Unix world braces for geekgasm

The world's digit-obsessed UNIX lovers are just minutes away from the celebration of a lifetime. At 11:31:30pm UTC time today, the POSIX clock reaches 1234567890 seconds. Widely used by UNIX and UNIX-based OSes - including Linux and Apple's Mac OS X - the POSIX clock measures the time elapsed since 00:00:00 UTC January 1, 1970 …

[Anonymous Coward]

oooooohhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaammmm!

Damn, I was early.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a Matter of Opinion and Interests

If this technical event is so geeky then why is it so cool when your car hits exactly 100000?

[Anonymous Coward]

A title is required

There are only 10 types of people who will get their geek groove on to this momentous occasion. For those that do I salute you.

01001111 01101111 01101111 01101111 00100000 01111001 01100101 01100001 01101000 00100000 01100010 01100001 01100010 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110100 00101110 00100000 00100000 01111001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01111001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01111001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01111001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01111001 01100101 01110011 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 01001111 01101111 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110100 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 00100000 01101101 01101101 01101101 00100000 01111001 01100101 01100001 01101000 00100000 01010000 01001111 01010011 01001001 01011000 00100000 01110011 01110100 01111001 01101100 01100101 00101110 00100000 01101111 01001111 01101111 01101111 01001111 01001111 01001111 01001111

[Anonymous Coward]

Wahoo!

That was cool. Countdown, fireworks and music. Of course, I celebrated with a really hot cup of tea.

[Mark McKillen]

Anyone...?

I was there and saw it...

~$ date +%s

1234567890

[Matt Devney]

Damn! Missed it!

What is UTC anyway? Can't the whole world just use UK time?

[Anonymous Coward]

The moment captured forever, or until 2038...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKU2daLps1I

[Anonymous Coward]

So cool!

Oh man, it was so awesome! It reminded me of the time when I was waiting for some new libraries to compile and I started aimlessly winding my watch forward. Imagine my horror when I accidentally wound past the correct time and had to go forward almost twenty four hours to get it back to normal! Of course then the date was wrong and I had to wind that forward too. Wouldn't you know it but in my excitement I wound it PAST the correct date and so had to wind it forward AGAIN another month! It was just incredible!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it?

What's so frikken' special about the time being 0x499602D2 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Matt Devney

UK time?

I think you mean GMT.

Also, @Iam Me :

01010111 01101111 01110111 00101100 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 01100010 01101111 01100100 01111001 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101100 01100001 01110100 01101111 01110010 00101110

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure?

How do you know that the world didn't end? Perhaps it did and we're all dreaming. Or perhaps the matrix just wants us to believe that the world didn't end.

Perhaps I'm not even typing this.

Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

What's so special about 499602D2 UTC?

Call yourselves geeks? Decimal is for those people who think Java is programming and personal hygiene requires more than one bath per calendar year. Even Paris knows that geeks think in Hex or Binary!

Anyhoo, must dash! It is nearly b o'clock and I need to rewrite the firmware in the coffee machine and recompile its kernel for improved filter support.

[jon]

UTC

is universal time coordinate. ie. UTC aka GMT. It's the satellite and atomic clocks version of saying +0. When it is in fact +0.00.01.422818 ;) Which I believe is the best they could with synchronising atomic clocks in the 1960s. (yes, a whole 1.5 seconds off GMT)

[Olof P]

@ Matt Devney

UTC is almost what used to be called GMT with some small differences. However, using UK time gets troublesome when you consider that like the rest of Europe, that changes by an hour twice a year.

[Ken Hagan]

Thanks...

...for the update. I was getting a little concerned that the world had ended and I'd missed it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a life!

Nuff said

[James]

@Iam Me

Haha, me too.

[jack]

Absolutely Brilliant

Apprentice pseudo-Geek as a result of bad influence in our team. Really loved all this and can't believe I spent ten minutes laughing my tits off at the fireworks and the idea that someone would find this exciting. Keep going guys in all the gloom you make the world a sweeter place.

[Martyn Breckenridge]

For those who missed it...

you can set your clocks back to see it again:)

That is, if your that sad.

[yes, thats what i did]

[Anonymous Coward]

Geek party

I had a online party. Thats how geek I am

[Andy Barber]

Can I still use...

... my Sinclair QL then?

[Richard Lloyd]

You could view it any time...

There was no need to wait for 11.31pm on the Friday or, as an earlier poster suggested, set your clock back after the event, because anyone who bothered - like I did - to view the HTML source of the site would have seen that if you click the word "fun" in the phrase "xkcd fun with..." at the bottom of the page, you get to see the fireworks etc. any time you like.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mop up aisle 3

... passes the wads of toilet tissue around so the geeks can clean up after themselves...

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget its UNIX?

> when UNIX machines using 32-bit signed integers will suddenly forget they're UNIX machines

Oh my god. You mean .... they'll think they're Windows machines after that ?

Nooooooooo. Tell me it isn't so!!!!!!!!!!

[Mountford D]

Even geeks have lives

Missed it! Out having a Valentine's Day meal with the missus. The suggestion of having my laptop on the restaurant table didn't go down too well. "Hell has no Wrath like a Woman Scorned" and all that...

[Martin]

UTC == GMT

UTC is the French for GMT as they couldn't bring themselves to use the Great British Correct Proper name for Real Time.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure to be happy or sad

That when someone mentioned something about 1234567890 day the first thing I did was assume epoch time and confirm the assumptions by looking at date's man page to find out how to view the int.

[steogede]

@Martin

> UTC is the French for GMT as they couldn't bring themselves to use the Great British Correct Proper name for Real Time.

It'd be quite ironic if that is the case, GMT kind of implies that Greenwich is centre of the earth (longitudinally speaking atleast), whereas UTC kind of implies that Greenwich is the centre of the universe.

[Quirkafleeg]

It's all one to me and means naught

01110000 01100101 01110010 01101100 00100000 00101101 01100101 00100000 00100111 00100100 01100001 00111101 00111100 00111110 00111011 00100000 00100100 01100010 00100000 00111101 00100000 01110101 01101110 01110000 01100001 01100011 01101011 00100000 00101000 00100010 01000010 00101010 00100010 00101100 00100000 00100100 01100001 00101001 00111011 00100000 00100100 01100010 00100000 00111101 01111110 00100000 01110011 00101111 00101110 01111011 00111000 01111101 00101111 00100100 00100110 00100000 00101111 01100111 00111011 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101001 01101110 01110100 00100000 00100100 01100010 00100111

(Life? Don't talk to me about life…)

[CTG]

@jon

"UTC is universal time coordinate"

If you are going to be pedantic, at least get it right. UTC expands in English to "Coordinated Universal Time" and in French to "Temps Universel Coordonné". The abbreviation UTC is deliberately used to avoid implying that either the English (CUT) or French (TUC) version is the correct one, because the French are a bunch of moany whiners who can't even spell NATO (they call it OTAN).

[Ian Ferguson]

Conspiracy

Following this event, my iMac's fan is permanently stuck on max, and my MacBook won't start up at all.

As I have limited technical knowledge and an ingrained kneejerk reaction, I will blame this event. In fact, I'm going to take my MacBook to the Apple Store's Genius* Bar later and insist that it is the cause of the problem.

( * Please can the Genius Bar be renamed? Last time I took my MacBook for repair, I told them what the problem was (broken motherboard, not a gnat's chance in hell of powering up) and asked to leave it to repair. They insisted on making a 'genius appointment' in two day's time, when I had to present it to some spotty oik who tried to power it up, then displayed his technical acumen by trying to power it up in safe mode and with external power, before conceding that there may be a hardware failure)

[zenkaon]

Re: steogede

"UTC kind of implies that Greenwich is the centre of the universe."

Ha ha ha, I like that. Having lived in Greenwich for a while, it most definitely doesn't feel like the centre of the universe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh

Real geeks use Hex!

First there was:

0x01234567 -> "Sun, 09 Aug 1970 22:25:43 UTC"

AND

0x12345678 -> "Wed, 05 Sep 1979 22:51:36 UTC"

Personally I'm looking forward to:

0x76543210 -> "Sun, 28 Nov 2032 04:35:28 UTC"

For those with less patience there is also

0x50000000 -> "Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:01:20 UTC"

0x60000000 -> "Thu, 14 Jan 2021 08:25:36 UTC"

0x70000000 -> "Wed, 18 Jul 2029 05:49:52 UTC"

And when we move from signed 32bit to 64bit (unsigned preferably) we also have:

0x87654321 -> "Wed, 25 Dec 2041 05:01:21 UTC"

0x98765432 -> "Sat, 21 Jan 2051 05:27:14 UTC"

or for the impatient

0x80000000 -> "Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:08 UTC" (1 second after the signed 32bit space runs out)

0x90000000 -> "Mon, 23 Jul 2046 00:38:24 UTC"

[Andy Worth]

Re:@Matt Devney

01001100 01001111 01001100

01001000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00101100 00100000 01100010 01110010 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101001 01111010 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100101 01110100 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01100001 01110011 01101011 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01110010 01101001 01100100 01100111 01100101 00101110

Call that job satisfaction?

[Dr Patrick J R Harkin]

@Ken Hagen

"I was getting a little concerned that the world had ended and I'd missed it."

Yeah, it'd be a real bummer if the world ended and you were at the supermarket and came home to find a card which said "We tried to have an apocalypse but you were out" and you have to make time to go to the depot and they've got really bad opening hours.

[TeeCee]

@zenkaon

Try imagining the Universe as an enormous arse. It all makes sense then.

[BossHog]

@UTC == GMT

Quite. Everyone knows that Time is manufactured in Greenwich. It flows forth from the 1884 Transmagnetic Chronoelectromovitator mounted on top of Greenwich Hill, which is powered by two immense steam engines situated down on the Thames.

If you are running late for an appointment, simply ask the operator to place a call to the Greenwich Temporal Powerhouse, and request that they brake the flywheels for twenty minutes or so.

[Il Midga di Macaroni]

@ BossHog

I've heard that the Temporal Powerhouse people have cottoned on to this trick, and are now asking for some fairly substantial bribes before they apply the brakes...

[Nick]

On May 15, 2015 it will be ...

01010101010101010101010101010101

"There are some problems with your comment: A comment is required, in addition to a title."