Time flies

This is the 15th post on this blog. Thankfully, no heart attacks after the 13th one or anything. So I'll commemorate it with a post on dealing with dates in calc.

How much time has passed since I started this blog?

1. Open calc with C-x **:

   --- Emacs Calculator Mode ---
       .
   

2. Enter 20 Dec 2014 with '<12 20 14RET:

   --- Emacs Calculator Mode ---
   1:  <Sat Dec 20, 2014>
       .
   

3. Enter current time with tN:

   --- Emacs Calculator Mode ---
   2:  <Sat Dec 20, 2014>
   1:  <11:56:27am Sat Jan 3, 2015>
       .
   

4. Subtract with -:

   --- Emacs Calculator Mode ---
   1:  -14.498044
       .
   

This means that, if I want to maintain my one-post-per-day streak, I still have half of a day to post this. Unfortunately, I have only an old version of the blog repository on this machine, and the current one is on a laptop at home. So I'll post this in the evening.

Did you know what 2015 looks like in binary?

In your current calc session,

1. Enter 2015 SPC:

   --- Emacs Calculator Mode ---
   2:  -14.498044
   1:  2015
       .
   

2. Switch to binary with d2:

   --- Emacs Calculator Mode ---
   2:  -2#1110.011111110111111111001111110001
   1:  2#11111011111
   .
   

3. Wow, a palindrome. It's too spooky, switch back to decimal with d0:

   --- Emacs Calculator Mode ---
   2:  -14.498044
   1:  2015
       .
   

If you're new to calc, you'll probably wonder why you can't enter negative numbers with -. It can be done with _, just like in J. Find out more in the info; the interactive tutorial is absolutely excellent.