Oh Nine!
Happy 09-09-09 everyone! (blog update Sept. 09, '09) Interesting article from Banggaan buddy Claro Cortes IV about significance of today (at the end of this blog entry).
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Oops, before anything else, Happy 2009 readers! Still have that nagging apprehension how the year’s going to treat us? Will it be good luck or bad? Well if we should need some trivial guidelines, the horses have already bolted 9 ends-of-the-world ago (that was 9 layers of extreme and climactic earth upheavals detected from deep-drill ice tubes taken from the Antarctic).
Now if we have to refer to the Chinese calendar and numerology, then it’s lucky! Nine (pinyin jiǔ) is considered a good number in Chinese culture because it sounds the same as the word "longlasting" (pinyin jiǔ). For an added tikoy of a bonus, it's also the Chinese year of the Ox on our Pinoy faces (Whaa..they’ve included me for I was born in fortyNINE!) It’s going to be lucky for the 9 dragons of Kowloon though; but do I hear “Hey what about us Filipinos; what’s in store for us in ’09?” Will it be a year of oxtail kare-kare? Ssssh, my friend, take a deep breath...ahh..let the prana out...let go..and let the superstitious take over the planet; otherwise the dragons shall breathe fire and melt your 9 Ghz hard disc. But this is scary..according to the Mayan calendar, we will be just 3 years away from the End of the World (2012)! Damn! I still have to finish that 5-year painting!
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Mathematicians! Oh how I despise mathematics but I couldn’t live without it. See the very computer I’m using to write this article down relies on Nine! Uptime is a measure of the time a computer system has been "up" and running. Similar to the unit of metallic purity, "Five nines" means 99.999% availability, which translates to a total downtime of approximately five minutes and fifteen seconds per year. It is often used as a measure of computer operating system‘s reliability and stability, in that this time represents time a computer can be left unattended without crashing, or needing to be rebooted for administrative or maintenance purposes. Conversely, long uptime can indicate negligence, because critical updates can sometimes require reboots. Here’s another superstition.. they say if you’re using a Mac, it could be a different story!:) No more frequent crashes and rebooting! Waah I want my MacPro!
How do Toyota makers perceive 2009? Well,with the current recession and stagnant car sales, it’s no wonder the Japanese consider 9 unlucky because it sounds similar to the Japanese word for "pain" or "distress" (kunrei ku). Arigato Wikipedia-San.
Relax, it’s not all bad luck. And don’t be turned off by Anton LaVey who applied the number to Satan. He’s the guy who authored the Satanic Bible. Struth! I reckon he’s got a big eeeee-go! Get a life, man!
Religions also have knowingly or unknowingly revered number nine. Are you Hindu, hindi? (no?) Well if you are, you might as well consider numeral 9 as a completely divine number because it represents the end of a cycle in the decimal system, which originated from the Indian subcontinent as early as 3000 BC. Now that’s old!
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We all know Pinoys are predominantly Christians..and so we should know that In the Christian angelic hierarchy there are 9 choirs of angels ( Angelica Panganiban not included; she can’t sing!:)
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Nine is a significant number in Norse Mythology. Odin hung himself on an ash tree for nine days to learn the runes; which reminded me of a Banggaan yahoo art group member who did the same (hanging by his toes unaided) up on a torii (Japanese gate) for about 9 minutes. Really!
Oh and if you’re a Pinoy Muslim, you would of course know that the Ramadan is ninth month of Islamic calendar.
So then how could have Nine influenced all our lives? (I don’t mean our Australian TV channel!:) I refer to our very lives that we’re supposed to carry on through this year. Well, ask our mothers! After all she was the one who carried each one of us for nine laborious months. We're out alive and kicking and we're lucky!:) And that’s Naegele's Rule! Pardon me? Oh, it is a standard way of calculating the due date for a pregnancy. (named after that German obstetrician Franz Karl Naegele who invented the rule. Clever guy, hey Naegele, my mother carried me for nine years! (that was after I was born:)
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090909 update:
Why 09/09/09 Is So Special
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.com heather Whipps
special To Livescience
livescience.com – Tue Sep 8, 10:46 am ET
Have special plans this 09/09/09?
Everyone from brides and grooms to movie studio execs are celebrating the upcoming calendrical anomaly in their own way.
In Florida, at least one county clerk's office is offering a one-day wedding special for $99.99. The rarity of this Sept. 9 hasn't been lost on the creators of the iPod, who have moved their traditional Tuesday release day to Wednesday to take advantage of the special date. Focus Features is releasing their new film "9," an animated tale about the apocalypse, on the 9th.
Not only does the date look good in marketing promotions, but it also represents the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we'll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), or a millennium (mark your calendars for January 1, 3001), depending on how you want to count it.
Though technically there's nothing special about the symmetrical date, some concerned with the history and meaning of numbers ascribe powerful significance to 09/09/09.
For cultures in which the number nine is lucky, Sept. 9 is anticipated - while others might see the date as an ominous warning.
Math magic
Modern numerologists - who operate outside the realm of real science - believe that mystical significance or vibrations can be assigned to each numeral one through nine, and different combinations of the digits produce tangible results in life depending on their application.
As the final numeral, the number nine holds special rank. It is associated with forgiveness, compassion and success on the positive side as well as arrogance and self-righteousness on the negative, according to numerologists.
Though usually discredited as bogus, numerologists do have a famous predecessor to look to. Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician and father of the famous theorem, is also credited with popularizing numerology in ancient times.
"Pythagoras most of all seems to have honored and advanced the study concerned with numbers, having taken it away from the use of merchants and likening all things to numbers," wrote Aristoxenus, an ancient Greek historian, in the 4th century B.C.
As part of his obsession with numbers both mathematically and divine, and like many mathematicians before and since, Pythagoras noted that nine in particular had many unique properties.
Any grade-schooler could tell you, for example, that the sum of the two-digits resulting from nine multiplied by any other single-digit number will equal nine. So 9x3=27, and 2+7=9.
Multiply nine by any two, three or four-digit number and the sums of those will also break down to nine. For example: 9x62 = 558; 5+5+8=18; 1+8=9.
Sept. 9 also happens to be the 252nd day of the year (2 + 5 +2)...
Loving 9
Both China and Japan have strong feelings about the number nine. Those feelings just happen to be on opposite ends of the spectrum.
The Chinese pulled out all the stops to celebrate their lucky number eight during last year's Summer Olympics, ringing the games in at 8 p.m. on 08/08/08. What many might not realize is that nine comes in second on their list of auspicious digits and is associated with long life, due to how similar its pronunciation is to the local word for long-lasting (eight sounds like wealth).
Historically, ancient Chinese emperors associated themselves closely with the number nine, which appeared prominently in architecture and royal dress, often in the form of nine fearsome dragons. The imperial dynasties were so convinced of the power of the number nine that the palace complex at Beijing's Forbidden City is rumored to have been built with 9,999 rooms.
Japanese emperors would have never worn a robe with nine dragons, however.
In Japanese, the word for nine is a homophone for the word for suffering, so the number is considered highly unlucky - second only to four, which sounds like death.
Many Japanese will go so far as to avoid room numbers including nine at hotels or hospitals, if the building planners haven't already eliminated them altogether.
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some info from Wikipedia (mostly italicised portions)