Today is of course Veterans Day in the U.S. (and Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, and Poppy Day in various other parts of the world). And we’re not forgetting that — we’ll have a post up later this morning honoring our veterans.
But today is also what’s called a “binary day,” because if you write today’s date without the century it’s 11/11/11. As there’s no digit greater than 1 there, it qualifies as binary, you see. It is, in fact — assuming you were born before 2000 and after this date in 1911 — the 36th binary day you’ve seen, as there have now been nine each in 2000, 2001, 2010, and 2011. And the odds are pretty good it’s also the last binary day you’ll ever see, because the next one won’t be along until January 1st, 2100 — 88 years and 51 days from now.
Your kids have a decent shot at making it till then, though, so they’ve got something to look forward to in their old age — because you know that if they’re geeks, they’ll think it’s cool that it’s another binary day in addition to the mundane fact that it’ll be the start of the 22nd century.
Photo by Flickr user ilovememphis, used under Creative Commons Attribution license.
