Happy New Year!

To all my readership, I and my family would like to extend our best wishes for 2006.

This year, my usual commemorative SMS had a little twist. I wished everyone a “Happy 0x7D0”, and most people got the joke and replied “LOL, same to you” and suchlike happy replies.

Only one person checked and confirmed 2006 in hex is, in fact, 0x7D6, and he gets the Geek of the Year award right off the bat (I will present him with a suitable token of this achievement upon our next encounter).

My current theory is that champagne nullifies the human brain’s ability to do math in base 16, and renders that last zero utterly believable - you just know a number in base 16 looks better if it ends with a zero, right?

It’s an old joke, but an effective one - I am as yet unsure of the precise psychological mechanisms it exploits, but in an attempt to further the boundaries of human knowledge and at great personal sacrifice (there is still at least half a bottle of bubbly left), I hereby raise my glass to you, dear readers.

Happy New Year!