Cool Unix Timestamp

Hamilton, Bermuda

It was something that years ago, when I was still an undergrad I remember looking at as something which will happen years into the future. Well, here I am years into that future now, and the moment is upon us. Like every moment in time, this will be fleeting, but made significant by a globe of geeks celebrating all at once. How appropriate that it is to occur on a Friday the 13th.

The event that I am referring to is the point at which the Unix timestamp, that is the number of seconds since the Unix epoch (1 Jan 1970), reaches 1234567890. It may seem foolish to some, but things have been celebrated for less. In fact, is hasn’t been that long since I updated a previous site to celebrate the passing of a similar event.

In this case, the time in question is 19:31:30 AST on 13 Feb 2009. Since the timestamp is a singular point in time, this will occur at the same time around the world. For those of my readers in the Pacific timezone that is 15:31:30 while the UK will celebrate at 23:31:30.

Happy timestamp celebrations everyone! There is a countdown online.

Written by Colin Bate