11 (1011) Ways to See Another Binary Day In Your Lifetime

So, the last "Binary Day" we will see in our lifetime (11-11-11) has come and gone. Binary Day, you know, when the date uses only 1's and 0's. The year 2011 has seen several of them. These same 1's and 0's are used by computers and electronic devices at their very basic operating level. For most people this is a quaint little thing, but for geeks its a fun day to celebrate. Geeks will use any excuse to have a party, so ignore the fact that the year starts with a 2, we are just looking at the last two digits here.

The next binary day will come along in January 1st, 2100... 88 years from now. That's just to far away for most people alive today to see (baring those who are exceptionally healthy of course). Most of us will be dead before then, unless you take charge of your own destiny.

What is a Geek to do when they are told something is out of their reach? Why apply creativity and science to make it happen, that's what. So, here are my top 11 (1011) ideas for...



How To Ensure You Get To See Another Binary Day In Your Lifetime:

1. Cyrogenic Freezing - Extend your life. Say goodbye to your loved ones and have your body carefully frozen and preserved for the future. Assuming they figure out a way to thaw you out and bring you back to working condition, set thaw for late 21st Century.

2 (10).Vampires - Find and befriend one of your local undead vampires and if you are lucky you can convince them to let you join their club. What better way to see the next century then to become an immortal blood sucking vampire and spend every day from now till then doing the immortal vampire party scene? Now you just have to worry about whether you will end up with sparkle or not. (Note: if you go the supernatural or fantasy route, Vampires are really your best option. There is really no way to be reborn with wizard or elven ancestry. Creatures like werewolves, liches, zombies, etc just get too messy. Stick with Vampires.)

3 (11). Start and Survive an Appocolypse - If you don't have any ethical compass to follow and were planning on destroying mankind anyway, this one is for you. There are lots of options here, so be creative. Just remember, it also requires a bit of balance. I mean, you don't want to destroy the Earth outright or you won't get to see another day yourself, but you want something big enough to make the calendar reset. That's right, this is all about resetting the calendar. It's human nature that after a planet destroying event they change the calendar to Before and After the event, so you should be back to Year 1 again. Which just so happens to have several Binary Days in it.

4 (100). Force The World To Use Your Calendar -  If you are walking the morally ambiguous tightrope anyway, why not shoot a little higher and do the whole "Evile Genius Overlord" thing? This one requires you to take over the world, or at least a large chunk of it, but then you can do what most great empires did... make a new Calendar and put your name on it. Why not just start with the month of Johnuary of the year 11011?

5 (101). Improve Medical Technology - Back to that whole extend your life angle. Why not put your knowledge to work and simply extend your life, helping mankind out while you do it? Nanobots maybe? The whole point here is to improve medical technology to a point where it can keep you happily alive for another measly 88 years. You might also get rich and could be hailed as a genius for generations... at least until overcrowding causes the Earth to wobble out of orbit and fall into the Sun. Then they will hate you.

6 (110). Do Some Space Travel - Remember that whole Relativity thing Einstein came up with? Why not take it for a test run and do some time dilation? Put all your money and brains into giving Earth's space program a bit of a boost and develop a big honkin' space ship with a big honkin' engine. Get yourself going fast enough and Earth will jump forward a few decades while to you only a few days or months will have passed. It might take some trial and error, but if you get the date wrong, you can always just do it again. Nothing will be the same when you return and all your loved ones might be dead, but hey, as long as you don't get Lost in Space, it should work pretty well.

7 (111). Build A Stasis Field -  Why freeze yourself and worry about the whole thawing thing when you can just stop time? Build yourself a nice little stasis pod in the basement and put up a "do not disturb" sign. Set it to turn off when you want to hop back into the current timeline in the late 21st Century. (Also, be sure to pay the power bill a bit ahead. It would be embarrassing to come out early just cause they shut the power off.)

8 (1000). Cybernetics Is Your Friend - Yeah, you could improve medical technology to keep your body alive, but why bother when you can go the full grown upgrade route? If something fails, just replace it with a mechanical cybernetic style replacement. This should easily enable you to live out a few extra years. If you do end up on your deathbed, why not just transfer your brain wholesale into a cybernetic body? I mean Doctor Who had it all wrong, being a simple sci-fi TV show and all. The Cybermen weren't a threat, they were an upgrade. Focus on the end goal here. Binary Day!

9 (1001). Transfer Your Consciousness Onto the Net - If the Cybernetic route seems too clunky, why not make an immortal consciousness and transfer your mind into digital form? A simple upload to the Internet and you should be around forever, flitting around, learning everything there is to learn. 2100 will be here before you know it. Someday if you ever crave a real body again, why not just have one built for you? If mankind refuses or you get tired of all the junk they post on the Internet, you can always just start the Robopocalypse and wipe out their inferior species. Besides, when your being exists only in 1's and 0's every day is Binary Day.

10 (1010). Time Travel - This seems like a no-brainer, but you really have to be careful here. Make sure you are pursuing actual time travel. Don't waste your time on that layman's "Alternative Dimension" stuff. Sure you might end up in an alternative reality where its still 2010, but it's statistically much more likely that you will end up in some place where Hitler and the Nazis are still around. No one needs that. Lazy people might also just wait around for some alien with a time travel device to pick them up, but real geeks know that isn't really likely either. No, your best bet is to go the Doc Brown route (or H. G. Wells is you prefer) and just build your own. Then you can visit every Binary Day in history. Just be careful to avoid creating anomalies, ok?

11 (1011). Move to Another Country, Like China  - Binary days are based on the Gregorian calendar usually, but there are currently several other calendars still in use around the world (the Chinese, Hebrew, Islamic, Persian, Ethiopian, and the Balinese Pawukon). In 2013 it will be year 4711 on the Chinese calendar which isn't that much different than 2011 if you think about it. In 2021 Iran will be celebrating year 1400. Just find a calendar system you like and adopt it for your own calendar needs. While you are at it, why not set the servers at the office to use it too, then everyone will be on the same page again and will know when to celebrate the next Binary Day with you.



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