O1/02/2010, Date is lining up as a rarity

[Police Moderator]

O1/02/2010: Backward and forward, this date is lining up as a rarity

The date 01/02/2010 is a palindrome: A rare confluence of month, date and year that reads the same backward as forward. The last palindrome date was Oct. 2, 2001. But before that, more than six centuries passed since the numerals last aligned on Aug. 31, 1380.

By Sandi Doughton

Seattle Times science reporter

By the numerals
PALINDROMIC DATES in the 21st century:

• 10/02/2001
  
  
• 01/02/2010
  
  
• 11/02/2011
  
  
• 02/02/2020
  
  
• 12/02/2012
  
  
• 03/02/2030
  
  
• 04/02/2040
  
  
• 05/02/2050
  
  
• 06/02/2060
  
  
• 07/02/2070
  
  
• 08/02/2080
  
  
• 09/02/2090

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A lot of folks woke up on New Year's Day unsure of whether they were coming or going.

For those who watch the calendar, Saturday could be equally discombobulating.

The date 01/02/2010 is a palindrome: A rare confluence of month, date and year that reads the same backward as forward.

The last palindrome date was Oct. 2, 2001. But before that, more than six centuries passed since the numerals last aligned on Aug. 31, 1380.

seattletimes

At least today meshes with my dyslexia.

Not to mention how this realy f**** with the time/space continuum.

[LimitedRecourse]

I can't wait to see the last one!

[daworm]

Problem is, that really only applies to the US, where we use just about the dumbest date format possible. It isn't in any kind of logical order, nor is it sortable. More sensible countries use year/month/day (or more often year-month-day) which is not only in order from most significant to least, it is also sortable for the same reason. In that system, the next palindromic date would be 2010-10-20 or October 20, 2010.

[gridbug]

Silly foreigners and their so-called rational date formats. When will they come to their senses and do it the American way?

[daworm]

And I messed up there, as well, as 01-02-2010 is also palindromic as 2010-01-02.

[Bryan Stone]

not sure I understand what's more logical or sensible about the way the rest of the world formats their dates.

I kind of understand the "most significant to least" format but,.... how "significant" is the "most significant to least" really anyway

and as far as day-to-day to life,... the most significant number to me is what day is it today.

that changes everyday, the month changes 12 times, and the year changes 1 time.

I don't really care,.... but I don't see the what's so dumb about our system.

[Deleted]

> but I don't see the what's so dumb about our system.

That's because you're not a computer programmer who has to fiddle with (write) extra code sometimes when trying to sort records by date.

When I was still doing that kind of work, our rule of thumb was to use yymmdd format (until y2k stuff started hitting, then it was yyyymmdd) for use in the records but to display mm/dd/yy (or mm/dd/yyyy) on reports that people would read.

[daworm]

Not only that, but plain common sense dictates it should be different.*

Years are larger than months and months are larger than days. Would it be more sensible to list time as Minute, Second, Hour (which is the order of significance we use for dates)? How about numbers, should the ones place come before the hundreds place and the tens before them both?

* Although putting the largest in the leftmost position is purely arbitrary; it would be just as logical to put the least significant first. The point is, they should be in order.

[Bryan Stone]

well computer programming never comes to mind on anything in my life and my preferences.

but I guess I do understand what you guys are saying.