Frazz by Jef Mallett for September 25, 2022

The ancient Egyptians counted to base 20 because they wore open toed sandals, and some places in Europe, shepherds counted to base 5 because they held the crook in one hand and counted on the other. Of course there are some families who are so inbred that they count to base 12.

How about elephants? They can do Up/Down for counting, and I’d bet they’d be great at handling a mouse.

What baffles me is that if we did base our counting system on the number of fingers we have, we should be using Base 11.

Think about it. The first digit in the numbering system would be the number of fingers, while the next number (10) would be the next higher one.

The United States of America was one of the first countries to adopt a base-10 monetary system, and one of the last to adopt a base-10 measuring system.

Back in the 60s, there were articles in places like Analog Magazine of Science Fact and Fiction that talked about such things. Most of them came down on the side of octal, which fits neatly into powers of two AND is nearer human scale. I was fascinated. But later, when I became a professional programmer, I found (and still find) that hexadecimal works better for me. Just as nice a fit for binary, but most “interesting” codes fit into only 4 digits where in octal they usually take 6. (Decimal takes 5 for similar range).

There are some cultures (can’t remember which ones, too lazy to look) where they use base 8, because they use the gaps between the fingers.

Base 12 gives you nice decimals when you’re dividing by 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6; Base 10 only does that for 1, 2, and 5.

Q: Why do programmers always get Christmas and Halloween mixed up?

A: Because DEC 25 = OCT 31

I can’t count to 21 unless I’m naked.

I don’t count at all. I just say; “this bunch is bigger than that bunch.”

Different ‘metrics’ (chuckle).

I dunno. Some stuff out of DC or various corporate announcements make less sense than anything a pinnipede might produce on a keyboard.

Never mind binary. Heard of Qbits?

The dolphins actually ran things, then left before the Vogons bulldozed Earth to clear the way for the new intergalactic highway

Our counting system is based on our fingers. Our language systems are based on air through the passage from our lungs through our lips. Our measurement system WAS based on the length of our knuckles, arms, and feet. And yet our humor system is based on … our clumsiness and our rectum sounds? We need to improve!

Can’t remember which civilization it was but they had ‘1 through 10 and then many’.

The only thing you can really count on these days is your fingers.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who know binary, and those who don’t.

Ancient cultures used base 60 counting, before the West encountered Indian and Arabian numberings. The Indians gave us the concept of zero, and the Arabs gave us numerals AND Algebra (and lots of other things)

Not to mention the important occupation of cartooning.

Seals can be trained to play horns with their mouth/nose, don’t know how they know which one makes which sound.

The Sumerians used a base 60 hexadecimal system.

“And tell me grey seal

How does it feel

To be so wise

To see through eyes

That only see what’s real

Tell me grey seal”