UNIX Billion Second Birthday BBQ

Saturday, September 8, 2001

The UNIX "epoch time" starts at 0 on January 1st, 1970, and the clock deals with time as the number of seconds since then. I began using UNIX in 1986, when the clock stood at a bit over a half billion seconds. At some point I determined when the clock would hit one billion seconds - September 8th 2001. I decided we'd have a celebration when that occurred, and we did.
The invite:

The party I've been posting about every hundred million seconds or so for the last several years is finally coming up! It's the UNIX epoch Billion-second Birthday Barbecue, occurring over a period carefully selected to encompass Sat Sep 08 18:46:40 PDT 2001. Assorted time-monitoring devices will be available for your chronometric convenience, that you should not miss the great Rolling of the Digits.
We'll probably start around 4PM and continue as long as anyone is about - exact details will be transmitted at a later (but not too much later) time. There will be vast tracts of exquisitely sumptuous grill space available. Oh, and probably something or other to slap onto that delicious, oh so sensual grillllll space. Mmm, I think I hear my grilL calling me. Good-bye!
Mike wrote an odometer-style graphical clock with rolling digits for this occasion, so we could all savor the moment when the 999999999 scrolled up to become 1000000000.


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Command Cupcakes
Command Cupcakes
{Liz made these [...]}

Gnome & Archiver
Gnome & Archiver
{Irene was a [...]}

Birthday Cake
Birthday Cake
{There wasn't [...]}

For the BBQ
For the BBQ
{We decided to [...]}

Gathered at the Grill
Gathered at the Grill
{From left: [...]}

999999852
999999852
{6:44:12PM - 2 [...]}

Waiting...
Waiting...
{Craig, Liz, [...]}

999999997
999999997
{Three seconds to [...]}

It's a Billion!
It's a Billion!
{The digits, they [...]}

   
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