9mo ago

Every base is base 10

196 comments

I like the detail that there alien has 4(10) fingers as opposed to the 10(22) that the human has.
- Now I get the joke.
  Thanks!

Can we all use base 12?
It will be a shower of shit for like 50 years but then it will be marginally better for pretty much everyone.
- 42* years. Centuries are now 84 years. We are living in the 19th century! I rate this idea 12/12.
  
  5/7 movie
  
  I rate it A/10, it's a really efficient numbering system but I personally will have a really hard time adjusting
- 50 years? I bet we couldn't even agree on how to write "11" & "12" on such short notice. (See: date format, encoding, etc)
  
  Well we write 12 like this: 10
  It's easy
  
  we could just go with the hexidecimal way and go with A,B,C for 10,11 and 12
  
  The current standard seems to be an upside down 2 and 3
- Some people argue that it would be harder to count on your fingers but we could just surgically give everyone more?
  
  There are 12 sections on your fingers (excluding your thumb) you then use your thumb to count to 12 on one hand.
  Two hands can allow you to count to 24. Which is way higher than 10. Base 12 is better!
  
  Binary is very good for counting with your fingers. With both hands you can count to 1023. One hand is 31, which is still usually more than you typically need to count. It's also trivial to do once you know how binary works. It takes very little thought, though potentially the decoding could take a bit depending on your proficiency.
  
  When was the last time you've actually needed to count something on your fingers?
  
  Billions of years ago, our collective great-great-great-[several million more]-grandparent evolved a fin with a five bone structure. That idiot didn't know anything about common denominators, and now we're stuck with this numeric system that can't divide things into thirds without causing issues.
- This would be great. I was researching why we don't have 10 based clocks and then I saw a video about why a 12 and 60 based system is actually much more convenient and now I would love a 'dozen based metric system'
- 50 years? We can't even switch to metric.
  
  Every civilised country on earth uses metric.
  Only the really shitty ones use imperial. Imperial is just stupid (unless you count in base 12 ironically)
- Why base 12 though? Base 16 is even better. And base 60 is even better than that!
  
  Common denominators. You can divide base 12 into half, thirds, fourths, and sixths and still use integers. I find thirds to be particularly useful, so base 16 is out. Base 60 can do it, but that's getting unweildly.
  
  Base 69?
- nah we should use binary, anything else is cringe.
- so, 60 years in base 10
- Or better yet, base 6?
- That's Acadian, right? It was originally based on the number of easy to count bones in your fingers (12-24)

There are 10 types of people: Those who understand binary and those who don't.
- And those who didn’t expect the joke to be in base 3
  
  You forgot the ones who expected it to be in base 4.

Based.
- https://piped.video/watch?v=qDVX_CizAdg?si=6EV3KEGrZdFITYK3

I like that the alien has 4 fingers. Fitting!
- It's 10 fingers. Just keep your freaky 11 finger hands of this serious discussion
  
  Wouldn't it be 22?

There are only 10 ways of doing things: the right way and the wrong way. (Programming joke)
- There are actually 00000000000000000000000000000010 ways of doing things (in most languages)
- Will only if your language is 1-index based, yuck. Otherwise there is just 0 and 1 way
  
  Binary is the best base.

Huh, that's a good point. A better universal naming system would be something like "Base x+1", with x being one integer lower than 10. So humans would use Base 9+1, and the alien would use Base 3+1.
*This has been on my mind all day and the more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes how fundamentally terrible the name "Base-10" is. How did this never occur to the people who coined the term? Even the system I suggested is flawed as it's still trying to incorporate the same bad logic.
A better system would be something like Base 9, stopping shy of the respective 10 in each system, or if it needs to be clarified, Base 9+0, as 0 is the extra digit in the first place, not 10.
- we'd only be able to represent bases for numbers with one digit though because what does base 15+1 mean? the 15 could be in any base higher than 5. the clearest way would probably be to just represent it with lines or something "base ||||||||||"
  
  Base 16 is typically represented with letters being used as the extra numerals, so it would end up being F+1. Problem solved.
  
  It's only 15 to us because we use base 10 (or 9+1). Like how we have 4 through 9, but that aliens in the picture only count up to 3.
  In the case of a mismatch, the culture using the higher base would just translate down (Base 21+1 in the given scenario).
  Single units would probably be the simplest method, but also wildly impractical as the base gets higher. You really want to count each digit just to figure out someone uses Base 100?
  
  wait until you find out about hexadecimal systems. It turns out we already have words for referring to numbers lol.
- What about Roman numerals?
  
  I think that would confuse things more than it would help. It's base 5, unless it's base 10, unless it's base 50, etc. And then there's the rules designating numbers 1 below certain other numbers, or 2 below, depending on the system being used. That's a whole web of complications when communication is already murky.
  One glyph to one integer communicates the number system being used more clearly.
- I use base 8+1. What is 9?

All your base belong to us
- Not to be that guy - just to make sure you nail it perfectly next time - it's "all your base are belong to us"
  
  What you say?

Wow I never thought about that.
But it is always like this:
undefined

let there be any base "b" That can represent a number by the sum of their positional digits: number = sum(d_i * b ^ i) where i is the position index and d_i is the digit at this position. (note: index starts with 0, from the least digit farthest to the right)
So the (decimal) number 4 in base 4 is then
undefined

1×4¹ + 0×4^0 = 10
And (decimal) number 8 in base 8 is
undefined

1×8¹ + 0×8^0 = 10
And 10 in base 10:
undefined

1×10¹ + 0×10^0 = 10
- All your bases belong to 10
  
  All your base are belong to 10
- Which is why to write hexadecimal, we added letters to it, because there isn't a digit for "12".

I get this comic which is about translation errors.
Comments are wildly off ....
....BASE!
- Clearly the human uses base 22.
  
  That's very clever. Maths checks out.

Octal is base 8. Decimal is base A. Hexadecimal is base G. Any questions?
- Jesus Christ.
  I just realized that we call binary base2 and there's no 2 in that numbering system. We call hexadecimal base16 but there's no 16 (at least not like we know it). But then why is base10 base10? We have a 10...but it's not a single digit number.
  Why is this reminding me of Project Hail Mary?
  
  Every base has ten, but it's made of two digits
  Binary 0, 1, 10 Ternary 0, 1, 2, 10 ... Decimal 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Hex 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10
  Each has the right count of digits for its base before you go two-digit - binary has two (0, 1), etc
  
  It's because we count the 0...... no? 0 and 1, base 2. 0123456789, base 10.
  
  because then every base would be 'base 10'
  That or the decriarchy has been normalizing the decimal counting system as the default one for far too long!
  
  Love that book!
  
  (There is no 10 in base-10, which is why we construct it out of two other numbers)
- What is this “8” you refer to? Here in the land of people without thumbs, 10 comes after 7.
  
  If you have a problem with that you must also have a problem with the other two
- What about unniftimal? (Base 37)
  
  If there's no agreed symbol for digit 37, you can call it Base 37_A (or express it in another base of your choosing).
  In case the formatting doesn't work, that A is supposed to be subscript
- every unsigned system is base -1 ...or maybe -1+1

Only when written, which is the whole point of notation. "Ten" is still a fixed amount, and so is four.
- "ten" is a fixed amount in base 10. A base 4 user may have an entirely different naming system for numbers above 3, so "ten" (which is written as 22 in base 4) could be twenty two, twoty two, dbgluqboq, or Janet. But similarly to how we don't have a single syllable, dedicated number name for decimal 22 (as in, it's composed of the number names 'twenty' and 'two'), they may not have a single syllable, dedicated number name for decimal 10 (which is '22' in base 4).
  
  No, ten is a fixed amount in English. It has roots in base ten, but we also have eleven and twelve from other bases. (also dozen, gross, score.) In English there is no ambiguity when it comes to what number the word ten represents.
- even when written out non base ten systems, are still possible to be non base ten.
  It's only base ten when you convert from one base system to another. We are merely referencing between two base systems when we say that 4 bits is "16" because there are 16 possible options there. 16 is just our conceptualized version and conversion of that base system, in ours. You can read binary as if it's just powers of 2, it's incredibly trivial.
  octal and hex are the best example of this, because octal skips numbers while counting. Hex introduces letters. Neither of which fly even remotely sanely through base ten. Unless you're converting.

This one took me a bit.

Looks like 0100 rocks to me
- That's not 64 rocks
  Edit: In C any number that starts with 0 is implicitly interpreted as an octal.
  undefined
  
  int i = 0100; // this is octal 100 i.e. 64
  I can tell from the upovotes vs. downvotes that I'm too old
  
  00 = 0 01 = 1 10 = 2 11 = 3 100 = 4 .....

Fuck I am so lost
- A base 4 number system has 4 numbers in it: 0, 1, 2, and 3.
  After 3 the next numbers are 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 21, etc.
  A base 10 number system has 10 numbers in it, 0 through 9.
  Hexadecimal is base 16: 0-9 followed by A-F
  The alien using a "base 4" number system does not have a single digit for the number "4". They represent four of something with the number "10", so for them, their four digit number system is "base 10".
  
  Based
  Also decided not to invite because this comment is at 69 and I can't think of anything more based than that.
- The number x when written in base x is always 10 for any value of x.
- The alien has 4 fingers, and writes base 4 as "base 10". It's basically just a translation problem.
- Same here. I read all the comments and still don't understand the joke.
  
  From the aliens perspective 4 is 10 and it's represented that way so, while having a different meaning, to the alien it is base 10.

Took me a moment

The most reliable way to communicate bases would probably be using unary. Now if your alien is using unary, that might not work, but it should for all higher bases.
- I'm not sure if I fully understand.
  I was thinking, wouldn't it be easiest to describe the system you use by taking the last number in your first decimum and then saying you increment it with one?
  E.g. for base ten this would be: base 9 + 1
  For binary it would be: base 1 + 1
  For hexadecimal it would be: base F + 1
  Etc.
  
  But if you're talking to an alien that uses base 4, they don't know what you mean by "base 9+1". Wtf is a 9?

"2.5, 5, 7.5, TEN! See?"
- Two point what?

🤯

10 is actually only 2. The number of people misunderstanding binary here is mind blowing xD.
- Not sure of you're trolling or not...

I remember someone trying to come up with a solution to this by generating a name for every single base, dunno if they've succeeded or not tho

This is why I say "10" is not a number, it just means one big group and zero remainder.
I am a huuuuge proponent of dozenal (base-12)

not base 1100; and it's round!

Plot twist: there are 8 other stones and the alien is really using base 10 (or base 30 if you use base 4)
- base 10 (in decimal) is expressed as "22" in base 4. 2*4 + 2
  
  If there are 8 more stones...
  Hate to explain my joke but I used yet another base

Thanks. I realized the typo after I saved. Oh well.

Base is for running on after hitting the ball.

This cartoon is incomplete. Suck my cock all the way down to the base is the end.

every base is not base ten, and i will fight you on this one.
binary is base two, or as i like to refer to it, the power of 2 base.
- /r/swoosh
  PS: Is there an equivalent in Lemmy for this yet?
  
  waiting until people realize i said ten, instead of 10.
- In every base, a 1 in the second spot corresponds to the name of the base.

196 comments