View Full Version : a small irritation
Rick and Roll
05-02-2004, 10:49 PM
Why is everyone's birthday 12/31/69?
progdirjim
05-03-2004, 11:20 AM
apparently 3/31/69 was quite a party!:D
Roger -Dot- Lee
05-03-2004, 11:32 AM
Originally posted by progdirjim
apparently 3/31/69 was quite a party!:D
:D
OK, now that PDJ has taken advantage of the 'humorous' answer, I'll provide the 'geeky' one.
12/31/69 was a wonderful day. That is the day, at 11:59:59, that many computer scientists of the day decided would be the '-1' second. IE, the next second, 00:00:00 1/1/70 would be 'second 0'. This was started by Unix and has carried over to the HTML world as well, I believe. They needed a place to start when keeping time (as time in Unix is counted as 'seconds from 0 (see above)). It's part of the ANSI C programming language standard as well, I believe. So if you see someone with a birthday of 12/31/69, that means they've been slackers and haven't filled in their birthday slot yet.
There. Now you can't say you didn't learn something new today.
Roger -dot- Lee. You're welcome. :D
Rick and Roll
05-03-2004, 11:50 AM
I thought I tried to key it in once (it had been altered) and it kept coming up 12/31/69. But I could be wrong.
Truth is, it doesn't matter what the date is, there shouldn't be one probably anyway.
And Jim, 9 months prior would have been the party, wink wink nudge nudge........
progdirjim
05-03-2004, 12:28 PM
I (and many others) have repeatedly updated my birthday information to no avail.
Rick and Roll
05-03-2004, 12:50 PM
I was right, wow!
My birthday is easy to remember, it's the Four Seasons song "late December back in '63"
as said previously, "oh what a night" should be nine months prior!
KeithieW
05-03-2004, 12:59 PM
Even though the date shows as 31/12/69 in the profile the system knows the correct date as the peoples birthdays are displayed at the correct time at the foot of the forum home page.
Roger -Dot- Lee
05-03-2004, 02:37 PM
Well, it sounds like there's a bug in the forum then. I jes' sed why 'twas 12/31/69. Didn't say nuffin' else.
Roger -dot- Lee
Rick and Roll
05-03-2004, 03:02 PM
RL, you are not the whipping boy! (although you may enjoy that)
Your initial reply was helpful:cool:
Roger -Dot- Lee
05-03-2004, 03:18 PM
Originally posted by Rick and Roll
RL, you are not the whipping boy! (although you may enjoy that)
Your initial reply was helpful:cool:
Well, OK. Let's just say it's been 'one of those days'.
And I'm not sure how much I'd REALLY enjoy being the whipping boy. It'd all depend on who was doing the whipping and if there was reciprical privileges involved. :D
Roger -dot- Lee
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