i applaud the optimism for humankind's longevity. what could go wrong with these dates?

1. interpreted as octal in various contexts

2. leading zero stripped off when dealing with it as a number and not a string.

handling dates is already hard as it is, I'll leave the solution to y10k to much more able hands in ~7-8 thousand years :)

Sorry, but: pfffft! Pedantry of the nth level.

On the other hand, 64k of RAM ought to be enough for everyone :-D

Which contributes more to the conversation: using a silly date format and calculating how many times bigger Wuxi is than Birmingham and how its growth and historical development relates to the overall boom in renewable energy, or derailing a thread about renewable energy by posting "I have no idea what your point is" and "Pedantry of the nth level"? Which one produces a conversation you'd rather be involved in?

(16-bit years, hmm...)

The medium is the message.

Look, if you and I are talking about the population of Birmingham, but instead of speaking normally you are signing your comments to the tune of "Never gonna give you up", I'm not going to reply to anything about Birmingham. I'm going to go "Uh, what's with the singing, are you OK?"

I think you got what you wanted, which was to show to everybody how cool you are with your long now dates, and the conversation is exactly where you wanted it. You're welcome, happy to serve!

I couldn't resist the bait, I'm just a man.

> you are signing[sic] your comments to the tune of "Never gonna give you up", I'm not going to reply to anything about Birmingham. I'm going to go "Uh, what's with the singing, are you OK?"

What, you mean like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26892923? Or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ25-U3jNWM, about the other Birmingham? Or https://youtu.be/WQ0y-vO9QLE?t=60?

Come round by my side and I'll sing you a song.

I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.

On Birmingham Sunday the blood ran like wine,

And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.

Do you really think "What's with the singing?" would be a positive contribution as a response to any of those? More generally, is mindless conformism ever a positive contribution anywhere? Where could it be more unworthy than on a site named "Hacker News", founded to celebrate the achievements of nonconformists? Who appointed you to the Committee to Suppress Playfulness? Have you never heard that "hacking" is "the playful application of ingenuity"?

> show to everybody how cool you are

Using silly date formats is not a good measure of being "cool". Helping people understand things they didn't understand before—for example, by making substantive contributions to a discussion—is a good measure of being "cool".

> the conversation is exactly where you wanted it

Obviously enough, your comments are motivated by your internal motivations, not mine.