1179: ISO 8601 - Revision history

82.13.184.33: /* Explanation */

2026-04-14T14:37:08Z

‎Explanation

82.13.184.33: /* Explanation */

2026-04-14T14:35:09Z

‎Explanation

GammaRaul at 23:42, 2 March 2026

2026-03-02T23:42:31Z

89.142.12.149: them -> it (plural to singular)

2026-01-13T10:15:50Z

them -> it (plural to singular)

2001:660:5501:3F0:9D41:142F:18B8:1DCB: There is a cat! Seems consistent with previous category tag usage

2025-08-13T11:35:41Z

There is a cat! Seems consistent with previous category tag usage

FaviFake: Yes, this is exactly what i meant, thanks!

2025-06-05T17:22:03Z

Yes, this is exactly what i meant, thanks!

108.162.226.179: /* Explanation */

2025-05-22T04:53:38Z

‎Explanation

172.69.194.99: /* Explanation / Ok, try this* detabling. Had to make a couple of changes to the self-overwriting version (and perhaps needs a font-increase, for some reason I haven't anylysed fully), but does the job requested. Though not with a list, exactly.

2025-05-21T11:47:09Z

‎Explanation: Ok, try *this* detabling. Had to make a couple of changes to the self-overwriting version (and perhaps needs a font-increase, for some reason I haven't anylysed fully), but does the job requested. Though not with a list, exactly.

172.69.194.79: There were multiple damaging text-changes in https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1179:_ISO_8601&curid=8160&diff=378258&oldid=377718 - and note how it even broke the page framing structure. Needs a complete redo.

2025-05-21T11:28:03Z

There were *multiple* damaging text-changes in https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1179:_ISO_8601&curid=8160&diff=378258&oldid=377718 - and note how it even broke the page framing structure. Needs a complete redo.

Show changes

104.23.175.27 at 05:34, 21 May 2025

2025-05-21T05:34:59Z

@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 ;1330300800:{{w|Unix time|UNIX Timestamp}}, a standard method of storing absolute time in many computer systems and defined as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 on 1970-01-01 (UTC). The Unix time listed here appears to mistakenly be for '''2012'''-02-27, which is also mentioned by [[Randall]] in the original transcript. The Unix Timestamp for 2013-02-27 would be 1361923200.
-;((3+3)×(111+1)-1)×3/3-1/3<sup>3</sup>:A useless format where the numbers 2013, 2, and 27 written as needlessly long arithmetic expressions using just the digits 1 and 3. For additional confusion, the values are delimited by slashes, enabling confusion with the fraction bar. (If evaluated literally, the entire expression evaluates to 670.963, or 671 minus one twenty-seventh.)
+;((3+3)×(111+1)-1)×3/3-1/3<sup>3</sup>:A useless format where the numbers 2013, 2, and 27 are written as needlessly long arithmetic expressions using just the digits 1 and 3. For additional confusion, the values are delimited by slashes, enabling confusion with the fraction bar. (If evaluated literally, the entire expression evaluates to 670.963, or 671 minus one twenty-seventh.)
 ;<span style="position:absolute;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2</span><span style="position:absolute;">&nbsp;&nbsp;27</span><span style="position:absolute;">2013</span>&nbsp;:A nearly impossible to read date "format" that can be considered a parody "compromise" between different formats: rather than argue about the order in which the year, month, and day should be, they are simply all written on top of each other. As a "bonus", there is also no arguing over which separator character to use.

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 ;2013. II. 27.:YYYY. MM. DD., with month as {{w|Roman numerals}}, used in Hungary. In this format, February and November are prone to be confused with each other: "II" vs. "11".<br/>Similar formats with the opposite ordering (27. II. 2013) existed historically in various European countries like France, Germany, and Italy.
-;<sup>27</sup>⁄<sub>2</sub>-13:<sup>D</sup>⁄<sub>M</sub>-YY, traditional format in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden
+;<sup>27</sup>⁄<sub>2</sub>-13:<sup>D</sup>⁄<sub>M</sub>-YY, traditional format in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. To those unfamiliar with it, could look like a mathematical expression - in this case, 27 divided by 2, minus 13 (giving 1/2).
 ;2013.158904109:Year and decimal fraction of year. 0.158904109 is a decimal approximation of 58/365, with February 27 being the 58th day of the year. This format may be easier to read for computers/programs in some contexts, but is difficult for humans to interpret.

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-When abbreviating the date into numerical form, {{w|Date format by country|various areas of the world}} tend to list the year, month, and day in different orders (as well as with different delimiting symbols), which can cause confusion particularly when the day value is 12 or lower allowing it to be easily interpreted as the month and vice versa. As a {{w|public service announcement}}, this comic states that there is in fact one international standard for writing numeric dates, set by the {{w|International Organization for Standardization}} in its {{w|ISO 8601}} standard: YYYY-MM-DD.
+When abbreviating the date into numerical form, {{w|Date format by country|various areas of the world}} tend to list the year, month, and day in different orders (as well as with different delimiting symbols), which can cause confusion, particularly when the day value is 12 or lower, allowing it to be easily interpreted as the month and vice versa. As a {{w|public service announcement}}, this comic states that there is in fact one international standard for writing numeric dates, set by the {{w|International Organization for Standardization}} in its {{w|ISO 8601}} standard: YYYY-MM-DD.
 The comic then proceeds to list several discouraged ways of writing out the date of the comic's publication, as they do not match the standard. It begins with several commonly used ones in countries around the world but then begins to list increasingly uncommon ways, ranging from strange (Roman numerals) to quirky (binary, Unix time) to essentially impossible (painting the numbers onto a black cat).

@@ Line 60: / Line 60: @@
 ;<table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; align: middle; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr style="font-size:7pt; text-align: center"><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>1</td><td>4</td><td></td></tr><tr style="text-align: center"><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>7</td></tr><tr style="font-size:7pt; text-align: center"><td>5</td><td></td><td>67</td><td></td><td>8</td></tr></table>:An obfuscated format where the small numbers indicate the positions where the respective large digits should be placed. In this reading, 0 is used at positions 2 and 5, 1 is used on position 3, etc. Coincidentally or not, positions 1 to 4 (the year) being all placed above their digits and 5 to 8 (month and day) below; the result being 20130227
-;[A hissing black cat with "2-27-13" painted on it]:In Western cultures, black cats and the number 13 are associated with bad luck. The cat might also just be angry that someone covered them in paint. Or maybe this is really the correct way.
+;[A hissing black cat with "2-27-13" painted on it]:In Western cultures, black cats and the number 13 are associated with bad luck. The cat might also just be angry that someone covered it in paint. Or maybe this is really the correct way.
 ==Transcript==

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:35, 13 August 2025
Line 98:		Line 98:
	[[Category:Binary]]		[[Category:Binary]]
	[[Category:Public service announcement]]		[[Category:Public service announcement]]
		+	[[Category:Cats]]

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
 When abbreviating the date into numerical form, {{w|Date format by country|various areas of the world}} tend to list the year, month, and day in different orders (as well as with different delimiting symbols), which can cause confusion particularly when the day value is 12 or lower allowing it to be easily interpreted as the month and vice versa. As a {{w|public service announcement}}, this comic states that there is in fact one international standard for writing numeric dates, set by the {{w|International Organization for Standardization}} in its {{w|ISO 8601}} standard: YYYY-MM-DD.
@@ Line 21: / Line 20: @@
 The other mentioned formats are:
-{| class="wikitable sortable"
+;02/27/2013:MM/DD/YYYY, used mostly in the [https://www.trustedtranslations.com/blog/how-are-dates-written-in-different-countries United States, Belize, and Micronesia].
-! Date !! Explanation
-|-
+;02/27/13:MM/DD/YY, same as above but with the year shortened to two digits.
-| 02/27/2013
-| MM/DD/YYYY, used mostly in the [https://www.trustedtranslations.com/blog/how-are-dates-written-in-different-countries United States, Belize, and Micronesia].
+;27/02/2013:DD/MM/YYYY, used variously in South America, Canada ({{w|Date_and_time_notation_in_Canada|officially uses ISO 8601}}), Australia, New Zealand, and much of Europe.
-|-
-| 02/27/13
+;27/02/13:DD/MM/YY, same as above but with the year shortened to two digits.
-| MM/DD/YY, same as above but with the year shortened to two digits.
-|-
+;20130227:YYYYMMDD, same as ISO 8601 without delimiting punctuation. Allowed by the standard. Technically not ambiguous but is hard to read as a date at first glance.
-| 27/02/2013
-| DD/MM/YYYY, used variously in South America, Canada ({{w|Date_and_time_notation_in_Canada|officially uses ISO 8601}}), Australia, New Zealand, and much of Europe.
+;2013.02.27:YYYY.MM.DD, used in Japan, South Korea, and Hungary. Same as ISO 8601 except with different punctuation.
-|-
-| 27/02/13
+;27.02.13:DD.MM.YY, used in Germany, Russia, and others.
-| DD/MM/YY, same as above but with the year shortened to two digits.
-|-
+;27-02-13:DD-MM-YY, used in Denmark, Netherlands, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, and others.
-| 20130227
-| YYYYMMDD, same as ISO 8601 without delimiting punctuation. Allowed by the standard. Technically not ambiguous but is hard to read as a date at first glance.
+;27.2.13:D.M.YY. It is common in several areas to abbreviate the month or day to a single digit and drop the leading zero when possible.
-|-
-| 2013.02.27
+;2013. II. 27.:YYYY. MM. DD., with month as {{w|Roman numerals}}, used in Hungary. In this format, February and November are prone to be confused with each other: "II" vs. "11".<br/>Similar formats with the opposite ordering (27. II. 2013) existed historically in various European countries like France, Germany, and Italy.
-| YYYY.MM.DD, used in Japan, South Korea, and Hungary. Same as ISO 8601 except with different punctuation.
-|-
+;<sup>27</sup>⁄<sub>2</sub>-13:<sup>D</sup>⁄<sub>M</sub>-YY, traditional format in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden
-| 27.02.13
-| DD.MM.YY, used in Germany, Russia, and others.
+;2013.158904109:Year and decimal fraction of year. 0.158904109 is a decimal approximation of 58/365, with February 27 being the 58th day of the year. This format may be easier to read for computers/programs in some contexts, but is difficult for humans to interpret.
-|-
-| 27-02-13
+;MMXIII-II-XXVII:The ISO 8601 standard but written in Roman numerals. Never used as a traditional standard anywhere as it is hard to read, parse, and interpret for no benefit.
-| DD-MM-YY, used in Denmark, Netherlands, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, and others.
-|-
+;MMXIII <sup>LVII</sup>⁄<sub>CCCLXV</sub>:Year followed by its partial fraction 57/365, all in Roman numerals. Equally useless as the above. As a note, apparently this 'standard' is different from the decimal fraction two rows above, as the decimal fraction notation uses the ''end'' of the day (first day of the year is 1/365 while the last is 365/365), while this uses the ''beginning'' (first day is 0/365 and last is 364/365).
-| 27.2.13
-| D.M.YY. It is common in several areas to abbreviate the month or day to a single digit and drop the leading zero when possible.
+;1330300800:{{w|Unix time|UNIX Timestamp}}, a standard method of storing absolute time in many computer systems and defined as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 on 1970-01-01 (UTC). The Unix time listed here appears to mistakenly be for '''2012'''-02-27, which is also mentioned by [[Randall]] in the original transcript. The Unix Timestamp for 2013-02-27 would be 1361923200.
-|-
-| 2013. II. 27.
+;((3+3)×(111+1)-1)×3/3-1/3<sup>3</sup>:A useless format where the numbers 2013, 2, and 27 written as needlessly long arithmetic expressions using just the digits 1 and 3. For additional confusion, the values are delimited by slashes, enabling confusion with the fraction bar. (If evaluated literally, the entire expression evaluates to 670.963, or 671 minus one twenty-seventh.)
-| YYYY. MM. DD., with month as {{w|Roman numerals}}, used in Hungary. In this format, February and November are prone to be confused with each other: "II" vs. "11".<br/>Similar formats with the opposite ordering (27. II. 2013) existed historically in various European countries like France, Germany, and Italy.
-|-
+;<span style="position:absolute;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2</span><span style="position:absolute;">&nbsp;&nbsp;27</span><span style="position:absolute;">2013</span>&nbsp;:A nearly impossible to read date "format" that can be considered a parody "compromise" between different formats: rather than argue about the order in which the year, month, and day should be, they are simply all written on top of each other. As a "bonus", there is also no arguing over which separator character to use.
-| <sup>27</sup>⁄<sub>2</sub>-13
-| <sup>D</sup>⁄<sub>M</sub>-YY, traditional format in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden
+;10/11011/1101:The US mm/dd/yy format in {{w|Binary number|binary}}, corresponding to 2/27/13. Never used for obvious reasons.
-|-
-| 2013.158904109
+;02/27/20/13:MM/DD/CC/YY, where CC stands for century. This format is never used. Note that while months and days count starting from 1, centuries and years in this format count from 0 for extra confusion. But the CC value is widely used on many operating systems to distinguish between the 20th and 21st century, represented by the values "19" and "20" because 1950 belongs to the 20th century.
-| Year and decimal fraction of year. 0.158904109 is a decimal approximation of 58/365, with February 27 being the 58th day of the year. This format may be easier to read for computers/programs in some contexts, but is difficult for humans to interpret.
-|-
+;<table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; align: middle; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr style="font-size:7pt; text-align: center"><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>1</td><td>4</td><td></td></tr><tr style="text-align: center"><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>7</td></tr><tr style="font-size:7pt; text-align: center"><td>5</td><td></td><td>67</td><td></td><td>8</td></tr></table>:An obfuscated format where the small numbers indicate the positions where the respective large digits should be placed. In this reading, 0 is used at positions 2 and 5, 1 is used on position 3, etc. Coincidentally or not, positions 1 to 4 (the year) being all placed above their digits and 5 to 8 (month and day) below; the result being 20130227
-| MMXIII-II-XXVII
-| The ISO 8601 standard but written in Roman numerals. Never used as a traditional standard anywhere as it is hard to read, parse, and interpret for no benefit.
+;[A hissing black cat with "2-27-13" painted on it]:In Western cultures, black cats and the number 13 are associated with bad luck. The cat might also just be angry that someone covered them in paint. Or maybe this is really the correct way.
 ==Transcript==

1179: ISO 8601 - Revision history

82.13.184.33: /* Explanation */

82.13.184.33: /* Explanation */

GammaRaul at 23:42, 2 March 2026

89.142.12.149: them -> it (plural to singular)

2001:660:5501:3F0:9D41:142F:18B8:1DCB: There is a cat! Seems consistent with previous category tag usage

FaviFake: Yes, this is exactly what i meant, thanks!

108.162.226.179: /* Explanation */

172.69.194.99: /* Explanation */ Ok, try *this* detabling. Had to make a couple of changes to the self-overwriting version (and perhaps needs a font-increase, for some reason I haven't anylysed fully), but does the job requested. Though not with a list, exactly.

172.69.194.79: There were *multiple* damaging text-changes in https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1179:_ISO_8601&curid=8160&diff=378258&oldid=377718 - and note how it even broke the page framing structure. Needs a complete redo.

104.23.175.27 at 05:34, 21 May 2025

172.69.194.99: /* Explanation / Ok, try this* detabling. Had to make a couple of changes to the self-overwriting version (and perhaps needs a font-increase, for some reason I haven't anylysed fully), but does the job requested. Though not with a list, exactly.

172.69.194.79: There were multiple damaging text-changes in https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1179:_ISO_8601&curid=8160&diff=378258&oldid=377718 - and note how it even broke the page framing structure. Needs a complete redo.