this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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xkcd #3228: Day Counter

Title text:

It has been −2,147,483,648 days since our last integer overflow.

Transcript:

Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com

Source: https://xkcd.com/3228/

explainxkcd for #3228

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[–] obstbert@feddit.org 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

They're using a signed 32-bit integer which can overflow to negative numbers. An unsigned integer would roll over to just 0, but then the joke wouldn't work.

Edit: I misread the question and was thinking about the title text