Comment by ben_w

5 days 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.

18 comments

ben_w

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card_zero  5 days 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  4 days 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  4 days 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  4 days 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."

tremon  4 days ago

That's not alphabetically, that's asciibetically. The alphabetical (English) sort would be something like ::--51176632222000

debesyla  5 days 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  5 days 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.