Talk:1340: Unique Date

2014-03-12T12:47:03Z

173.245.53.110:

My first thought was that he makes fun of people that consider dates like the 12.12.12 as important. As any other date they occur only once and are thus not more special. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.66|108.162.254.66]] 04:37, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

:Good point, I have added something about that. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 04:49, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Possibly related to the upcoming Pi Day. Also, next year's Pi Day will be 03-14-(20)15, which a few images going around on the Internet have made an annoyingly big deal about. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.64|108.162.237.64]] 06:24, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

So - Maybe I suck at searching (I do), but I can't find any information about us being limited to 4 digits in our calendar system...?[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.107|173.245.53.107]] 08:38, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

:Most of the computer software that handles dates would have problems with more (or less) than four digits. Why bother with variable year length when you can just take the first four characters of "2014-03-10" and it works for the next 8 thousand years? [[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.103|103.22.200.103]] 09:42, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
:Also, most digital displays are limited to four digits for the year. [[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.103|103.22.200.103]] 09:43, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

::And I don't think we actually start address that sooner that in September 9999. It will be Y2K over again! .... not sure where will people of 9999 get {{w|Fortran}} and {{w|Cobol}} programmers, though. Maybe we should freeze some before we run out of them. :-) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:20, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

:::Check [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_billennium#In_literature this] out.--[[User:Rael|Rael]] ([[User talk:Rael|talk]]) 21:38, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

:I'm with you. I suppose there may be places where leading zeros are used (somewhere in software where memory space has been set aside, I suppose) but I can't think of '''any''' common system where one has to use five digits when using a four digit number.
:When we get to December 31, 9999 (assuming he Gregorian calendar is still in use (BIG assumption)) the next day will simply be January 1, 10000 because, as you said, the Gregorian calendar isn't limited to four-digit years. And, as I say, anyone who think there is some problem with writing years as four digit numbers is simply demonstrating that they are not someone to take seriously. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.84|199.27.128.84]] 16:32, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

After visiting the website for the "Long Now Foundation", I find I'm left wondering - why, oh why, would they stop at using a five digit year? why not six? eight? ten? sixteen? thirty-two? [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 12:06, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the point in the comic title is that writing years always with 5 digits is as significant as the zero to the left it will take to do so for most of the next 8000 years. [[User:FlavianusEP|FlavianusEP]] ([[User talk:FlavianusEP|talk]]) 12:25, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

My first thought was that the comic was about date formats and yyyy-mm-dd being better than yy-mm-dd or dd.mm.yy. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.138|173.245.53.138]] 12:40, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

;Dynamic?

Wanna bet that this comic always shows the current date?--[[User:Henke37|Henke37]] ([[User talk:Henke37|talk]]) 10:23, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

:Haha, that's a great observation! I wish it were so, I'll check again tomorrow. If it's not, someone email Mr. Munroe to make it so, great idea. {{unsigned|Adityarajbhatt}}

:It's 00:07 (11th of March) right now in China where I am currently located and it still shows 10th of March...just for the record [[Special:Contributions/108.162.225.191|108.162.225.191]] 16:13, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

It's funny that Randall seems to have never heard of [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2550 RFC 2550], which goes than the Long Now Foundation in expanding the representable date range. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.161|173.245.53.161]] 15:05, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

:Technically, there will be another 2014-03-10; on October 3rd. - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.65|108.162.219.65]] 16:01, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
::It would actually be 2014-10-03 "under our system" as stated in the comic. Technically. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.64|108.162.237.64]] 17:14, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
::It's like me saying that there will be another 2014-03-10 on March 14th. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.63|173.245.50.63]] 19:45, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if this is also somehow related to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesting_number_paradox Interesting number paradox]. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.29|199.27.128.29]] 18:48, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

The problem of the date rolling back is partially mitigated by storing the year as an integer instead of as characters, such as how certain Spreadsheet programs, such as OpenOffice Calc, stores years as a 16-bit signed integer. This doesn't solve the issue, only pushing it back to be the year 32768 problem. This is even less of an issue for 64 bit Unix time, which expire on 15:30:08 UTC on Sun, 4 December 292,277,026,596. It's also important to note that the dates, such as 99, or 00 should not be seen as digits, they should be seen as characters (unless, of course, they are BCD digits, which entirely defeats the purpose of shortening the date to 2 characters length). This might seem trivial, but I think it's an important difference.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.41|108.162.216.41]] 02:46, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
: 3rd of October won't happen for another seven months. {{unsigned ip|173.245.53.125}}

Talk:1283: Headlines

2013-10-30T14:26:44Z

173.245.53.110: Is 1929 sensationalist?

"1912 is, of course, the year of the the sinking of the RMS Titanic."
I don't think this is such a given fact that people know when the Titanic sank. I'm removing the "of course". And someone should add an explanation for how these titles are supposed to get more clicks, and what "getting more clicks" even means or worth.
I'd do it myself, but I'm on my phone... on second thought, let me boot my laptop... [[Special:Contributions/95.35.58.162|95.35.58.162]] 06:31, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
: Okay, I added a short explanation for now. Someone should fix it, add mentions to NSFW photo articles and list articles (5 easy ways to add 10 years to your life expectancy!). I'm out. [[Special:Contributions/95.35.58.162|95.35.58.162]] 07:10, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Don’t you think the 1916 headline is a reference to the fatness of someone’s mom? [[User:Quoti|Quoti]] ([[User talk:Quoti|talk]]) 07:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
: fat mom (married to physicist dad?) and gravity: [[89|Gravitational Mass]]. Perhaps he found pictures of her down in the gravity well? What do you think? [[Special:Contributions/195.37.42.200|195.37.42.200]] 16:20, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Surely "1916 :'PHYSICIST DAD' TURNS HIS ATTENTION TO GRAVITY" is a second reference to Einstein?[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity:_The_Special_and_the_General_Theory]
[[User:Wwoods|Wwoods]] ([[User talk:Wwoods|talk]]) 07:47, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

"1986 - This video of a terminally ill child watching the Challenger launch will break your heart" - Probably has something to do with the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown as well? {{unsigned ip|212.123.0.8}}
:I don't think so. The child is probably American. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 12:38, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

"Jan 1st 1990: 500 signs you're a 90s kid" - Can somebody explain this one? This is the only one I, and so far explainxkcd, cannot link to a specific historical event. Or is this supposed to be an example of an attention grabbing headline on a day nothing happened?--[[Special:Contributions/108.17.2.71|108.17.2.71]] 13:05, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
: I think it is making fun of sensational news - making news out of nothing. Here, on the very first day of the 90's, the newspapers already have 500 signs that you are a 90's kid. But nothing has actually happened so far. [[User:Sayno2quat|Sayno2quat]] ([[User talk:Sayno2quat|talk]]) 13:16, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I changed the line about the 1929 crash being "the largest stock market crash in history" to "the most devastating stock market crash", as it wasn't the largest. By points, it's not even worth mentioning. By percentage (which is more important anyway), it ranks second to the 1987 crash. In 1929, the crash was 13% in one day, and 24% over two days. The 1987 crash was 22% in one day, and 30% over five days. [[User:JamesCurran|JamesCurran]] ([[User talk:JamesCurran|talk]]) 15:55, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

:And by sticking to the formula "the most (something) in (something)" you are inadvertently falling into the sensationalist language this cartoon mocks. (At least with checked facts) [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.110|173.245.53.110]] 14:26, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

"1969 - Last peek at Naked Singularities. [NSFW]" --FbFree --[[Special:Contributions/128.135.70.205|128.135.70.205]] 15:59, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

This seems like a subtle dig at Cracked.com [[Special:Contributions/76.79.82.50|76.79.82.50]] 17:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
: And Buzzfeed and Huffington Post and so on... (And not so subtle.) --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:47, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

John Gordon Mein, the United States Ambassador to Guatemala, were also assassinated in 1968. he was "the first United States ambassador to be assassinated while serving in office". --[[User:Valepert|valepert]] ([[User talk:Valepert|talk]]) 18:14, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1340: Unique Date

Talk:1283: Headlines