A binary kind of day

One of my friends noted yesterday that we've had a few days this year (and we'll have a few more) that are binary—that is, they are written with only the digits 1 and 0. Of course, what they "mean" in binary code isn't the same as we see in good ol' decimal numbers. Today, for example, is 1/11, which written as 111 would be equal to one hundred eleven in decimal code, but in binary it represents seven (although I always wonder whether it would be read "one hundred eleven" or "one hundred and onety one" or something). We'll get a few more of these this year, come October and November, and then we'll reprise them next year.

Part of the reason I started thinking about this today is that I had to get the car inspected. Okay, I should have done it last month, but I was busy hating my job at the time, and I just didn't get out of the house to get a car inspected. So I did it today.

While I was in the showroom of the dealership where I bought my car, I laughed when I saw that the inspection sticker on one of the cars had my birthday on it: 11 11 (another good old binary number). And then when my car came out of the shop, it also had a binary number on it—this month next year: 1 11.

Or today's date, depending on which way you look at it.