This Rare Friday the 13th 239
Juha-Matti Laurio writes to point out a Washington Times story about how special this particular Friday the 13th is. The digits in the numerical notation for the date add up to 13 — whether you write it in the US or the European form. From the article: "The phenomenon hasn't happened in 476 years, said Heinrich Hemme, a physicist at Germany's University of Aachen who crunched the numbers to find that the double-whammy last occurred Jan. 13, 1520."
I Just Knew I Shoulda Stayed In Bed Today (Score:4, Funny)
While the sum of 2+6+1+1+3=13 is mildly interesting, I never thought much about Friday the Thirteenth outside of Pogo [pogopossum.com] strips. Walt kelly's character in the strip, Churchy LaFemme [flickr.com] perhaps more than any other source kept the Friday the Thirteenth fear alive as the turtle fled in horror for decades, long before the series of films arrived. For those of us who remember (and in some cases still read) the strip, it's still a source of amusement.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! It's Friday the thirteenth! Very unlucky to get shot on Friday the thirteenth!"
2+6+1+1+4=14, so there goes Saturday the 14th [imdb.com] too.
Re:I Just Knew I Shoulda Stayed In Bed Today (Score:4, Interesting)
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How would his calculations take this into account?
There was no 13th October 1582, so it's irrelevant.
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Must have made life interesting in the world between 1582 and 1752. Talk about time zone changes. Travel from Paris to London and arrive a week before you left...
The unix/linux 'cal' program recognizes this, at least for 1752. Might
Re:I Just Knew I Shoulda Stayed In Bed Today (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:I Just Knew I Shoulda Stayed In Bed Today (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I Just Knew I Shoulda Stayed In Bed Today (Score:5, Informative)
Vaguely more interesting and almost veering ON topic for slashdot, in binary notation todays date would be
1010 1101 11111010110
...which just so happens to have thirteen "1"s in it.
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I was astonished that people actually grasp that gem of mathematical truth.
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A D 7D6
If you read it like "ADD 7 6" you get 13. I'd look for more examples but I just don't really care. If you're looking for something you will find it everywhere, regardless of what you're looking for.
That is of course unless it's your keys and you're late for work. ad7d6
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C:\php5>php -r "echo decbin(strtotime('13 Oct 2006'));"
01000101001011110000111101000000
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0000000 1010 1101 11111010110
it also contains thirteen zeroes.
This is horrible! This must be doomsday!!
No, wait, it's the 14th already...
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The start of today is JD2454021.5 and at noon is JD2454022.0
Which, if my rusty astronomy serves, would make it MJD54022, right?
5+4+2+2=13 You can't make this shit up...
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Unless you get an old COBOL programmer to sum them up for you, in which case you get 11:
06+10+13 = 11
But then the results aren't as fun, which is the life story for COBOL programmers -ducks-.
Clueless mods? (Score:2)
The fact that a Mod could not see this link is scary in itself...
Commutivity (Score:5, Funny)
From TFS:
What a relief! I always suspected that the commutativity of addition [wikipedia.org] applied on both sides of the Atlantic.Or did they mean to imply that the dæmons who govern paraskevidekatria [wiktionary.org] are too preoccupied to uphold mathematical principles today?
In a related article:
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What a relief! I always suspected that the commutativity of addition applied on both sides of the Atlantic. Or did they mean to imply that the dæmons who govern paraskevidekatria are too preoccupied to uphold mathematical principles today?
If you're in Europe, then you're in luck. It's the 14th already.
Re:Commutivity (Score:5, Funny)
OT: Sig reply (Score:2)
I hope you are right in the long run, but for immediate, practical purposes, the STICK has more WHACKING heft.
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I keep my lart polished and my wrist keen and sharp.
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As to the nominal topic... some years ago I was on my way to a SF convention, and the date happened to be Friday the 13th. I stopped at Costco to get a big bag of M&Ms and one other minor item, I forget what. The total turned out to be $13.13
Re:Commutivity (Score:5, Interesting)
1520 + 476 = 1996...
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Hmm... a post showing the sum of two numbers.
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Of course, you care about that only if (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words ... (Score:2)
Mod Parent Down (Score:5, Funny)
aahh..but (Score:5, Insightful)
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And for the rest of us, the overwhelming majority of rational folks, [...]
Wow.
What country do you live in?
Can I come?
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Usually not superstitious.
But this Friday the 13th sucked rocks.
I care about it because... (Score:2)
13th Post! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:13th Post! (Score:5, Funny)
Congratulations. You have reached the pinnacle of your life.
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are you kidding me? tomorrow he could be the 14th post.
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are you kidding me? tomorrow he could be the 14th post.
And then? Tomorrow will be the 14th anyway..
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Pffft.... (Score:5, Funny)
yo.
paraskevidekatriaphobics - a new word (Score:2)
Re:paraskevidekatriaphobics - a new word (Score:5, Funny)
; D
Scheiße! (Score:2, Funny)
- Octo Weinstein
Re:Scheiße! (Score:5, Interesting)
(decimal and Octal, that is)
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On another note, that urban legends article is pretty interesting; it cites a study [nih.gov] from the British Medical Journal that claims that although the number of people driving goes significantly down on a friday the 13th, the number of accidents goes significantly up. Anyone know anything about this study, or if anyone has tried to replicate these disconcerting results?
On another note, I fell down half a flight of stairs today -- sta
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Sorry 'bout the typo.
A physicist? (Score:3, Insightful)
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jason
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"gee I wonder how often that the 13th is a Friday and a full moon?"
Answer? 11
For whatever reason I thought that was pretty cool, so her 11th and 22nd birthdays are going to be huge, her 33rd likely se will want to ignore
-nb
Re:A physicist? (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a cute little first-year CS problem: show that with the current calendar the 13th of a month has a higher probability of falling on a friday than any other day of the week.
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European Dates (Score:5, Informative)
That may be related to the fact that they are the same digits, only in a different order.
By the way, there isn't really such a thing as a "European form". Different European countries have different conventions about writing dates.
Re:European Dates (Score:5, Insightful)
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Which is just plain dumb. yy(yy)/mm/dd -- most significant first, is the best choice, but otherwise dd/mm/yy (least signficant first) is the next option. mm/dd/yy makes as much sence as yy/dd/mm, it's a random order.
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DST? Well it certainly makes sense where I live which is in the Midlands of England, but I'm quite willing to accept that it makes less sense elsewhere.
As for going metric, start with something positive - moving to a more useful paper format (see http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html [cam.ac.uk] ). It's immediately useful to everyone in the US and once "Letter" is no long
How about something more interesting? (Score:5, Interesting)
Every number/date/etc. is unique somehow (Score:2, Insightful)
European form (Score:4, Insightful)
African dates are non-migratory (n/t) (Score:2)
self-promoting talking head? (Score:2, Interesting)
How do they come up lost productivity statistics anyway?
Um.. not so phenomenal? (Score:5, Informative)
Meaning.. this phenomenon has happened within the last year?
Re:Um.. not so phenomenal? (Score:5, Informative)
Meaning.. this phenomenon has happened within the last year?
Parent is right: 01/13/2006 was a Friday. You may wanna mod the dude up.
Not that it matters either way, but this omission further proves that fatalysts and numerologists are quite slow mentally.
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Grandparent: Hasn't anyone noticed by now that this year, there was a Friday the 13th in January, which has the exact same digits as today? (01/13/2006 vs 10/13/2006) Meaning.. this phenomenon has happened within the last year?
Parent: Parent is right: 01/13/2006 was a Friday... this omission further proves that fatalysts and numerologists are quite slow mentally.
Furthermore, 2006-1520 = 486, not 476. Quite slow indeed. It's fun to blame the universe for everything that goes wrong all day when there's
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You better do it today, while they are weak!
Re:Um.. not so phenomenal? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Um.. not so phenomenal? (Score:4, Informative)
Ehhh! Wrong.
05/13/2011.
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10 + 13 + 2006 = 2029...these add up to 13 too!! (Score:5, Funny)
Old news! (Score:5, Funny)
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The first Friday the 13th.. (Score:5, Informative)
"Pure chance," (Score:5, Funny)
'"Pure chance," the good professor told the press yesterday. '
Er right then, and there was me thinking the dates were pretty much predictable. I have a sort of flip chart thing on my wall that has successfully predicted all the dates this year - in sequence! It has pictures of cars on it too, which is nice.
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Clearly he was talking about the existence of the universe that has linear time that has life that creates a calendar was pure chance.
That's "31" Backwards (Score:3)
The Catholics who made our modern calendar had a wicked sense of humor.
Unlucky my ass.. (Score:3, Funny)
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(I was number 21 of 21 Wiis at my store. My lucky day?)
Birthday today (Score:2)
"Crunching" the numbers (Score:3, Informative)
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No it wasn't. Read your documentation [python.org]: "the current Gregorian calendar indefinitely extended in both directions". So your code is invalid pre-1582 (and even later if you consider that not every country [wikipedia.org] adopted it immediately).
Never ask a computer scientist to do the job of an historian?
Knights Templar (Score:5, Interesting)
History that still effects people after so long is cool
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I'm not talking about the Balkans or the Middle East where what your relative did to mine seven hundred years ago is a valid reason for me killing you.
I see it as lucky 7 (Score:4, Interesting)
Wasn't this on South Park The other night? (Score:3, Funny)
Ahh, I remember it well ... (Score:2)
How we celebrated !
Happy days, happy days ....
Of course, we all thought digital watches were a pretty neat idea.
1+2 = 3, But It's a Shock 2+1 Does Too (Score:2)
So you mean those mythical and mostly unknown rugged nomads and cave people of Europe use the same calendar we do? Wow!
I don't believe in Friday 13th (Score:2)
I was late for work
At work a laptop irrepairably failed
A co-worker got fired
More workload added
None of my scripts worked
Power went out in the building
Imaging a computer failed 3 times
Went home late, started snowing heavily on the way home
No dinner ready
Dinner tasted bad
Had to get gas
Had to pick friend up unexpectedly
Got a ticket speeding for gas and friend
Was late picking up friend
Very late for a gathering
Had to see ex-girlfriend
Seems like
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Playing with dates (Score:3, Interesting)
$ cal 9 1752
September 1752
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
That's a really weird month. Appearently, the September Massacres happened on September 2nd, 1752. Don't know if there is a relationship there.
Also, I was playing with for loops, numsum, sed and such and came up with this list of years that also had Friday 13th in October and all the numbers added up to 13.
80
125
170
215
332
422
1133
1223
1340
1430
2006
I'm not sure whether this is accurate though with respect to the change from Julian to Gregorian calendars though. 2006 marks the 11th time this happened since the year 1. Interestingly, the 13th occurance of this will be in 2141, which is also the last one that will occur in the 3rd millinium. The 14th one doesn't occur until 3122 and there are only 20 of them total in the first 10,000 years. I guess they are pretty rare. My wife and I have actually found the number 13 to be lucky for us more than unlucky. But they are just numbers.
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From the manpage of cal(1):
At the burger joint (Score:2)
Doh (Score:2)
But never forget that this very second hasn't ever happened and will never ever happen again (unless God decides to rerun this very moment of Universe 0.1
And I'm wasting it on Slashdot
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We're supposed to use it to take advantange of those of lower intelligence. The more information we have about superstitions the easier it is to use it against someone.
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The "rest of the world" is as likely to put DMY as YMD. Either makes sense and is unambiguous. The problem is the US form MDY, which causes endless confusion.
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No it doesn't. It mixes the significance of the numbers. Your explanation hardly makes any sense because any benefit is outweighed by non-intuitiveness. You say one already knows what year it is. Well, why don't you already know the month, too? According to your "logic", the day should be the first, since it's the item that changes most frequently. Being accustomed to something != making sense.
YYYY-MM-DD is easily sortable for computers and is also the standard set by ISO 8601.