- pocmloc, Dec 12 2012 So, yes, today is my birthday. The plan was to head out to Spirit Mountain Casino and place a $12 bet on number 12 at the roulette table at 12:12.
I bought $15 in chips and placed my $12 bet at 12:11 (thinking the spin would end at 12:12. It didn't and I lost.
Well, the "spinner lady" (no idea what the correct term is) said, "I can get another spin in by 12:12."
So, another $12 and the $3 let over from the first spin.
She says, "Number 12!"
I figure she's pulling my leg. She isn't! I walk out with over $500 more than I came in with...even with a hefty tip!
What ARE the odds?!?!?-- Klaatu, Dec 13 2012 Dead cert I would say!-- pocmloc, Dec 13 2012 //What ARE the odds?!?!?// - 37 to 1?-- hippo, Dec 13 2012 Does that mean that this is actually the first money-making halfbakery idea ever?-- DrBob, Dec 13 2012 There's still the twenty-four hour clock and the colonisation of Mars. It's a good enough reason to get there in the next dozen years.-- nineteenthly, Dec 13 2012 <waits patiently for 08:09:10 11/12/13 - only a year to go...>-- hippo, Dec 13 2012 It was on the news this morning (BBC R4 "Today") - today (9/11/13) is the last time for nearly a century that the date consists of three consecutive odd numbers. The next time this will happen is 1st March 2105.-- hippo, Nov 09 2013 and then 11/12/13 14:15:16//nanoseconds since the big bang//Assuming every nanosecond is a pixel Acording to Wikipedia the big bang happened 13.798 ± 0.037 billion years ago. Multiplying that by the number of nanoseconds in an average year we get 4.3542211e+26 That's435,433,110,000, 000,000,000,000,000 or 435 zettabits without compression. Larger modern data centers are about are an exabyte in size so it would take 54,000 of them to store the picture. They would be the size of the built-up part of Los Angeles and use as much power as California, and all of its rivers or half of its coast line for cooling (presuming you don't want to boil off any rivers)If you take a minute to fully appreciate a high definition picture (about ten megabytes) this one would take 6,122,080,700,000,000 minutes, or 11,640,100,000 years. quod GoogleThere are about 136 million non-farm workers in the US, each working 35 hours in an average week. If they all worked together and if they could appreciate the picture at a rate of one minute per ten megabytes of it they could appreciate it fully in only 17000 years. Of course technology will let us create a machine that can process it in real time the size and power requirements of a single modern data center in only about fifty years if Moore's Law holds (just keep dividing the work by 2 every year and a half to two years until it fits)edit: fixed bytes to bits and redid the mathedit: fixed more mathedit: fixed even more mathedit: I just realized you meant a clock to display the number of nanoseconds, and using its digits as pixels. It won't be enough to arrange into anything pretty.-- Voice, Nov 10 2013 And it's just gone 09:10, 11/12/13 here. Happy Sequence Day, everybody! (Any excuse for a Happy ___ Day.)-- neutrinos_shadow, Dec 10 2013 08:09:10 11/12/13 coming soon
followed by 11:12:13 11/12/13
then 13:12:11 11/12/13
I won't know what to do with myself.-- DenholmRicshaw, Dec 10 2013 What an exciting day!-- hippo, Dec 11 2013 ALERT! Tomorrow morning, it will be 3/14/15, 9.26:53am, describing Pi to 9 decimal places (see link)-- hippo, Mar 13 2015 Mmm, pie!-- pocmloc, Mar 13 2015 //Tomorrow morning, it will be 3/14/15, 9.26:53am// Not in the UK it won't! It will be 14/3/15 etc. <looks at clock> Ah! Not in the UK it wasn't! It was 14/3/15 etc.-- DrBob, Mar 14 2015 We could always revert to the Hebrew calendar. In three years it'll be 78.
And then there's the Amharic calendar which is several years behind.-- pashute, Mar 15 2015 In the Welsh calendar there's still time to celebrate 12:34.56 7/8/9-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 15 2015 Thanks to [voice] for reminding us that today is 2/2/22
Actually I was going to wait for 02:20 22/02/2022 and then two minutes later another chime at 2:22:22 22/2/22-- pocmloc, Feb 02 2022 And later, 22:22:22 22/2/22-- pocmloc, Feb 22 2022 If you use the "official" year-month-date style, it happened on Sunday evening: 2022-02-20 22:02:20, but that's just being pedantic...-- neutrinos_shadow, Feb 22 2022 Official?-- pocmloc, Feb 22 2022 Has anyone predicted the apocalypse yet? If not I'm calling dibs. It starts at 22:22:22 in your time zone. Don't be late!-- Voice, Feb 23 2022 [pocmloc]; see linky for ISO8601.-- neutrinos_shadow, Feb 23 2022 Thank you [ns]. Almost 12 years of EVERYONE DOING IT COMPLETELY WRONG HOW EMBAREARSEING-- pocmloc, Feb 23 2022 It'll soon be 22:11:22 22/11/22-- pocmloc, Nov 22 2022 Did anyone else miss 00:04:08 12/16/2024 or was it just me? To be fair that is US format and I work the other way around.
However I am looking forward to lunchtime on Christmas Eve, set your chimes for 12:24:12 24/12/24-- pocmloc, Dec 19 2024 35 years ago some people probably celebrated 01:23:45 6/7/89. I don't remember doing so but might have been too drunk to remember.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 20 2024 random, halfbakery