This Post Is Useless To Those Of You Living Abroad

Have you seen today’s date?

10/12/14

I have scheduled this post to appear at almost twenty-past four, so it reads:

10/12/14 16:18

I probably have more fun on dates than anyone I know.  

The Hub says he doubts it.  

Make A Date With August 2014

I just read this fact on Facebook:

August will have

• 5 Fridays
• 5 Saturdays
• 5 Sundays

Thought: is it sad that I get more excited about calendar dates than I ever did about romantic dates?

I need time to think about it.  If only I had an extra weekend spare…

I’ve Got A Date

English: 19th century cartoon of a rabid dog in a London street (Photo credit: Wikipedia) This has nothing to do with dates but I couldn’t find a free cartoon on the subject so I went with rabies instead.

With a dentist at the hospital today so I wasn’t going to blog; but my good friend Dave (a statistician and therefore number geek upon whom I can rely in these matters) informs me that at some point – well, at an actual point – today it will be 11/12/13 14:15.

In its honour, I will schedule this post for 2:15.

Happy Number Day!

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Dave and I really have too much time on our hands, don’t we?*

*I wish.

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As  I was writing this, Tory Boy informed me that today is the last sequential date of this century.  

Can that be right?  Dave?

 

12.12.12

Today has an interesting date.  I wouldn’t mention it, however, except that there won’t be another like it for many years.

Having mentioned it, I can’t think of anything interesting to say about it.

Having nothing interesting to say about it, I did some Google research.  I came across this little exchange on Yahoo! Answers:

Question: What word do you use when all numbers in the date are the same?  For example, tomorrow is the 8/8/2008. is there a word for this numerical phenomenon?  I’m in Australia. Its the 7th now.

Answer: 666 called the devil’s number…………….

Answer: August.

Answer: Umm… isnt the day after tomorrow the eighth?

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There’s a surprising amount of stupidity on the internet.

12.12.12

I assumed there are only twelve occasions in a century when the numbers in a date are the same e.g.  1/1/1, 2/2/2 etc., but I read elsewhere – on the internet, of course – that there are 14.  The writer cited 1/11/11 and 11/11/1 but what about 11/1/11 and 1/11/1?  And isn’t it cheating because 1. There should be a zero in front of the ones and 1.1. One is not the same number as eleven?

If I use those arguments, I have a little problem myself: I lose nine dates i.e. 01/01/01. 02/02/02, etc.

12/12/12

The best source of information for today’s date was Wikipedia.  I can’t guarantee its accuracy, but I can repeat it:

Twelve! (Photo credit: Mrs Logic)

• 12 is the natural number following 11 and preceding 13.  (I’m pretty sure that’s right.)
• The word twelve is the largest number with a single-morpheme name in English.  (You get no argument from me.)
• Twelve is a composite number, the smallest number with exactly six divisors, its divisors being 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12. Twelve is also a highly composite number, the next one being 24. It is the first composite number of the form p²q; a square-prime, and also the first member of the (p²) family in this form. 12 has an aliquot sum of 16 (133% in abundance). Accordingly, 12 is the first abundant number (in fact a superabundant number) and demonstrates an 8 member aliquot sequence; {12,16,15,9,4,3,1,0} 12 is the 3rd composite number in the 3-aliquot tree. The only number which has 12 as its aliquot sum is the square 121. Only 2 other square primes are abundant (18 and 20). (Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…)
• The duodenum (from Latin duodecim, “twelve”) is the first part of the small intestine, that is about twelve inches (30 cm) long. More precisely, this section of the intestine was measured not in inches but in fingerwidths. In fact, in German the name of the duodenum is Zwölffingerdarm and in Dutch the name is twaalfvingerige darm, both meaning “twelve-finger bowel”.  (Gross but fascinating.)  (See what I did there?  Made a little number 12 joke.)
• 12 appears a lot in religion and mythology.  (That last bit was paraphrased because there’s a massive chunk that I’m not going to c+p.  I want you to still like me after this post.)  (There’s an even bigger chunk about twelve in sports but, yawn…)
• Most calendar systems have twelve months in a year.  The Chinese go one better and use a 12 year cycle for time-reckoning called Earthly Branches.  (I have to take Wikipedia’s word for that; I’ve never seen one on the high street.)
• Twelfth Night is a play by William Shakespeare.  (Speaking of which, can’t forget ye olde Twelve Days of Christmas.  But the less said about that, the better.)  (Twelfth Night in 1996 starred Helena Bonham Carter; HBC was in Novocaine with Kevin Bacon, giving her a Bacon Number of 1.  Kevin Bacon is the key component in Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.  From AR15: OK, this is a trivia game that takes its name from the Movie “Six Degrees of Separation”, which refers to the idea that everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, “a friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in six steps or fewer.  There you have it: today’s date belongs to Kevin Bacon.)
• Films:
  • 12
  • 12 Angry Men (1957 and 1997)
  • Cheaper by the Dozen (Oddly, no mention here of a re-make…)
  • Ocean’s Twelve (Baffling sequel, redeemed only by Brad Pitt.  He didn’t have to do anything, just look gorgeous)
  • 12 Monkeys (Brad Pitt again, proving he can act as well as look gorgeous)
  • The Dirty Dozen
  • 12 Rounds
  • Twelve
  • (No Twelfth Night.  Wikipedia’s obviously not a Shakespeare buff.)

Today’s post has been brought to you by the Number Twelve, and by a whiff of desperation.

10.11.12

Dates Bookmark (Photo credit: RBerteig)

My old school friend Dave reminds this number geek that today is 10.11.12.  I adore interesting numbers but I did them to death last year, if you remember.

The date is the only interesting thing about today, unless you count the sausage and egg oven bottom barms we had for dinner; and they were interesting only in an air quotes sort of way, because I got a little hysterical during the egg frying.  

The internet had nothing interesting to say about today, though I did keep picking up that in the year 1582 there was no October 11th in some European countries because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar.

I couldn’t understand why it kept telling me something thirty days and 430 years out of date until I realised I was looking at American sites and that America is backwards.  

About dates, that is.  In the US, today is 11.10.12.

How interesting.

Joke 32almostdidn’tarrive

Many apologies for the late posting of this joke; I thought I had scheduled one for this morning.  Obviously not.

A woman waited more than an hour and a half for her date to arrive, before deciding she had been stood up.  She changed from her dinner dress into pyjamas  and slippers, fixed some popcorn and resigned herself to an evening of TV.

No sooner had she flopped down in front of the TV than her doorbell rang.  There stood her date. 

He took one look at her and gasped, “I’m two hours late . . . and you’re  still not ready?”

Unlucky For Some Blog Readers

I feel I ought to acknowledge the date, it being Friday the 13th; but I’m not at all superstitious so, other than, ‘I’m not at all superstitious’, I don’t know what to say about it. 

I trawled my archives to see if I’d written about this date before, and all I found was this post from 2009, which starts on Friday 13th.  Enjoy.

Friday 13/11/09:

Wonderful son tells doting mother he will be catching the earliest train home from uni next weekend (Sunday).

Saturday 21/11/09:

Doting mother disgorges humongous chicken from tiny freezer; checks every detail of wonderful son’s untainted bedroom; extra-cleans house.

Sunday 22/11/09: 9 a.m.

Doting Mother phones wonderful son to see what time he will be arriving. Calls twelve times until dear son wakes up. Forgets to ask about train times.

Sunday 22/11/09: 11 a.m.

Loving Mother phones dear son to find out about train times. Annoying son answers after thirty-seventh time, claiming to have been in the bathroom. Enraged Mother so angry she can’t hear what inconsiderate brat is saying; he sends a text.

Sunday 22/11/09: 11:30 a.m.

Livid Mother decides to eat way-too-large chicken herself; notices it is uncooked and opts to beat ungrateful offspring with it, if and when he finally arrives to visit the woman who underwent massive weight gain and major surgery to give birth to him.

Sunday 22/11/09: 11:32 a.m.

Suspicious Mother suddenly remembers that she checked the train times herself last week, and the earliest train handsome son can get is 11:38 and thus has no need to wake up early to reassure over-anxious and forgetful mother that he will be home as early as he can.

Sunday 22/11/09: 11:33 a.m.

Contrite mother agonises for many minutes on whether to phone righteously outraged son to apologise; send a grovelling text; or pretend nothing has happened. Ponders the possibility of a terrible train accident that will rob her of the chance to say ‘sorry’ and leave their last conversation as their last conversation. Decides she can’t take the chance and texts wonderful son to tell him to read today’s blog.

Sunday 22/11/09: 13.30 p.m.

Wonderful son arrives home to doting mother.  She hopes.

Sunday 22/11/09: 12.15 p.m.

The best son in the world phones to reassure his neurotic mother that he still loves her; to explain that his phone was on vibrate from last night, which is why he didn’t hear it in the toilet; to confirm that he forgives her; and to apologise for missing the earliest train home due to a misunderstanding about Sunday bus timetables, but believes he will get there eventually. Much relieved mother relaxes, knowing now that any train crashes won’t leave her living a guilt-filled life; and retires to the kitchen to swallow chickens and put aspirin in the oven.

Related articles

• Friday the 13th (rozieafzal.wordpress.com)
• Why Friday (the13th)? (1fridayatatime.wordpress.com)
• Fearsome Friday – Paraskavedekatriaphobia or Friggatriskaidekaphobia (usaukwoods.wordpress.com)

13.12.11

Image by DBduo Photography via Flickr

 

If you count backwards from today and forwards from today it is the same number of days to Christmas backwards as it is forwards:

13 14 15 16 
13 12 11 10

17 18 19 20
9   8    7    6

21 22 23 24 25
 5  4    3   2    1

That’s it!  I’m officially out of interesting ideas for interesting dates.  I’ll meet you on 1.1.12.  Don’t expect much.

11.12.11

I’m late posting this…or am I?  Let’s muse on this a little…

Image via Wikipedia

Right now in Anchorage, Alaska it is 23:01 on 11.12.11.  In Honolulu, Hawaii, it is only 22:01.  But I prefer to write in Alaskan time because then I can say I’m posting this at the eleventh hour.

[Muttering off monitor] You ask her!No you ask her!No you ask her!Wimps!I’llaska!

Can you tell I’m really bored with this year’s date meme? 

Only one more to go, thank goodness.

Then it starts all over again in 2012!

1.12.11

 

Another interesting date. 

Yawn. 

The year’s been full of them; I’ve done them to death.  What more is there to say?  11211 is:

• A zip code from Brooklyn.
• A palindrome.
• A comprehensive guide to over fifty bars and lounges in Williamsburg.
• A media management company.
• A binary number?  Possibly.  I started a Google search but fell asleep before I’d even reached a third of the way down the list.  Like a driver who can’t fix a car, I don’t need to know how it works to show me how beautiful it is.

Instead, how about something that’s happening on this date?

If you are in the Manchester area tonight, there’s free entry to a poetry book launch.  I have a poem in it (no disinterested promotions on this blog, maties) but I won’t be there, for various reasons, one of which is the fact that I still haven’t bought new shoes after the horror of getting to the launch of last year’s anthology.

Related Posts:

• https://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/1111/
• https://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/a-pain-on-the-train/

1.11.11

Having done interesting numbers to death this year, I have nothing new to say on the subject of one.  That must be why it’s the loneliest number. 

I will, instead, lift this paragraph from my third post of 2011 (I blogged three times on January 1st, while everyone else was nursing hangovers; if you didn’t know then what you were letting yourself in for, you can’t blame me):

1.1.11 [for 1.1.11 read 1.11.11]: Isn’t that a great date? It’s like 2011 is saying, Yes, you had some interesting numbers in 2010; but let me show you what I’ve got…

2010 had the consecutive (8/9/10, 11:12:13), the repetitive (10/10/10) and the palindrome (01/11/10). Of course, it all depends on your perspective: my American friends won’t have had the same first one because they put the month before the day; here in the UK 8/9/10 happened in September but in the States it was in August. Then there’s the manipulation: if I had added or subtracted zeros then 8/9/10 would have been 08/09/10 and rather dull; 01/11/10 would not have been a palindrome at all as 1/11/10.

I then went off at a tangent, so I had to do some research on the number 1.

There is some useful info on Wikipedia:

• it is an integer
• it comes after zero and before two (seriously?)
• one is the identity for multiplication, so if you multiply any number by one, it remains that number

I needed Wikipedia for that?

What else can one share about one? 

• it is the atomic number of hydrogen

And that’s all I got.  That’s just ace, isn’t it?

Turns out I did have a little something new to say on the subject of one after all; but I never said it would be interesting.  One forgets, sometimes, just how dull one can be.

11.10.11

It’s time to sleep again, folks: today’s date is another binary number, 111011. 

Someone Yahooed to ask, how to change a base 10 number into a binary number? the number is 111011.  And here’s the answer – in fact, the best answer, as chosen by voters; who knew maths was so democratic?

*

111011, base 2
= 1(2^5) + 1(2^4) + 1(2^3) + 0(2^2) + 1(2^1) + 1(2^0)
= 32 + 16 + 8 + 0 + 2 + 1
= 59, base 10

For the other way, decimal to binary:
59, base 10
Can 2^6 fit into 59? No.
Can 2^5 fit into 59? Yes.
59−32
=27
Can 2^4 fit into 27? Yes.
27−16
=11
Can 2^3 fit into 11? Yes.
11−8
=3
Can 2^2 fit into 3? No.
Can 2^1 fit into 3? Yes.
3−2
=1
Can 2^0 fit into 1? Yes.
1−1
=0

So, let’s look at what we have for our answers:
No (0)
Yes (1)
Yes (1)
Yes (1)
No (0)
Yes (1)
Yes (1)

Hmm… read it from top to bottom (ignore any zeroes in the beginning): 111011.
59, base 10 = 111011, base 2

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So there you have today’s date: of the geekest, by the geekest, for the geekest.

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Related articles

• How decimal numbers differ from binary numbers (wiki.answers.com)
• http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_journal_individual.asp?blog_id=3914289
• The Importance of Binary Numbers in Computing (ghacks.net)
• http://elainemcnulty.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/interesting-dates/

9.10.11

Things happening on this date:

Lots of weddings:

But most exciting of all – it’s nine days to my lovely niece’s birthday.

Oh, and one day to the Hub’s.

Related articles

• Celebrity Birthdays Today: Sean Penn, Belinda Carlisle, Robert De Niro & More! (rightcelebrity.com)

9.9.11

Image by Kai Hendry via Flickr

I’ve talked about the number nine; I’ve talked about the number eleven.  What else is there?  Homonyms are funny; how about homonyms of nine and eleven?

There is a homonym of nine, of course: nein.  No.  That’s German.  I couldn’t find a homonym of eleven.

The only answer is to cheat: instead of making this post about the numbers or the date, I’ll make it about homonyms via my sneaky segue (‘I’ll make it about homonyms’).

For those people who have never heard of homonyms because they have a life, the definition I am talking about is of two words that sound the same but have different meanings:

homonym: a word that sounds the same as another word but has a different meaning, and often a different spelling.

huminim: a street response to the question, ‘What is the peculiar noise coming from that fellow over there?’  ‘Hum, in’ ‘im?’

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Interesting facts about homonyms:

• …um…moving on…

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What Wikipedia has to say about homonyms:

• The state of being a homonym is called homonymy

What Tilly Bud has to say about Wikipedia:

•  Good grief.  Is that the best you can come up with?

What Wikipedia has to say about Tilly Bud’s response:

• No; try this for size:    A further example of a homonym, which is both a homophone and a homograph, is fluke. Fluke can mean:
  • A fish, and a flatworm.
  • The end parts of an anchor.
  • The fins on a whale’s tail.
  • A stroke of luck.

What Tilly Bud has to say about Wikipedia’s response to her response:

• Is there a homonym for ‘moronic facts that are of no interest to my readers’?

What Wikipedia has to say about Tilly Bud’s response to Wikipedia’s response to her response:

• …um…moving on…

(

Common Homonyms:

• hear/here
• there/their
• everywhere/everywear/everywere
• beetles/Beatles
• sense/cents/scents as in: Have some common sense – don’t spend your cents on expensive scents (unless it’s a gift for me)

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And that’s all, folks.  This post was brought to you today by the number

and the number

Sesame Street has got nothing on me.

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Note: the image at the top of this post is of an albino camel.  I included it for two reasons:

1. I like saying, ‘albino camel’.
2. Albino camels have got nothing to do with this post.
3. Just as homonyms have got nothing to do with today’s date.
4. And because I can’t count.

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11.8.11

I noticed as I wrote the date that I was saying (in my head; I’m not crazy), ‘One, one, eight, one, one…’  I immediately thought of the most annoying advert in the world; so today’s date post is more of a hate post.  Or, one, one eight, one, one hate.

You might find this interesting: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1559530/Facebook-insults-spark-118-118-sacking-threat.html