Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 December 11

= December 11 =

Calendar Dates
Wednesday of this week the calendar will read December 12, 2012 (12/12/12). Is there a particular term, or word, used to define this once a year calendar date occuranceGasadler 03:51, 11 December 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gasadler (talk • contribs)


 * Note that it won't happen again until 2101, as there's no 13th month (or 14-00, for that matter). StuRat (talk) 04:47, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * If you call it as Twelve Twelve Twelve, then it is a Palindrome. manya (talk) 08:25, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Palindrome gives examples of real "palindromic dates". 12/12/12 isn't 21/21/21. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:06, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * From Palindrome: A date can be a palindrome depending on how it is said. For example, the date October 20, 2010 may be written 10/20/2010 and spoken as, "Ten, twenty, twenty-ten." Therefore, I think, "Twelve, Twelve, Twelve" fits as well. manya (talk) 10:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It's also one of those date which, when written numerically, is the same whether it's written in American or European style. That happens about 12 times a year. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:01, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Not so the day, month and year match. That happens twelve times a century. Alansplodge (talk) 13:10, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * True. And we've already nearly used up the 12 available in this century. So we may have to revisit this question in 2101 AD. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:24, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Of course if we all used ISO 8601 the ambiguity caused by "American or European style" wouldn't be a problem. Mitch Ames (talk) 2012-12-11T21:30+08


 * It ain't never gonna happen, Mitch. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  22:49, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It's certainly useful for data storage, but in normal communication it's not appropriate, because it's the least important fact. If I say I'm going out of town for a couple of days, I'll say that I'll return on the 15th. I don't need to specify the month or the year. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * For "normal communications" on which one usually writes the full date - eg a letter, any paperwork that will be retained for more than a day or two, virtually any formal written communication - ISO-8601's yyyy-mm-dd is no less appropriate than any other ordering. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:32, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * For data storage, it's perfect. It sorts in date order without having to fool around with it, especially if you've also got the hour24:minute:second timestamp after it. For communication such as e-mails, there's no advantage. The year would be last because it's well-known... unless it's next year, and even then the month and day can imply "next year". In writing, you want to convey the most important information first. Hence "the 15th" or "15 December" or "15 December 2012", in order of most important to least important info. Also note that there's a minor news item that today is "12-12-12". Well, it's really "12-12-2012". But they don't bother with the "20" because it's the least informative fact. It's going to be "20" for the next 87 years or so. Which reminds me of why we got in some trouble with the old julian dating system yynnn once the Y2K approached, but that's yet another story. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:19, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Bastion design
The logs sticking out of the bastion serve a purpose?

http://i47.tinypic.com/4lncdt.jpg

193.224.66.230 (talk) 15:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * This is only a guess, but are they meant to be putlogs (in putlog holes) for the placement of hoarding in the event of a siege? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:45, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I concur. Alansplodge (talk) 16:17, 11 December 2012 (UTC)