xkcd #2937: Room Code
Alt text:
Sorry to make you memorize this random string of digits. If it helps, it can also double as a mnemonic for remembering your young relatives' birthdays, if they happened to have been born on February 5th, 2018.
My brain: "Ugh I suck at memorizing random numbers! I just know I won't be able to remember that."
Also my brain: "Oh a fire/medical emergency/... - lets call emergency services!" immediately followed by "♪ 0118999881999119725...3 ♪ "
The new emergency services number is so easy to remember :)
I do these all the time.
This one is a bit trickier than usual but thinking 2, 5 and a number that adds up to 8.
02 + 05 + ? = 8
The sequence of 2, 5, 8 is also very nice since you get the subsequent numbers by adding 3s
Oh man, there's more than one of us
in this cartoon, the lady character says : "Easy - - just memorize it as the first three prime numbers, if you realise you couldn't remember what came after 2 and started to panic and get them increasingly wrong"
first 3 primes : "2, 3, 5"
forgot 2nd : "2, ..., 5"
then, get the next primes : "7, 11"
... increasingly wrong : "not 518 ? ?"
No, either it's a bad one or I'm missing something.
https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2937:_Room_Code
Cueball and Megan are on vacation or otherwise traveling, and receive a code for their hotel room. Megan gives a seemingly nonsensical and unhelpful mnemonic by which Cueball can remember it... which, inexplicably, actually helps Cueball to remember the code. Cueball becomes VERY angry on realizing this.
The first three prime numbers are actually 2, 3, and 5. So this technique easily identifies the first two digits "02". "05" is slightly wrong because it's not the second prime number, it's the third. And "18" is more wrong because it's not actually a prime number, it's 2 x 3 x 3.
So the mnemonic itself doesn't really provide the method for remembering the code. Instead, figuring out how to apply the bogus mnemonic will reinforce your memory of the code.
For me it would just be: "O Two O, Five Eighteen", I have had to remember and enter way too many Microsoft email codes
I might be able to memorize it but would not trust my brain to not black out when I actually need the code. So a backup on a piece of paper or in my phone is crucial.
Just write it down. An unmarked note in your phone, too.
I suck at memory tricks.
xxx518
The second half is 3 digits. I'd just hard code memorize it.
0x0518
The first half is something between 0. It's a easy pattern.
020518
The last missing digit must be something simple and deductible from other numbers if I put it to the last. As all other numbers (0, 518) are even, it should be 2.
2 ummm 5 ummm 9 ummm 9... 2x9
Or, just remember sun, soul, tough. Zero is 's', 2 in 'n', 5 is 'L', 1 is 't', and 8 is 'f'
Ah, the major system. I have a slightly different version: 1 is L, 5 is f/v (FiVe) and 8 is ch/J. Sun, sci-fi, lichee maybe.
No Randal, that's not an acceptable way to express a date.
ISO 8601 only, please.
Sure, how about 2018-W06-1? Or 2018-036?
ISO 8601 contains way too many obscure formats. RFC 3339 is pretty much a subset and defines only sensible ones. It also allows
2018-02-05 08:02:43-00:00(no T and explicitly specifying no timezone)Yes, correct answer
2002-05-18
2002, May 18th
May 18th 2002
2nd of May 2018
He knows.