6 ms·

> Anything else is as bad as using mm:hh... Please tell me that's not a thing.

• dhosek 3mo ago
  It is now.
  • ben_w 3mo ago
    In a moment of whimsy I briefly considered a date format where digits were sorted alphabetically. 2026-07-02-16-31-52 -> -----00011222235667 Hopefully it will remain a nonsense and never be seen in the wild, unlike the phone number field which I found on a real website which responded to scroll events to increase and decrease the value it contained.
    • debesyla 3mo ago
      Wait, can this format be transformed back to the "normal" format? If so, then it could be kinda viable for some operations... :thinking_emoji:
      • jstanley 3mo ago
        No, it can't be transformed back because it has lost information. 2025-06 and 2026-05 both have the same digits, for example.
      • ben_w 3mo ago
        No, because "12".sort_by_digits() == "21".sort_by_digits()
      • mkopinsky 3mo ago
        No, it's an unreversible hash function. I use this for passwords - no one will ever be able to figure out what ehntru2 was originally.
        • dhosek 3mo ago
          I feel confident it would be one of the six permutations of 2, the, run.
          • ben_w 3mo ago
            hunter2
    • card_zero 3mo ago
      Well that's just totally ambiguous. What you should do instead is treat the date as one long number and present its factors, for instance 2⁴⋅11⋅7649⋅15050023, much more practical.
      • dhosek 3mo ago
        I rarely have cause to give people my phone number anymore, but I always like to give it as three billion, 128 million, …
        • ButlerianJihad 3mo ago
          Most every personal phone number I've obtained has had a spelling, and a good logical spelling, which isn't really the norm for personal phone numbers. In fact, the first time I signed up for my own line, it happened unintentionally, and it was only after Pacific Bell had installed the line that I figured out it spelled something, and I informed my father and it was hilarious (the spelling was "BUG-BLOW").
        • reaperducer 3mo ago
          I always like to give it as three billion, 128 million, … Reminds me of when I tell Siri, "Play 2-G-B Sydney" and she responds, "Now playing two gigabytes."
    • rich_sasha 3mo ago
      How about just sort the numbers from biggest to smallest? 2026-07-02 16:45 becomes 2026-45-16-06-02 Bonus points for using a very confusing separator... Maybe {?
      • btschaegg 3mo ago
        > Bonus points for using a very confusing separator... Maybe {? I vote for "end of unit" (ASCII 0x1F).
        • ben_w 3mo ago
          May I suggest "bell" (0x07)?
          • YeGoblynQueenne 3mo ago
            Let's keep the bell for Christmas.
    • tremon 3mo ago
      That's not alphabetically, that's asciibetically. The alphabetical (English) sort would be something like ::--51176632222000
    • SpaceNoodled 3mo ago
      Well it's a NUMBER
      • ben_w 3mo ago
        https://imgur.com/gallery/phone-numbers-are-not-numbers-definitely-should-not-respond-to-scroll-events-uD5vbFc https://imgur.com/gallery/phone-numbers-are-not-numbers-defi...
    • crm9125 3mo ago
      [dead]
• tempodox 3mo ago
  Just look at your crontab, love.