2010 - a new decade?

Mathematically, it's a misconception.

1.1.2010 is the beginning of the end of a decade. As simple as that. Not that simple? Read on.

I was quite disturbed to hear (well... mostly, read) people saying "Happy New Year 2010. Welcome to a new decade".

1st January 2010 is the first day of the year. But, it's not the first day of the decade.

A decade is a period of 10 years, a word from Greek 'deca' which means ten.

How do you count from 1 to 10? I have never heard people start counting from 0. Do you?

We count from one. 1 is the beginning.

Following the same rule, the first year of the decade should be the year 2011.

The first month of the year is January.

The first day of January, well, you get my drift now...

So, to state the obvious, the first day of the next decade would be the 1st of January 2011.

1.1.2011 - not that nice.

1.1.11 - much, much better.

As I said in the beginning of this entry, 1st January 2010 is merely the beginning of the end of the decade. Got it now?

2000 - the new millennium?

This was also a misconception. Ehm ehm... a miscalculation.

So the whole world celebrated the new millennium 1 year earlier than it should be. There were cries from people who knows how to count that the celebration was premature. But heck, 1.1.2001 as the new millennium? The numbers are not that tasty. 'C'mon, give us a break, you nerdy people', they said.

Anyway, democracy sometimes may mean that all the idiots are united.

By the way, 1.1.11 is quite catchy.

My prediction: come that day, marketing people will tout it as 'the beginning of a new decade'.

Surely, that day will see lots of weddings and newspaper headings like 'new decade babies', 'wedded on a new decade', etc.

We'll see...

Umar is a week old today

I guess I'm like any other young parents with their new babies.

What I observe is that when you ask these young parents (usually for their first and second child) 'How old is your baby now?', they would almost invariably give you the answer in term of days (some with hours).
2 weeks and 3 days.
4 months and 15 days.
9 days and 4 hours.

Perhaps I am still a young parent...

Anyway, I am recollecting my skills in handling Umar. I'm glad that I found myself able to handle his fragile body - change nappies, his (now) baggy clothings, and bottle feed him.

One thing I'm still struggling to keep up with: sleep deprivation.

Above all, we are truly grateful for he is a no-fuss baby. Alhamdulillah for this blessing, and numerous others, so far within this 6 days and 22 hours.

Adam

Marsya

anniversary ticker

hmm...
at the time of writing, a little over a year to our 10th anniversary.

phone number converter

have you heard of DAPAT?

they have a cool phone number converter program in their website.

the first converter is the 'phone number lookup'.
here you enter a phone number with alphabets to get the equivalent real phone number.
a good tool to use to decide what phone number to use when you're thinking of getting a new mobile phone number (or any number).

say, for 012 akmalhh = 012 256 2544
not a memorable number, but easy to remember if i just give people the alphabetic equivalent.

the second converter is the 'numeric to alpha' converter.
you key in your handphone number, and hit 'convert'. all possible variation of alphabet equivalents will be returned.

this is what i got from 012 3456789:
01 adil n sux
wakakakakaaa...

i'm posting this only for fun.
but hey, your number might be uninteresting at all (like mine) and not easy for people to remember.
you can generate the alphabetic equivalents and give it to people for them to remember by easily.
as it turned out, my real handphone number is uninteresting - both in numerical form and its alphabetic equivalent.

the converter can convert any number, but bear in mind that the longer the number, the longer the time it will take to run the conversion.