Time for Unix nerds to celebrate 1234567890 Day

What is this all about anyway?

It's time to party like it's 1234567890 – 'cause it is! On this Friday, Feb 13 at exactly 3:31:30 PM (PST), Unix time (WTF is Unix time?) will equal '1234567890'.

Unix time, or POSIX time, is a system for describing points in time, defined as the number of seconds elapsed since midnight Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of January 1, 1970, not countingleap seconds. It is widely used not only on Unix-like operating systems but also in many other computing systems. It is neither a linear representation of time nor a true representation of UTC (though it is frequently mistaken for both) as the times it represents are UTC but it has no way of representing UTC leap seconds (e.g. 1998-12-31 23:59:60).

How do you measure time on a computer? If you're using a UNIX-like operating system, such as Linux, AIX, Solaris and others, time is counted as the number of seconds since an event known as "the epoch." It just so happens February 13th 2009, is the day that 1234567890 seconds tick over.

UNIX and its derivatives, including the wide range of Linux distributions, count time as the number of seconds since midnight of January 1st, 1970, in the Coordinated Universal Time – or UTC – time system.

On such systems that date and time is known reverently as “the epoch” – the beginning of all UNIX time.

Strictly speaking, this measure of counting time does not represent time linearly nor is it a true representation of UTC, because it does not have any provision to represent leap seconds. Not only this, UTC didn’t exist in its current form until 1972 – but nevertheless, the UNIX epoch is time 00:00:00 on January 1, 1970 and clocks within AIX, Ultrix, Fedora, Ubuntu, the lot have all been counting seconds since.

Cutting across the technical guff, numerologists, geeks and party animals around the world are rejoicing because the Linux clock is about to tick over to exactly 1234567890 seconds, and what a funky number that is!

This will happen on Friday, February 13th 2009 at exactly 11:31:30 PM UTC.

In the United States that works out to be 3:31:30 PM Pacific Standard Time and 6:31:30 PM Eastern Time.

In Sydney this event is doubly special, because it happens on Saturday the 14th – or Valentine’s Day – at 10:31:30 AM, proving undoubtedly how much your Linux-based computer loves you.

Check out the official 1234567890 day web site to find a party near you. Or, at the very least, an IRC channel where you can join in and say "Happy 1234567890, Linux !"

TIPS FOR PAPER PRESENTATION

These guidelines do not address the quality of the idea being presented, but focuses on what can be done in the preparation and delivery stages of a talk to enhance its audience appeal by making it more comprehensible, interesting, and memorable.

The oral presentation of a paper is usually limited to a 12-minute presentation of your research. Speakers should rely on handouts for all supplemental materials; however, either a 35-mm slide projector or an overhead projector for transparencies may be available during the presentation.

Recognize the constraints imposed on your presentation:

1. The short time of only 12 minutes (with an additional 3 minutes for questions).

2. The limits on attention and comprehension of your audience members who are listening to many presentations each day, some of which are outside their area of expertise.

3. The context of the session in which people may enter and leave at any time causing distractions and a less-than-ideal listening/learning situation.

Therefore, it is recommended that in preparing your talk you:

1. Decide on a limited number of the significant ideas you want your audience to code, comprehend, and remember.

2. Minimize details (of procedure, data analysis, and literature review) when highlighting the main ideas you want to transmit.

3. State clearly in simple, jargon-free terms what the point of the research is, what you discovered, and what you think it means—its conceptual, methodological, or practical value.

4. Employ some redundancy in repeating important ideas to enhance comprehension and recall.

5. Write out your presentation as a mini-lecture (with a listening audience in mind), starting with an outline that you expand into a narrative.

6. Practice delivering it aloud in order to learn it well, to make its length fit in the time allocated, and to hear how it sounds.

7. Get feedback both from tape-recorded replay of your delivery and from critical colleagues who listen to it.

8. Do not read your paper. Speak your ideas directly to your audience, referring—if necessary only—to an outline of key points and transitions.

9. Try to speak loud enough, clear enough, and with sufficient enthusiasm to hold the attention of your audience.

10. State your final conclusions and end on time.

You should have available for distribution, copies of a printed version of your paper with the details of the research (about 25 or more) and/or a sign-up sheet on which interested people can request the paper. Be sure to indicate on the paper your identification, the conference source reference, and whether or not it may be quoted.

It is an honor to have the opportunity of being in the spotlight with an audience of peers giving you their time and attention. You have an obligation to them (and to your profession) to use that occasion wisely and well.

-SKC

Without Downloading Yahoo Messenger

You can chat online without downloading yahoo messanger

click here