O'Really?

Today is Tuesday, the 22nd day of the 2nd month of the year 2022 . Happy Twosday! Depending on where you live that makes today:

• 22.2.22 in day, month, year AND year, month, day formats. Either way, its a pleasingly palindromic ambigram
• 2/22/22 in month, day, year format. Why, oh why America do you put the month FIRST?
• 2022-02-22 in the most foolproof way to represent a date: ISO 8601 format

What order do you prefer your date in?

• Big Endian (year first)? YY first?
• Little Endian (day first)? DD first?
• Middle Endian (month first)? America first? 🇺🇸

How many digits would you like? YYYY (2022) or just YY (22)? MM or just M? DD (02) or D? Numbers (2) or letters (FEB)? Which time zone are you in? Which separator would you like? Dots, slashes, spaces or emojis? 📅

Has the triviality and boredom of date formatting made you lose the will to live? If it hasn’t then the Wikipedia entry on date format by country will probably finish you off. For me, today has to be 22.2.22, despite the fact it doesn’t follow the very sensible ISO 8601 standard. Why? Because when the clock hits 22 hours, 22 minutes and 22 seconds it will be 22-2-22;22:22:22 in the brand new ISO-my-special-date-format that I just made up exclusively for you today. You’re welcome!

Two is a magic number

To cheer us all up and help us remember our times tables, Jazz musician Bob Dorough once sang that three is a magic number. [1] But two is a magic number. Yes it is, it’s a magic number. Somewhere in that ancient mystic duality, you get two as a magic number. There are three reasons why two is an even more magical number than three:

1. the number two is both the smallest and the only prime number which is even, so it’s known as the oddest prime. See what they did there?
2. the number two has spiritual and cultural significance, because duality has two sides. Good and evil. With us or against us. Yin and Yang. Dead or Alive. Female or male. Moscow or Washington. Binary or non-binary etc.
3. the number two is the base of the binary numeral system and how computers compute everything from what sounds you’re listening to, to what show you’re watching, which words you are reading and which route your car takes.

Talking of binary, there are 10 kinds of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don’t. So have a magic Twosday 22.2.22, whichever side of the binary divide you are.

References

1. Bob Dorough (1973) Three is a magic number in Multiplication Rock, Capitol Records (also covered by De La Soul in their 1989 album 3 Feet High and Rising)