On this day, one billion seconds will have passed since the beginning of the UNIX epoch, which was midnight on January 1, 1970.

Any systems that have been (badly) written to store dates as nine digit fields (stored as fixed length records in files, for example) are going have problems. It's Y2K all over again.

In summary - if you have any UNIX code, go and check it now!


The point at which the one billion mark will be passed on this date is 01:46:40 UTC.

Funnily enough, I am getting married on September 8, 2001 (the day before) and it will be the middle of the night, so I shan't be thinking about the unix time clock at all - more pressing issues spring to mind...

While this is indeed a monumentous occasion (cough), you probably don't have to worry about your software malfunctioning. See, the raw timestamp date (seconds since the epoch) usually isn't represented in a place-value manner. If it's used, it's almost always stored as an signed long integer in memory (4 bytes). The maximum value of this is 2147483647, so 1 billion should be no sweat for most machines.

Also, when you hit the 1 billion mark depends on which timezone you're in...

warning: extrememly bad sentence structure and lay out ahead!

oh boy do i like writing factual nodes. and its mostly because i like learning about things, but i'm not a hardcore go-get-em kinda "geek" so i don't just learn about most things for no reason. so everything gives me a reason to get out there and learn things, and teach them at the same time. for this, i'm thankful to have everything 2 around.

also, many people, including myself, learn more effectively if they have to understand what they read, then put it into their own words in a way that almost anyone can grasp. i remember the things that i've researched to node. i don't remember calculus.

i'm very scared of university, yet meeting it with open arms at the same time. there seem to be a lot of really nice, helpful people on campus, but also a bunch of the 'i'm to good for you' type.

finances are working out pretty good, although the cell phone may be excessive, i'll see how much i use it this month and go from there. i may not need free evenings anymore, if i plan on studying then (which i do).

more people need to /msg eachother around here, and chat and help each other out. it really does make you feel like you 'belong' here... how much as you can belong or not belong to a web-community i don't know, but hey, you get the idea. so i'm going to strike up more conversations. (while not using e2 as a study distraction/excuse for procrastination of course).

Life is good. So is chocolate milk.

Garden Journal 9/9/2001 Zone 7

Basil was probably planted too late. It blackens as soon as cold touches it, can't even be stored in refrigerator. Crop will probably be small unless we have a nice Indian summer. Luckily, nearby farmer's stand lets me cut my own so will freeze some of hers for winter use.

Parsley self seeds and has formed an amazing groundcover under butterfly bush. Bunny who lives there doesn't seem to eat much parsley but I think it was the critter who ate down the entire Baptisia (false indigo) plant a month or so ago. Took all the stalks off at about 8 inches from ground. Just now getting some new leaves on it.

Got a great book; Salad Gardens by Mimi Luebbermann on sale today - mostly for the recipe for Winter Parsley Salad with Herb-Crusted Goat Cheese. Yummy, I'm not going to wait until winter to try it.

I want to plant some fall crops and salad greens would be perfect. Also spinach planted in fall starts growing, seems to die off but then picks up with great speed in early spring. Now is also the time to plant garlic, trees and perennials. Oh and pansies!! I planted some in the mailbox garden and the look great, surrounding a new aster and the baby statue. Planted 3 in a small pot with water absorbing gel and fertilized with Miracle Grow. They are looking quite dead. I'm not sure why.

Sage is huge. Need to find a use for it.

Lemon scented variegated thyme is alive but struggling, having been overwhelmed with parsley and zinnias too close by

Lots of mildew, mold, mushroom and rust problems this year. Colder than usual summer and fairly wet.

Need to plant climbing hydrangea, rosemary, clematis, yellow columbine, Siberian iris – all sitting in the shade of the pussy willow. Pussy willow is swamped with black and white yellow jackets that seem to wonder aimlessly from leaf to leaf and ignore nearby flowers.

Liriope is very pretty when planted well. Blue flowers now. I want to locate a source for the 'creeping liriope' type I've seen at the National Arboretum.

Crepe Myrtle also very pretty now (needs full sun), as are impatiens, annual vinca, coleus that has been deadheaded., and grasses like variageted Miscanthus. Seems to be getting more popular.

Sedum autumn joy is so tall it flops over. Neighbor said she cut hers back like mums and it is more compact. May try that next year or may just divide them and use peony type suuport cages. Every day now it is covered with little brown butterflies and wasps.

I was bitten by something, near my armpit! I think a spider. It didn't hurt much at first but has now grown into a hot, hard, red area covering 1/3 of my upper arm. Benedryl and 2.5% Hydrocortisone cream seem to help. Research on bites says this is a local reaction, not an allergy. Also had similar bite on my ass about a month ago. Still have residual red, hard area from that.

Divided new hostas and cleaned up lambs' ears and potted up new plants. Left in shade under pine trees.

Collecting different coleous types to root and make into houseplants for the winter and then use as stock plants in the spring. Have green/yellow variegated with ruffles, pink/red variegated with ruffles, flat leave burgundy and green, tiny leafed burgundy and green and blood red and green, pink/green ruffled and yellow ruffled.

Need to sprinkle collected seed of larkspur. Started with plants from Mary L. (neighbor).

Cary's baby turtles died (2 out of 3). Stupid to try to keep them, should have left them in the woods.

My front planter is gorgeous. Even has own resident praying mantis. Planted with double pink impatiens, pink zinnia, yellow/pink lantana, small and large leafed burgundy/green coleous, ruffled pink/green coleous, blue salvia and blue Nile lily that has not bloomed yet... Did have pink 'wave' petunias but powdery mildew got too bad and removed it.

Yet another Saturday wasted at work. There weren't even that many exciting things that happened tonight at work. Usually you can expect one of the two usual homeless people to steal something or watch someone until a manager notices. I work at a grocery store bagging and carrying out groceries so I meet my share of weirdos.

Today some kids who looked about 11 stole some condoms; no one caught them. I guess that's a good thing. This way they can keep two of their activites a secret from their parents.

It seemed as if someone was following me home from work today. As far as I know, they weren't, but thinking about it reminded me of something. It is interesting how memories come and go as they please. Anyway, I just remembered the time when SoberSephiroth tried to leave a rose on my door and hide. My sister and her husband Shawn were just showing up to my house, and they saw someone running into our backyard. Shawn took off into the backyard, ran a bit, but didn't see anyone. Anyway, SoberSephiroth ended up getting hurt hopping the fence because it was so dark. He made it back to the front to see me get the rose, but he ended up crouching in the mud to do so. Ahh, the things people do for love.

Now back to the present--I had to drive to my sister's house tonight to feed her dog at 11:30pm. It wasn't something I was too excited about. The dog is a big black lab mut that likes to hump things, and the house is in the middle of the isolated darkness. I guess things went okay-- neither the dog nor anyone else attacked me, and I made it home safely.

Life is lonely underneath a hard, chitinous shell. But the world is a dangerous place. Safety in solitude. "Alone is strong." Is that different than "in unity, there is strength"?

"When happiness is in the house, sadness is at the door." I have found that this is a truth, but I have also found that it doesn't work the other way around. Sometimes the sadness overstays its welcome. Today is one of those days. Infinite complexity tires me.

What were those thoughts I was thinking as I lay upon my rumpled excuse for a bed on the floor, in my endlessly cluttered, shuttered, locked, horrendous room? I lost them, so whether or not they were important, they're gone. I'm glad, because they were terrible. I enjoy terrifying visions while I'm awake, even while I drive or write, and the usual parallel universe in my infrequent sound sleep. That used to be the other way around. I used to have a lot of nightmares.

And at this moment, silent and almost completely isolated from every other aspect of society, I waver in bitterness and wretched indecision, unsure of what's coming and whether I can stop it. I walked outside in the afternoon, and suddenly I was a stranger in a strange land. I don't belong here, any more than I used to. This is alienation. This is a twisted peace. This may be a path to more of always, or to insanity. And I've never mocked a good person.

The world is still a dangerous place. Alone is strong isn't even our proverb. Grief can be beautiful, and you're not here.

Sad, sometimes.

My dad had his 50th birthday yesterday. Although a bit hesitant, I did appear at his party; it's not that we're not talking or anything, mostly I just don't see him after the divorce much. I don't like parties that much anyways, but I figured that 50% common genes obliges. He had his party at his mother's old summer home, back when they still lived in some semblance of a nomadic life as reindeer herders. Well, I don't know how much my father actually lived that, but I do have this BW photo of him as four-year-old, with his four brothers and two parents, in a setting which seems to be a some sort of sami tent. Well, anyways. Nowadays the summer home, 'Heikkilä', is pretty much abandoned except for occasional visits such as this one. No electricity, heating or other connections to outside world beyond GSM phones. Mmm.

The party itself was for me, like all parties, a drag. My little brother came along too but he wasn't much fun, supposing I wasn't too interested in throwing a sharpened stick as far as I could, so I just grabbed my book and spent some 5 hours eating salted fish sandwiches and reading about evolution (The Selfish Gene). Joy.

When we got back, my mother was at home. Unsurprisingly, she did what mothers generally do and asked how it went. Moreover, she proceeded to question us (mostly me) about various aspects of the party. She seemed especially interested in hearing how many and who were there. I couldn't help but to wonder; my guess would be she didn't feel too happy to be excluded from her former husband's birthday, though the divorce wasn't a particularly happy one. Somehow I felt bad for her, though I couldn't really know if I imagined the whole bussiness, so I understated how utterly bored I was there, which wasn't untrue. Still, it made me a little sad, so I stalked upstairs to watch TV soon. Before that, however, my little brother's friend came over (it was 21:00). I was told, before he came, that my mother had seen him wandering about the village, and he'd asked her if my little brother had come. Apparently, the friend's family too had had a noisy fight and he needed a place to stay overnight. I found that, too, a bit depressing. Such is life, I suppose...

Well, I missed the gigasecond, by 12 hours. Well, I wasn't exactly excited about 6.3*10^10 seconds since assumed birthtime of a carpenter, and neither was I shaken by this. Ah well.

It seems I'm growing less and less internet in the internet. One'd think I found a life, but it's not that -- I simply can't get excited about this crap like I used to. I need a new hobby, I think...

God, this place is getting brutal.

I had hit level 8 last month, only to watch my reputation and level slide as writeups were killed. Some due to whimsy, some for very good reasons. All of my "Cruel Shoes" stories were nuked. Sure, they were copyright infringement, but no longer than a song lyric which strangely are exempt. I could put all the lyrics from all the albums I have on this site (in fact, getting most of them off other sites on the Net) and probably hit level 9, but that's not really the point, is it?

I don't know--perhaps I haven't been working as hard at it, or maybing things are different, but I think that Everything is no longer the free-wheeling place it once was. People are concerned about some haughty ideal that really isn't befitting what should be a fun, organic, living site; trying to turn it into a work of art is a bit much.

Using the day logs to vent, how original.

Yeah, so now I just go around downvoting other people's work. Some of it is stuff I would have upvoted before. I figure, apparently nothing but the perfect writeup is useful to the site anymore, so anything less, I'm just taking out of its misery.

oh my, what a busy boy cody has been since his last log.


E2 related:

my nodefu was getting way too high, 20somethingish, so i decided to node a whole bunch of stuff that has no chance of being voted up. added to the database: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in its entirety. whee! nodefu successfully lowered around 6 points...

at the request of management, The Great Grand E2 Mix-Tape Lotto has been combined into one single WU, individual WU's there are sticking around for a week or so to let mah peeps get whatever info they want out of them to format and send to me for inclusion in the main WU, then they're off to node heaven

nuked a bunch of my old crappy GTKY nodes...

been working very hard on my next tape entry to the mix-tape lotto: home of sad rockers and rad soccer



Non-E2 Related:

been running OS X on my B&W G3 since public beta last year, but just really started messing around in the BSD part of it. after a lot of trial and error, and a lot of documentation reading and a lot of guesswork with that wily beast netinfo, got http://www.giantsofscience.org up and running, along with all the usual shell account goodness pine/tin/ircii/postfix and the like. only to find that none of my friends want shell accounts. harumphf. no-one understands the simple beauty of the shell anymore. The Shell is dead. Long live the Shell!

for my birthday my GF paid for me to get a tattoo. he's really fun to have around the house. ba-dum *ching*! ok, seriously, my first one. some of you may remember the artwork from Devo's second album: Duty Now For The Future, the silhouette of the scientist in a circle with an atom one one side and an erlenmeyer flask on the other...yes i know i am a gigantic nerd.

last night, around 3am-ish, i was sitting outside on my balcony with my iBook, browsing around looking for tips on making a robot costume. neighbors in the apartments were having a party and attendees had been parking in my lot. so there i was minding my own business when directly below/in front of me a somewhat(not like stumbling or anything) drunk girl and her boyfriend start having some words. they weren't shouting or yelling or anything but voices were raised and i could tell tensions were high. i try to quietly sneak back into my apartment when she sees me

"hey you up there! what's your name?"

uhhhh, cody.

"hey coby, my boyfriend just dumped me. come over to my party. i'll have sex with you." (her possibly ex-boyfriend still right there)

"..."
i laugh awkwardly.

she just looks at me with straight seriousness.

well, let me go inside and see what my GIRLFR...

"come over! you'll have fun!" and walks back to her apartment.

the ex? bf: "i'd go over there if i were you." gets in his car and drives away.

Strange Days indeed...

On September 25th, I will have 26 years.

In other languages, when I've been taught enough of them to fulfill the college requirements, describing your age translates to "having" years. Instead of saying "I am twenty-six," in French it would be "J'ai vingt six ans," or "I have twenty-six years."

This idea is appealing to me. New. The concept of having years, of owning time, even if it is simply so by way of poor interpretation of the infinitive "to have."

So I have 26 years now, 5 of the most recent have been spent in New Orleans. This 5 years of time has been frozen in my memory. As long as I've lived here, when people have asked me, I have told them, "almost 5 years now." The time has been a solid chunk, never changing, never really increasing.

Even now, when I recall specific times since I moved here, or even the move itself, I have to create a long timeline in my head, dotted with all the changes of address, to iron out my memory.

In a way, I guess I want this time to be blurry because it never really belonged to me. Time in New Orleans reels back and lunges forward like the youngest slip of a harem being broken in on a bevvy of conventioners, passed back and forth among them like a communical bottle of whiskey. Well, maybe not that scandalous, but when you can only recall a clump of time from the insides of dimly lit bars and self-induced rehabilitation, time is allowed to be more dream-like, metaphorical.

Time is usually best kept for the forgetful by the birthdays of other people's children. And yet, I am only brought to remembering and then I am quickly brought back. And I keep wondering if time was meant to be this way, that in its passing only slivers of it remain and even then it is novel, a trinket you fight for in a crane machine only to throw it out months later when you turn 13 and are now too old for it.

This morning, I called Richard to see if he would need me today to work, as I need the money. He said no, that his store was short staffed and his wife just got back from the hospital, and he simply had no time. Here I am, all willing to work on weekends, and he doesn't have time. For some reason, after this, I make an effort to start Carson's car. It hasn't been starting for me, even though I've had magic fingers with it before (it needs a new ignition cylinder, for those that are familiar, and we are trying to get it replaced, bought the part, but the guy couldn't come out in time for Carson to make it to drill this weekend). Well, I noticed that for some reason, it had been parked in drive. Putting it in park and turning the key, it started up. I ran in to tell Carson and suggested that we run it to the lock place and leave it for them for Monday. Afterward, he gave me $20 so I could buy groceries for us. Winn-Dixie has company, a Sav-A-Center slowly taking form right next door. How rude and systematically cruel. Inside, it was like some apocolyptic rush hour for barbecue fixings, the register lines leaking into the aisles. I flipped through some girl's magazine and half heartedly read my horoscope for this month. Cancer's are bad for me. Oh well. I seem to fall for Cancers.

Last night some random stupid sixteen-year-old wannabe hacker leet idiot told me I had a sad life.

Okay, I have to stop laughing.

Anyway, he told me I had a sad life because I'm 23 and I enjoy intellectual pursuits when I "should be" drinking, smoking, and partying. But I don't think I need to get into that here; I've already said it all once.

Today one of my managers asked me how much weight I've lost, and I told her I wasn't sure but I started my diet at maybe 115 or 112 pounds and now I'm around 106. She said she could tell. She's the first person to say so. (Except my insane ex-boyfriend who said he missed my fat butt. He likes my butt to be fat. Which makes no sense because it doesn't have anything to do with him.)

So. Today I messed with my mini garden (a.k.a. pathetic row of plants outside on the windowsill) and finished reading a children's book. I also did my dishes. Such joy, and so interesting I'm sure.

I tried a new hairstyle today. I put two sections of it in mini-pigtails on top, and then took this colored braided twine I bought at the craft store and stuck it in the elastics so it hung down with my pigtails. Then I braided the pigtails, and wrapped the multi-colored synthetic braids around their outsides. I sealed the whole mess with a little gold craft rose on both sides. It kind of looks cool and kind of looks like I'm a six-year-old's birthday party centerpiece. But I have to do something interesting once in a while.

Today my goals are to actually catch up on my e-mail and to work on adding some more interesting and "advanced" or "less well-known" items to my Book of Shadows. It is unfortunate that my printer is still on crack, or I'd actually print them out and add them to the hard copy. Sonofabitch.

Here's my dieting menu today:

Breakfast:
1 granola bar: 110 calories

Lunch:
1 apple: 80 calories
1 crescent cake: 65 calories
1 piece of pita bread: 140 calories
¼ cup cottage cheese: 40 calories

Snack:
1½ cup salad: 15 calories
1 cup mushrooms: 20 calories
Dressing:
2 tablespoons lite Miracle Whip: 70 calories
1 tablespoon Heinz Ketchup: 15 calories

Dinner:
1 banana: 105 calories
¾ cup broccoli: 30 calories
2 strips Morningstar Farms fake bacon: 60 calories
¼ cup egg substitute: 30 calories
1 slice Velveeta cheese, processed all to hell: 60 calories
1 tortilla to melt that sucker on: 80 calories

Today's total is 920 calories, leaving me 80 to play with. I think I already filled that up nibbling on Wheat Thins when I was bored earlier. Stupid to eat when you're bored; that's what makes a lot of people overweight.

Yesterday      Last Year      Tomorrow
Everything is a Community

We are indeed a community. There are rumors, gossip, cliques, factions, outcasts, loners.

Why do we daylog? Daylogs get a bad reputation because they are so easy... Almost nothing is really wrong in a day log, so a lot of crap gets put up. There are good daylogs, though. If you like someone's writing, then the extra information about their life is beautiful.

Why are they there, the daylogs? Do you read them? Do you read the old ones? Does anyone have one of your daylogs bookmarked? Why not? Daylogs shouldn't be written for yourself... Daylog for the ages.

Today:

  • I came back from New York this morning, flying down I-95. I had to go to work.
  • It looks like the daylogs are getting better. There is still some ugly stuff in there, and it looks like there is a lot of systematic voting going on. Noders! Read before you vote, even the daylogs.
  • I doubt swankivy needs to diet... you like fine, silly

Last year

  • Kung Had just ended a project, and it sounded like his love life was pretty rocky. Did he leave his job? Has he found someone else?
  • Arrowfall met a guy... How dreamy! Did they work out?
  • Fugitve247 was pregnant. (That's a really masculine nick, but whatever, right?) What did she have? What did she name her newest Nodelet?
  • It was Perdedor's birthday. I guess it is again, huh?
  • Slappyjack was attempting to quit smoking. How did that go?
  • Dann was able to pay his tuition. Is he still going to school?
  • Bonnet was having migraines... That sucks.
See? See how interesting we are? Are you interesting?

Prove it

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