Thread: There are 10 kinds of people

When she was little, I taught D1 to count in binary on her fingers - 1 was on the table, 0 was in the air. Any wonder she's now a software engineer?

... and for me its still gone whoooosh

Don't feel too bad Rod. The joke would be understood by nary a person in the world.



I'll get my coat on the way out...
SWK

Ok, I did not start this to make anyone feel inferior for not understanding, and I apologise to those who feel left out, time for an explanation.

Binary notation is the basis for computing and is simply numbers expressed to base 2 instead of base 10 as we use all he time.

Starting from the right hand figure the columns are counted as 1,2,4 8 16, 32 and so on. a 1 in the column counts that much and a 0 counts for nothing.

so, 1,2,3,4,5,6 in base 10 is represented in binary by 0001, 0010, 0011, 0100, 0101, 0110.

So back to the original joke:

There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary notation and those who dont.

the 10 in binary is 2 in base 10, so it is just saying using binary numbers the same as saying there are 2 kinds of people.

After the confusion this has caused, dont anyone dare start on hexadecimal.

I hope this helps. now that you know what we were going on about, go back and read the other posts again, some are quite clever.

Cheers

Doug

"There are only 10 types of people in the world – those who understand ternary, those who don’t, and those who mistake it for binary."

Originally Posted by Pac man

"There are only 10 types of people in the world – those who understand ternary, those who don’t, and those who mistake it for binary."

Ok I just explained binary, YOU brought up ternary, maybe YOU better explain it before all holy $h!+ breaks loose.

Originally Posted by doug3030

Ok I just explained binary, YOU brought up ternary, maybe YOU better explain it before all holy $h!+ breaks loose.

I'm not sure I can.

Originally Posted by doug3030

After the confusion this has caused, dont anyone dare start on hexadecimal.

Let me handle this one. They are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand hexadecimal and those who don't.

Originally Posted by Wongo

Let me handle this one. They are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand hexadecimal and those who don't.

What can I say? Nice work Wongo. I knew I could rely on someone to take over where I left off. How did I just somehow know it would be you?

A really professional, well researched, thoughtful response that brings greater understanding and compassion to our little corner of the world - yeah.

Seriously. I really felt that binary notation was not so obscure as to cause a few people to react the way they did to this thread. It was great to have those who understood having their fun with their clever responses but I never intended it to exclude anyone from the fun or belittle anyone for not understanding. Unfortunately a couple of members took it that way and I feel embarrassed for putting them in that situation. That is why I made the post explaining binary notation.

Wongo, can you please explain how your post is in any way, in the context of this thread, either:

- helpful,
- relevant, or
- funny.

Wongo is taking us to a new level of obscurity, with a sort of mathematical mixed metaphor.

The reference to hexadecimal in his statement is a red herring. He made a statement with exactly two possible answers, so the number "10" in his statement must mean "2" in the real world. Which means that "10" is the binary expression for "2" and not a hexadecimal expression.

Hexadecimal is a sort of programmer's shorthand. I could give you a long and boring explanation of how and why it's used, but that ate up too many years of my life and I'd like to put it behind me. If you are really that interested, check Wikipedia.

Suffice it to say, if the "10" in Wongo's statement was a hexadecimal number, it would equate to 16 in base 10 (our normal way of counting). So if we read it as "There are 16 kinds of people in the world..." it isn't true, but if we read it as "There are 2 kinds of people in the world..." it makes perfect sense. In an obscure sort of way.

Taking us further along this confusing and probably pointless road:

There are 10 kinds of people in the world:

1. Those who understand Quaternary numbering and care
2. Those who understand Quaternary numbering and don't care
3. Those who don't understand Quaternary numbering and care
10. Those who don't understand Quaternary numbering and don't care.

Hands up everyone in the last group?

I would actually be in group 2, unless i reply in binary then the 2 would be expressed as 10 which in quaternary still means I don't care.

Originally Posted by switt775

Those who don't understand Quaternary numbering and don't care.

Now that makes sense of it all.

Peter.

I am past caring!!

I hope no one tries to take a byte out of my bit, I might feel lesser for it!!