Petty Things That Get On Your Nerves...

[101]

Just now, BFTD said:

No, that's octal, the system used by four-fingered Fifers.

Our overlords have sixteen fingers in total. Y'know, like how most of us have ten fingers on our hands, so we developed a number system based around multiples of ten.

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If you'd like a serious answer, it's a simple way of representing large binary numbers. The number 255 in decimal is 11111111 in binary - imagine how many 1s and 0s you'd need to use for the number 1,000,000₁₀. You can group them into less-unwieldy figures with hex, as 16 is a multiple of 2, where things get more complicated converting to decimal.

Binary, of course, the number system used by our robot overlords, who only acknowledge two states: DEAD and NOT YET DEAD.

 

This seems overly complex, I can barely cope with simple multiplication and division.

[BFTD]

9 minutes ago, 101 said:

This seems overly complex, I can barely cope with simple multiplication and division.

Sadly, neither the reptilords nor Skynet's killing machines will listen to reason.

Thankfully the three-fingered Martians from War of the Worlds are just fiction.

[Honest_Man#1]

Turned up to play squash tonight and apparently an error in the app meant they’d double booked the court but hadn’t told us prior to getting there, then for some unknown reason the other people booked on the slot were the ones chosen to get to use it.

[Empty It]

Turned up to play squash tonight and apparently an error in the app meant they’d double booked the court but hadn’t told us prior to getting there, then for some unknown reason the other people booked on the slot were the ones chosen to get to use it.

Take it as a compliment maybe the workers thought the other pair looked like they needed the exercise more.

[Albus Bulbasaur]

9 hours ago, KingRocketman II said:

my dog (below) spent his last few years kicking about in a carriage when his back legs went. He still loved going to pubs and on quite a few occasions before I could get the carriage off him he would batter into chairs and tables sending everything flying - quite often down me also. I reeked of beer for about a year as a result and miss not being able to call on that as an excuse these days ha

 

 

What an adorable wee fella. 

Aye mine has visual difficulties so could never be mad at him. 

[Boghead ranter]

3 hours ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

Turned up to play squash tonight and apparently an error in the app meant they’d double booked the court but hadn’t told us prior to getting there, then for some unknown reason the other people booked on the slot were the ones chosen to get to use it.

Should've all gone in together, that would have been a right squash.

[tamthebam]

5 hours ago, 101 said:

This seems overly complex, I can barely cope with simple multiplication and division.

Hex is used in computing as I had to learn it once when doing a computer course. I can't remember why but those of you who remember the early days of Acorns, Spectrums etc will remember memory going up in multiples of 16: 16k, 32k, 64k, 128k etc. 

There are, of course, only 10 types people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't. 

[scottsdad]

On hexadecimal the way to think of it is this. 

We use decimal (base 10). This means we have 10 characters to represent numbers (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9). When you reach a number past nine you then go in to two digits (tens and units). Then three digits (hundreds, tens and units). 

Binary is base 2. It has 2 characters to represent numbers (0,1). When you get a number higher than 1 you get two digits (twos and units). So the number two is represented as 10. Then three units (fours, twos and units).

Hexadecimal is base 16. It has 16 characters to represent numbers (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F). When you reach a number past fifteen (F) then you get two digits (sixteens and units).  So the number sixteen is represented as 10. 

You can apply this to any number really, so long as you have enough characters to represent the individual numbers.

[coprolite]

On 29/03/2022 at 08:50, Leith Green said:

Wheezing lazy b*****ds on mobility scooters getting in my way in the shops - or the same people a few years younger just being slow fat fuckers taking up the space limping along in oversized jobby catchers toward Greggs (thats when they are not sitting outside tabbing away with their fat bairns).

eta - Particularly in Cameron Toll shopping centre, Edinburgh.

I often have that initial reaction to people on mobility scooters before reminding myself that it's very possible for their obesity to be a consequence of a disability. 

It might not be, but even still pity seems more appropriate than scorn. 

[Stellaboz]

Nah. Most people are fat, disability or not, because they simply eat far more than they burn off. 

[hk blues]

15 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

On hexadecimal the way to think of it is this. 

We use decimal (base 10). This means we have 10 characters to represent numbers (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9). When you reach a number past nine you then go in to two digits (tens and units). Then three digits (hundreds, tens and units). 

Binary is base 2. It has 2 characters to represent numbers (0,1). When you get a number higher than 1 you get two digits (twos and units). So the number two is represented as 10. Then three units (fours, twos and units).

Hexadecimal is base 16. It has 16 characters to represent numbers (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F). When you reach a number past fifteen (F) then you get two digits (sixteens and units).  So the number sixteen is represented as 10. 

You can apply this to any number really, so long as you have enough characters to represent the individual numbers.

Why bother though? We all understand the decimal system just fine and anyone who doesn't is hardly likely to understand something even more complex. 

Alternatively, we should move over to the Chinese system where every number has its own unique character. 

[scottsdad]

Just now, hk blues said:

Why bother though? We all understand the decimal system just fine and anyone who doesn't is hardly likely to understand something even more complex. 

Alternatively, we should move over to the Chinese system where every number has its own unique character. 

I did this stuff when doing computer studies at school, so I guess there are folk out there who use it for some reason or another. And as I said earlier, it came up in the Star Trek 25th Anniversary computer game. 

I remember doing factorising equations at school and one of my classmates doing his nut in asking why we were learning it as nobody would ever use it in real life. I have been using them for 20 years.

[101]

Celebrity deaths being touted as threads before being deleted, that's twice this year Seth MacFarlane the latest "victim" Johnny Depp was the last one to receive that treatment.

[hk blues]

6 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

I did this stuff when doing computer studies at school, so I guess there are folk out there who use it for some reason or another. And as I said earlier, it came up in the Star Trek 25th Anniversary computer game. 

I remember doing factorising equations at school and one of my classmates doing his nut in asking why we were learning it as nobody would ever use it in real life. I have been using them for 20 years.

I was that boy.

[hk blues]

9 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

I did this stuff when doing computer studies at school, so I guess there are folk out there who use it for some reason or another. And as I said earlier, it came up in the Star Trek 25th Anniversary computer game. 

I remember doing factorising equations at school and one of my classmates doing his nut in asking why we were learning it as nobody would ever use it in real life. I have been using them for 20 years.

Isn't there something to be said for the argument that such complex Maths has no place in basic education and should be reserved purely for those who have a specific interest in it?  Arithmetic has a real-life application but (much) less so Maths beyond the very basic stuff.  

[coprolite]

14 minutes ago, hk blues said:

Why bother though? We all understand the decimal system just fine and anyone who doesn't is hardly likely to understand something even more complex. 

Alternatively, we should move over to the Chinese system where every number has its own unique character. 

Computers don't understand decimal though. They work on binary. 

Humans don't work on binary so well, but binary doesn't convert well to decimal. Starting a new "level" in hexadecimal coincides with a place value in binary. 0F to 10 is 1111 to 10000, 1F to 20 is 11111 to 100000. I guess it's harder to make typos and easier to spot them if you're typing something more easy to read than a jumble of 1s and zeros. 

I'd be in favour of reinstating the old babylonian base 64 numbers. Far more elegant symmetry than our ape digit based system. 

[hk blues]

Just now, coprolite said:

Computers don't understand decimal though. They work on binary. 

Humans don't work on binary so well, but binary doesn't convert well to decimal. Starting a new "level" in hexadecimal coincides with a place value in binary. 0F to 10 is 1111 to 10000, 1F to 20 is 11111 to 100000. I guess it's harder to make typos and easier to spot them if you're typing something more easy to read than a jumble of 1s and zeros. 

I'd be in favour of reinstating the old babylonian base 64 numbers. Far more elegant symmetry than our ape digit based system. 

[welshbairn]

5 minutes ago, hk blues said:

Isn't there something to be said for the argument that such complex Maths has no place in basic education and should be reserved purely for those who have a specific interest in it?  Arithmetic has a real-life application but (much) less so Maths beyond the very basic stuff.  

Algebra and trigonometry have all sorts of real life applications. It's much easier if you learn the basics at school than starting from scratch if you need to use triangulation for a diy project or work later on, for example.

[hk blues]

Just now, welshbairn said:

Algebra and trigonometry have all sorts of real life applications. It's much easier if you learn the basics at school than starting from scratch if you need to use triangulation for a diy project or work later on, for example.

Agreed - that's why I said include the basics.

That said, I think it's exaggerated how useful such stuff is in later life - I can only recall it being useful once when I was fitting some moulding and needed to work out an angle.  And, it was so long ago that I had studied it there was no way I was remembering so a call to the old man was required.

 

[welshbairn]

4 minutes ago, hk blues said:

Agreed - that's why I said include the basics.

That said, I think it's exaggerated how useful such stuff is in later life - I can only recall it being useful once when I was fitting some moulding and needed to work out an angle.  And, it was so long ago that I had studied it there was no way I was remembering so a call to the old man was required.

 

I was rubbish at it at school so I'd have no chance working it out now. I couldn't get past needing to know why and how mathematical things work instead of just following the procedure to find the answer. Approaching infinity my arse, what's all that about?!?