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Pick a number between 1 and 10
Fred Nerd:
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who know trinary.
@renegade I challenge you to find another base system which has the series 1, [another number] and 10.
As for how they're spoken, I don't know.
Although I would imagine Octal is spoken like the decimal it looks like e.g. 27oct would be Twenty-Seven, octal.
Hex is annoying because it can't be spoken in a lot of cases so it has to be spelled out.
Decimal is annoying because people keep saying things like 'a couple' 'a dozen' 'a grand'
Not to mention plumber's numbers where $150 turns out to be really $375.
Renegade:
I forget where, but I have seen some proposals for speaking non-base 10 numbers. However, part of the point of language is to communicate, and secret languages for which only a few initiates exist do not really serve well for general communication.
The most common non-base 10 system in use is base 60, which is used to tell time. When speaking "11:00" we still stay "eleven o'clock", the same as in base 10.
While "10" could be construed as ambiguous for "two" or "eight" or "ten" or "sixteen", etc., it's disingenuous to assume anything other than base 10 in normal situations. There are only a few places where we might wonder, but those situations are almost always explicitly clear, e.g. 0x10 indicates that we're using base 16, and when they are not, they are made clear.
Relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordplay_(The_Twilight_Zone)
Also...
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12/12-h/12-h.htm 8)
'And only ONE for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!'
'I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master—that's all.'
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they're the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'
'Would you tell me, please,' said Alice 'what that means?'
'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'
'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
--- End quote ---
Renegade:
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who know trinary.
@renegade I challenge you to find another base system which has the series 1, [another number] and 10.
-Fred Nerd (February 27, 2015, 07:40 PM)
--- End quote ---
Good joke, and good example! :)
There are no other systems that fit there. That's only trinary.
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10...
As there the only possible base is octal.
As for how they're spoken, I don't know.
Although I would imagine Octal is spoken like the decimal it looks like e.g. 27oct would be Twenty-Seven, octal.
-Fred Nerd (February 27, 2015, 07:40 PM)
--- End quote ---
I don't use octal much at all, and probably only a handful of times over the years. But any base less than 10 could use that convention. It would seem odd though saying binary 100 as "one hundred". With binary we're accustomed to still saying the number as it is instead of "reading" it, i.e. "four" in that case. But, I think binary is pretty commonly used and understood, comparatively.
Hex is annoying because it can't be spoken in a lot of cases so it has to be spelled out.
-Fred Nerd (February 27, 2015, 07:40 PM)
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That's how I say hex -- just reading out digits.
Not to mention plumber's numbers where $150 turns out to be really $375.
-Fred Nerd (February 27, 2015, 07:40 PM)
--- End quote ---
Hahaha! :D
In some circles, they quite literally say "plus alpha".
MilesAhead:
Not to mention plumber's numbers where $150 turns out to be really $375
-Fred Nerd (February 27, 2015, 07:40 PM)
--- End quote ---
And air conditioner air filters that aren't the specified size. You have to know the fudge factor when buying them, especially online.
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