Thread: allballs

I have to ask this...why is 'allballs' accepted as a literal for time?
I checked the dictionary and wikipedia and couldn't find a reason why.

Merlin

On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 02:28:48PM -0500, Merlin Moncure wrote:

> I have to ask this...why is 'allballs' accepted as a literal for time?

"Allballs" is slang for "all zeros" because zeros look like balls.
You hear it sometimes in environments that use a 24-hour clock
(communications, military, etc.).  Here's an example:

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf2-3.html

I don't know that "allballs" is specified in any standard, so I
suspect that somebody who used the term added it to PostgreSQL
(or whatever it was called at the time) for convenience.

--
Michael Fuhr
http://www.fuhr.org/~mfuhr/

Michael Fuhr <mike@fuhr.org> writes:
> "Allballs" is slang for "all zeros" because zeros look like balls.
> You hear it sometimes in environments that use a 24-hour clock
> (communications, military, etc.).  Here's an example:

> http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf2-3.html

> I don't know that "allballs" is specified in any standard, so I
> suspect that somebody who used the term added it to PostgreSQL
> (or whatever it was called at the time) for convenience.

I'm sure it isn't in any SQL standard ;-).  Tom Lockhart is doubtless
responsible for it being in our code; I suppose he put it in because it
is in reasonably common use at JPL.

            regards, tom lane

On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 03:18:56PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> Michael Fuhr <mike@fuhr.org> writes:
> > "Allballs" is slang for "all zeros" because zeros look like balls.
> > You hear it sometimes in environments that use a 24-hour clock
> > (communications, military, etc.).  Here's an example:
>
> > http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf2-3.html
>
> > I don't know that "allballs" is specified in any standard, so I
> > suspect that somebody who used the term added it to PostgreSQL
> > (or whatever it was called at the time) for convenience.
>
> I'm sure it isn't in any SQL standard ;-).  Tom Lockhart is doubtless
> responsible for it being in our code; I suppose he put it in because it
> is in reasonably common use at JPL.
>
>             regards, tom lane

Actually I think all of the weird psuedonyms for 000000 were in
postgres very early on.  I remember seeing them in illustra
and we branched postgres in 1992.  So I blame funky grad students.

--elein