Legal Commentary

Happy 1234567890 day!

By David Canton

Unix and other systems count time by using a 32 bit field to count the seconds starting from January 1, 1970 (known as the Unix epoch).  So at 6:31 Eastern time today Unix time will be 1234567890.  There are actually a few events planned around this milestone.

Another noteworthy Unix time event will occur in 2038, when the time can go no higher using 32 bits.  Fortunately, 64 bit systems should be widely in use by then, staving off the next upper limit for another 290 billion years.

Check out the events, and a countdown clock to today’s milestone.

Full post as published by eLegal Canton on February 13, 2009 (boomark / email).