Periodically I remember this. I saw a quote about it somewhere recently too (on someone's blog).
I've been alive since 1980-07-26. It is presently 2004-07-17. Leap years in that period were 2004, 2000, 1996, 1992, 1988, 1984.
30 days have September, April, June and November, all the rest have 31 except the ones what don't.
January = 31
February = 28 (29 on leap year)
March = 31
April = 30
May = 31
June = 30
July = 31
August = 31
September = 30
October = 31
November = 30
December = 31
So, generally there are 31 + 28 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 30 + 31 == 365 days in a year.
On a leap year there are 31 + 29 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 30 + 31 == 366 days in a year.
During 1980, I lived for 31 + 30 + 31 + 30 + 31 + (31 - 26) == 158 days.
During 2004 I have lived 31 + 29 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 30 + 17 == 199 days.
During the period beginning 1981 and ending 2004 there were 5 leap years, so there were ((2004 - 1981) * 365) + 5 == 8,400 days in that period.
At the time of this calculation, I've been alive for 158 + 8,400 + 199 == 8,757 days.
I could draw that, like this:
1980 - 1981 - 1982 - 1983 - 1984 - 1985 - 1986 - 1987 - 1988 - 1989 - 1990 - 1991 - 1992 - 1993 - 1994 - 1995 - 1996 - 1997 - 1998 - 1999 - 2000 - 2001 - 2001 - 2003 - 2004 -
158 365 365 365 366 365 365 365 366 365 365 365 366 365 365 365 366 365 365 365 366 365 365 365 199
(because I have FOUR monitors, that is no problem for me, my web page looks fine.. not that I need FOUR in this case given the RES OF CHAMPIONS ;)
8,757 days. Exactly. Precisely. (with a day as the granularity)
On each day, I was doing a specific thing.
What I did on any given day in the past is fixed, is encoded in time, locked in time.
There have not been that many days in my past (i.e. only 8,757). The number in the future is unknown (but pre-determined ;) but is not likely to exceed say, 30,000 (that would be ~82 years).
I think that's interesting.
I think if I had a big room, with all the things that I have collected over my life, and a few days, I could retrospectively map out my entire life, and recall what I did on any given day.
I realise that I have a finite, and short, amount of time. That doesn't really bother me though, what does bother me is that I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to be doing with my time.
John.
p.s. I think it's interesting to think that given that I am likely to have a vocabulary of ~20,000 words that I must have learned each of those words, and used each of those words 'for a first time'. Further, I have used each word a precise number of times.
I think I have an 'off by one' error in there somewhere. I'm still too hammered to find what the cause of it is..
If you know, feel free to tell me.
Makes that 'Exactly. Precisely.' business look a little lame.. :P
John.
I found the problem. It was that I counted the 2004 leap year twice. I've fixed it now.. :)
John.