Temporal Pedantry

Welcome to 2010 and the first 2.5 Geeks post of the new year.

Pedantry time on two recent temporal topics.

The Silly Media Debate Point of the Week (TM)

"Is 2010 the first year of the new decade?"

In short, it's rather pointless to argue about this question -- the answer is obviously both yes and no. For the longer version, I offer the following thoughts.

(Now, I am going to assume here that we're discussing the Gregorian Calendar here, not the Chinese, Hebrew, Islamic, Julian, Mayan, or other calendars.)

Yes! 1 January 2010 (2010-01-01) was the first day of the current decade. Every year is the first year of some decade -- a decade is, after all, just a period of 10 years. And 1 January is the first day of the decade that starts with 2010.

No! 2010 is the last year of the decade that began on the first day of the Third Millennium CE, which was 1 January 2001. That decade runs until 31 Dec 2010. (Please don't try to argue that the Third Millennium CE began at the midnight between 31 Dec 1999 and 1 Jan 2000; if you think that, you're simply and indisputably wrong. Hint: there was no "year zero". However, that doesn't mean that the Great Rollover of the Temporal Odometer wasn't a great time to have a really really big party.)

Yes! 2010 is not the last year of the "aughties" (or whatever silly name you like for the period that started with the Great Rollover of the Temporal Odometer). That decade ran from 1 Jan 2000 to 31 Dec 2009. So 2010 is the first year of that new decade. What shall we call that one?

It's rather pointless - but then that's why the media likes debating it so much.

Happy Palindrome Day (Kinda Sorta)

Folks have pointed out that today's date - 2 January 2010 - is a palindrome. Well, that depends...

Today's date is a palindrome if you accept the ISO 8601 international date standard:

20100102

It is also a palindrome if you accept the U.S. date standard and don't mind the extra slashes:

01/02/2010

However, today's date is not a palindrome if you accept a widely used format in Europe:

02.01.2010

But I would like to note that if you accept that date format, February 1 will be a palindrome. (Of course, that isn't an official date standard even in Europe -- the EU has officially adopted ISO 8601 -- but it's very common.)

I mentioned this second issue to Mama Geek, and noted it wasn't totally correct to call it a palindrome despite several folks I had seen doing it online. I then noted that I was posting this and tweeting it. She said, "You have nothing better to do than correct people you don't know on the Internet about date formats?" I triumphantly pulled out this gem from xkcd. I can only describe her look as exasperated pity. Ah, dear, what would I do without you?

And yes, I am a Geek.