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Comment by susam | Hacker News Reader

Unix timestamp 1 600 000 000 was not too long ago. That was on 2020-09-13 12:26:40 UTC. Discussed on HN back then here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24452885

My own blog post here commemorating the event: https://susam.net/maze/unix-timestamp-1600000000.html

Given that 100 000 000 seconds is approximately 3 years 2 months, we are going to see an event like this every few years.

I believe the most spectacular event is going to be the Unix timestamp 2 000 000 000 which is still 9½ years away: 2033-05-18 03:33:20 UTC. Such an event occurs only once every 33 years 8 months approximately!

By the way, here's 1700000000 on Python:

  $ python3 -q
  >>> from datetime import datetime
  >>> datetime.utcfromtimestamp(1_700_000_000)
  datetime.datetime(2023, 11, 14, 22, 13, 20)
  >>>

GNU date (Linux):

  $ date -ud @1700000000
  Tue Nov 14 22:13:20 UTC 2023

BSD date (macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.):

  $ date -ur 1700000000
  Tue 14 Nov 2023 22:13:20 UTC

View on HN

> I believe the most spectacular event is going to be the Unix timestamp 2 000 000 000 which is still 9½ years away: 2033-05-18 03:33:20 UTC. Such an event occurs only once every 33 years 8 months approximately!

Egads! 33 years! I spent my late 90:ies mudding[0] and for some reason we had a lot of save files named by their epoch timestamp. When I ended up responsible for parts of the code base, I spent a lot of time dealing with those files, and they were all in the 800- or 900- million range. At some point I was pretty much able to tell at a glance roughly what date any number in that range corresponded to, within perhaps a few weeks.

Weird environments foster weird super powers.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-user_dungeon

The only reference point i have is that the millennium was very roughly around 1000000000. And that's only because of an agonising C/Prince pun in NTK [1]:

"Tonight I'm gonna party like it's (time_t) 1E9"

[1] http://www.ntk.net/2001/02/23/

That pun is horrendous beyond belief, I love it.

I don't know whether to thank or revile you for sharing that link. I've never heard of NTK before and I was at once amazed at something that tickled me so and also realizing it's no longer around. Now I feel sad.

It was so good. But then, the web was young, and everything was. You are quite right to feel sad. I know this doesn't help.

I went to an EFF billion second party 2001-09-08 in golden gate park and then the next week was 9/11.

The spectacular events is in Jan 2038, when it reaches a nice round number of 2,147,483,648

Or it doesn't reach...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

I hope to arrange an extended tour of Iron Mountain for early 2038.

Unix time will reach it, even if 32 bit signed representations tick over.

I think 2222222222 is more special Sat Jun 02 2040 03:57:02 GMT+0000

I might even get to experience 3333333333 if I am lucky. What a day, what a day, yes indeed!

I hope you have enough bits!

I would like to argue, the next and final special date is 2^32=4294967296 which is Sun Feb 7 06:28:16 AM UTC 2106.

You're using unsigned timestamps?

I used to follow your blog about 15 years ago, what a blast of nostalgia! I’ll add it to my RSS feed. Keep it up.

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