So after a gigasecond of the UNIX epoch, there weren't any riproarious parties or anything--at least not here. Are geeks just genetically disposed to not partying or what? Sure, there's the occasional LAN party, but there are these times when it really seems like there should be big parties and there aren't. I mean, in our little clique it's been the least geeky of us--Wally and Kelly--who actually did party type things (excepting LAN parties).
Of course, by these times
I mean the Gigasecond and Y2K,
so perhaps it's something to do with the ephemerality of a particular number on the clock. After considering the nature of time from a theoretical physics perspective, and understanding how clocks keep time--likely events for computer people--seeing the time tick over to a certain pretty (or boring) pattern isn't all that interesting.
Personally, I get a bit cheery when my odometer ticks over to some significant number, or when I catch a clock at 11:38 or 4:20. I still remember where I was at (I think) 1:23:45 on 7 June '89: in a particular classroom, watching my watch. Which was probably off by some miniscule amount, but it was still ticking off that particular, interesting second.
Now that it's already been 12:34:56 8 July '90 (and 3:14 5 January '92 (and '93)), any full pattern like that's a long way off. Do we really miss the little numerical coincidences? I'm sure lots of people don't--but lots of people are boring and stupid. (Not to draw any correlations there--that's the whole point of my pondering: who's the crazy person here?)
Comments
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Twisted, in a good way.