Two Slashes

If you were born on New Year’s Day in 1970, congratulations and happy birthday.  Today (and this post) are probably making you feel old.  Sorry.

Today marks the day the Unix epoch time (the number of seconds since January 1, 1970, 12:00:00 AM UTC) reads 1,234,567,890. This event will occur at 11:31:30 PM UTC (which is when this post is scheduled to appear ).

Why might this matter?  The Unix epoch is used more than you think, including time management on that cushy MacBook you’re probably reading this post on.  That, and it makes for a more interesting clock than your standard 12/24-hour watch.  (This includes binary clocks.  Swatch Internet Time might still have it beat, though, simply for being obscure and having an at sign as a designator.)

In case you were interested, here are some other cool facts:

• A 32-bit computer will run into an issue (aptly dubbed the Year 2038 bug) when the epoch value becomes too big to store with 32-bits on January 19, 2038 at 3:14:08 AM UTC.  (Personally, I think it’s a shame that it’s only seven seconds from ending at 3.1415…but that’s just me.)
• Assuming your 32-bit computer makes it past the Year 2038 bug (not that hard to imagine from a software standpoint), the epoch time will reach 3,141,592,654 (approximately the first ten digits of pi) on July 21, 2069 at 12:37:34 AM UTC.  There will be pie to celebrate. (Since this value is larger than can be stored with 32-bits (2,147,483,647 is the maximum), a broken 32-bit computer will read June 14, 1933, 6:09:18 PM UTC.)
• Similarly, the time will read as the first ten digits of the mathematical constant e (2,718,281,828) on February 20, 2056 at 2:17:08 PM.  (Again, since this time flies right past the Year 2038 bug, a broken 32-bit system will interpret the time as January 15, 1920, 7:48:52 AM UTC.)
• Unix time reached a count of 1,000,000,000 (one billion) seconds since the epoch on September 9, 2001 at 1:46:00 AM UTC.
• According to the specification for Unix time, certain values can be ambiguous or point to times that never existed because of the lazy way each day is expected to be 86,400 seconds.  This miracle is brought to you by leap seconds and lazy developers (both known as order and chaos, respectively).
• This bullet exists for the sole reason of increasing the number of words.  Either that, or it’s just a ploy for me to poke fun at why I’m making a list in the first place.

Oh, and in case you didn’t notice, today is Friday, February 13, which makes for a truly “epoch” win. Except in those areas on east of UTC, where they’re already celebrating Valentine’s Day.  Geek love conquers all?