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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Why UKIP Really is Scum
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
[qb] ...a lot of people would be asking 'is this really the best use of taxpayers' money?'
Such questions are most frequently asked by those who try to pay as little tax as possible.
Trying not to waste taxpayers' money is not a bad thing. It is a very sensible thing to do.
*tidies nesting*
I wouldn't disagree. It's just that those who who advocate not wasting it tend to include those who advocate not paying it in the first place. aka - neoliberals.
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.
Are speedometers there not marked in both MPH and km/h?
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.
It's functional to the extent that it's a system that people use and understand. If a roadsign says '14 kilometres' but a lot of people don't really have a feel for what 14 kilometres is, then it's not really functional, surely?
An awful lot of people have no idea how far even a mile is. You really don't want to use this line of defence...
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.
Are speedometers there not marked in both MPH and km/h?
Actually yes, but mph is in big numbers on the outside of the dial, and kph is in little numbers on the inside - obviously for the use of those so very few British people who dare venture abroad.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
An awful lot of people have no idea how far even a mile is. You really don't want to use this line of defence...
It seems a perfectly sensible argument to me. Look, I accept that the metric system has made big in-roads into everyday life in Britain, especially with things like small measurements, the temperature, volume, and so forth. But lots and lots of people still think about large distances in terms of miles. This is probably largely because roadsigns are still in miles.
Do some people struggle estimating distances? Yes, I'm sure some do, but I'm sure more people have got an idea of what five miles looks like than what eight kilometres looks like.
Even putting aside issues like cost, ripping out every roadsign which has miles printed on it seems to work aggressively against the grain of how a great number of people naturally think. I don't understand why anyone would want to do that.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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MarsmanTJ
Shipmate
# 8689
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Even putting aside issues like cost, ripping out every roadsign which has miles printed on it seems to work aggressively against the grain of how a great number of people naturally think. I don't understand why anyone would want to do that.
Well because ripping out every road sign which has miles printed on it is just a totally stupid idea and always has been. What SHOULD have happened twenty or thirty years ago is that all new signs should have had both printed on them, then progressively phase out the miles signs on new road signs over a period of time. And how much work would it be for speed limit signs to have a K on it so that people new whether it was a new speed limit or an old speed limit when both are marked on cars?
Posts: 238 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Lucia
Looking for light
# 15201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.
It's functional to the extent that it's a system that people use and understand. If a roadsign says '14 kilometres' but a lot of people don't really have a feel for what 14 kilometres is, then it's not really functional, surely?
This is just familiarity. After 8 years of living in countries with all distances marked in KM and a car speedo that tells me only kmph I think I've got as much of a feel for it as for miles. Actually I quite like KM, when you are traveling a long distance the numbers go down faster - good for keeping kids happy who keep asking 'Are we nearly there yet?' (Admittedly the number to start with is higher in KM, but hey, you can't have everything!)
The main argument against changing to KM in the UK is surely the cost involved. The majority of people would get used to it and those who grew up with it would not have a problem. I feel the same about other metric measures. If I'm weighing or measuring I'm quite happy with metric. That's what I grew up with. For temperature Fahrenheit doesn't really mean much to me. But I confess to knowing my weigh in pounds and my height in feet and inches better than their metric equivalents!
Posts: 1075 | From: Nigh golden stone and spires | Registered: Oct 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
The real question is, how much benefit would we actually get for doing it? Very few of us would see any improvement, and many - myself included - would be worse off as we have to completely relearn how to estimate journey times. Not to mention the fact that the government would almost certainly take the opportunity to reduce the maximum speed at which we can drive.
Most of us don't go abroad frequently, and for the most part when we do we don't take our cars. Who would benefit from changing the entire road network to metric? Is there any point to it at all, other than "lots of other countries do it"?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I'm sure more people have got an idea of what five miles looks like than what eight kilometres looks like.
Even though I know, intellectually, that they're the same distance*, I can still picture one but not the other. And if someone asked me how far eight kilometres was, I'd still have to convert it to miles before saying "it's about the distance from here to the town centre".
.
*= well, nearly.
[ 20. October 2014, 16:41: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lucia:
The main argument against changing to KM in the UK is surely the cost involved.
No, the main argument against it is that there's no fucking point. What we've got works perfectly well. It ain't broke, so it don't need fixing.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
Are speedometers there not marked in both MPH and km/h?
Actually yes, but mph is in big numbers on the outside of the dial, and kph is in little numbers on the inside - obviously for the use of those so very few British people who dare venture abroad.
Ah - same as ours, then. Thanks.
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
You start introducing other number systems and things will get more confused (besides the issue of having to grow more fingers.)
If we use binary then we can keep the same number of fingers and be able to count up to 1023, or rather 1111111111.
I can't wait to see how you switch your fingers to the 'off' position.
I'm not going to take a photo, I'm afraid, but if you hold up both hands then extended fingers are "on" and curled fingers are "off". Very simple. I would usually start counting with the thumb of my right hand.
Except you're not "counting". You're adding base 2 figures in your head. And yes, combinations of 10 fingers might be enough to visually represent 1023 different numbers in base 2, but it's a pretty damn weird notion of counting involved which says "oh yes, that's my 2 to the 9th finger, that's my 2 to the 6th finger, my 2 to the 4th finger, 2 to the 3rd finger, so that makes..."
It's not anywhere near as intuitive as giving each of your fingers equal value.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Lucia:
The main argument against changing to KM in the UK is surely the cost involved.
No, the main argument against it is that there's no fucking point. What we've got works perfectly well. It ain't broke, so it don't need fixing.
Until the next crash of a spacecraft into Mars. 193 million dollars gone up in smoke because of having two different systems, if you want to talk about costs and whether there's any point.
What you've got works perfectly well so long as you live on your own little island and never talk to anyone else. Meanwhile, you're using the internet. So it's up to you. You can walk away now, or you can continue to live in the wider world.
[ 20. October 2014, 22:02: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
Are speedometers there not marked in both MPH and km/h?
Actually yes, but mph is in big numbers on the outside of the dial, and kph is in little numbers on the inside - obviously for the use of those so very few British people who dare venture abroad.
Ah - same as ours, then. Thanks.
I'm assuming, though, that made-for-Europe cars (like the Opal Mrs Tor briefly owned) don't have mph on their dials, and simply have to convert from kph if they drive in the UK.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Our use of mph is quaint, and possibly endearing. But not necessary or functional. If we woke up tomorrow morning and all driving related signs had switched miles for kilometres, along with our speedos, then outside of a week no one would care.
Perhaps - though I suspect you're severely underestimating people's capacity to care about trivial stuff.
But it's not clear to me what the big payoff is supposed to be in this area. It seems to me that road distances and speeds are among the things least likely to show benefits from conversion. They're not tradable goods; vehicles are easily modified for import and export*; and even the ease of sliding the decimal isn't worth much, since presumably there's as little need to convert from kilometers to meters while driving as there is from miles to yards.
*well, aside from the whole left/right thing, which wouldn't be solved by metrification anyway...
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
What we've got works perfectly well. It ain't broke, so it don't need fixing.
That's myopic as fuck, and an utter failure to consider reality. By such an argument, you'd have us transferring goods by oxen and communicating by written letters. Incremental improvements are how real improvements happen.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The real question is, how much benefit would we actually get for doing it? Very few of us would see any improvement, and many - myself included - would be worse off as we have to completely relearn how to estimate journey times. Not to mention the fact that the government would almost certainly take the opportunity to reduce the maximum speed at which we can drive.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
When I started this thread I sugggested that Nigel Farage and UKIP weren't blessed with a whole lot of integrity or humanity for that matter. It has become whingefest over measuring systems.
Has it actually been agreed that UKIPs policies and leadership are a nasty bunch, or does anyone have anything good to say for UKIP per se?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Except you're not "counting". You're adding base 2 figures in your head. And yes, combinations of 10 fingers might be enough to visually represent 1023 different numbers in base 2, but it's a pretty damn weird notion of counting involved which says "oh yes, that's my 2 to the 9th finger, that's my 2 to the 6th finger, my 2 to the 4th finger, 2 to the 3rd finger, so that makes..."
It's not anywhere near as intuitive as giving each of your fingers equal value.
I don't recall claiming it was just as intuitive, it's clearly not. It is, however, still counting. I know this because I can change the pattern of fingers in a logical sequence, representing each whole number after the other. It's no different in principle from the odometer of a car. Would you deny that an odometer counts the number of miles travelled?
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Has it actually been agreed that UKIPs policies and leadership are a nasty bunch, or does anyone have anything good to say for UKIP per se?
Well, they've given Mike Read's career a new boost.
Oh. Wait.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Would you deny that an odometer counts the number of miles travelled?
Nope.
quote:
It's no different in principle from the odometer of a car.
What the fuck? That would be the odometer that uses base 10, you mean? All you're basically saying are that columns are columns. And that base 2 columns operate just like base 10 columns.
No shit. That still doesn't mean that your fingers operate like columns or rotate like an odometer. If they did, you could swish each of your fingers through 10 positions just as easily as you can rotate them through 2. But you can't, so it isn't at all the same, and your analytical skills are terrible.
[ 21. October 2014, 12:27: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Marvin: quote:
Very few of us would see any improvement, and many - myself included - would be worse off as we have to completely relearn how to estimate journey times.
I don't usually bother trying to work out exactly how far away something is in either miles or kilometres. The important question is, how long will it take to get there? Where I live the answer to this question can vary a lot, depending on what time of day it is, whether there are any roadworks on the route, how many alternative ways of getting there exist and whether it's the school holidays (we have just as much traffic in the school holidays but at different times of the day).
quote:
Not to mention the fact that the government would almost certainly take the opportunity to reduce the maximum speed at which we can drive.
Well, they might. Or they might just do a straight conversion of mph to kph and wait for the applause from people who don't know the conversion rates and think they've increased the speed limit.
If they reduced the limit to 30 kph in built-up areas it would probably be good for the environment - and might encourage more people to switch to cycling, because a moderately fit cyclist can do 30 kph on a good road.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Sioni: quote:
Has it actually been agreed that UKIPs policies and leadership are a nasty bunch, or does anyone have anything good to say for UKIP per se?
<makes an effort to find something positive to say about UKIP>
Well... they make the Tories look relatively sane, leading me to realise that things could be worse.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
That still doesn't mean that your fingers operate like columns or rotate like an odometer. If they did, you could swish each of your fingers through 10 positions just as easily as you can rotate them through 2.
I can see that you kind of think this is true, but perhaps have lost sight of the possibility that this is only true for you. Learning to count in binary on one's fingers is not only possible, it's pretty easy. And, in fact, kind of common in my social circle.
Kind of like programming in python, really. Looks hard only to people who haven't bothered trying to learn.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Learning to count in binary on one's fingers is not only possible, it's pretty easy. And, in fact, kind of common in my social circle.
The interesting argument is whether it's right to count in straight binary or Gray code.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
Yes, let's have an engineers v mathematicians battle alongside the for and against positions on Europe and metrication.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Doc Tor: I'm assuming, though, that made-for-Europe cars (like the Opal Mrs Tor briefly owned) don't have mph on their dials, and simply have to convert from kph if they drive in the UK.
Some of them have km/h in big letters and mph in small letters.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
You forgot the cyclists lobbying for lane diets, sane speed limits, and more bums on bikes.
Before anyone gets any bright ideas, given This Hellhost's known hobbies and passions: don't. I play with transit policy all day as it is, and you wouldn't like me when I'm grumpy.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Yes, let's have an engineers v mathematicians battle alongside the for and against positions on Europe and metrication.
That's never a fair fight. We mathematicians throw around ideas in n-dimensional space and maybe even launch projectiles made out of chalk (which invariably miss, as our idealised world has no air resistance) while engineers build the weapons that destroy the world!
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
When I started this thread I sugggested that Nigel Farage and UKIP weren't blessed with a whole lot of integrity or humanity for that matter. It has become whingefest over measuring systems.
Has it actually been agreed that UKIPs policies and leadership are a nasty bunch, or does anyone have anything good to say for UKIP per se?
The irony is that they all love Maggie. But if the EU is the ghastly tyranny they all claim then, surely, it would be better by far if Michael Foot had won the 1983 election. The fact is the last time a General Election was contested on an in-out basis the party of out got 28% of the vote and were comprehensively stuffed by the parties of in which got 68%.
As Mike Read might put it:
Oh yeah, we love Maggie, it's a painful irony.
For Michael Foot, we should have made a racket,
But we got distracted by his donkey jacket.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
That still doesn't mean that your fingers operate like columns or rotate like an odometer. If they did, you could swish each of your fingers through 10 positions just as easily as you can rotate them through 2.
I can see that you kind of think this is true, but perhaps have lost sight of the possibility that this is only true for you. Learning to count in binary on one's fingers is not only possible, it's pretty easy. And, in fact, kind of common in my social circle.
Kind of like programming in python, really. Looks hard only to people who haven't bothered trying to learn.
The paragraph you quoted has precious little to do with your response.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The paragraph you quoted has precious little to do with your response.
The stance you are making has precious little to do with reality. Seemed appropriately absurd to highlight.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The paragraph you quoted has precious little to do with your response.
The stance you are making has precious little to do with reality. Seemed appropriately absurd to highlight.
The absurdity was the whole point. It's absurd to compare fingers to odometers. They don't operate on the same mechanical principles.
The other absurdity is comparing linear counting to column adding. How far can you count on fingers in base 10? You can count to 10 to the power of 1, because that's how many fingers you have. It is not the case that people operate their fingers as a 1s column, a 10s column, a 100s column and so on.
If you want to count in the same fashion in binary, the furthest you can get is 2 (or 11). Using 2 fingers. After that you're not counting in the same fashion. You're adding columns instead. It's not the same method and doesn't work in the same way.
[ 22. October 2014, 02:04: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
Oh, I see. You're arguing that you're an idiot.
There's this fabulous invention called "the internet", wherein one can search for - and learn about - all sorts of things. Google "counting in binary on your fingers". Feel free to choose either the many long-form descriptions, or the helpful videos.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Kind of like programming in python, really. Looks hard only to people who haven't bothered trying to learn.
I'm trying to learn to program in Python right now, and my fucking code won't work tonight, so it seems hard enough to me at the moment!
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Oh, I see. You're arguing that you're an idiot.
There's this fabulous invention called "the internet", wherein one can search for - and learn about - all sorts of things. Google "counting in binary on your fingers". Feel free to choose either the many long-form descriptions, or the helpful videos.
I'm not arguing it can't be done. I'm arguing it's not completely analogous. How-to videos aren't going to help.
It's completely stupid to argue "an odometer can count distance so therefore my fingers can perform binary calculations". That is the non sequitur that I was responding to.
[ 22. October 2014, 08:09: Message edited by: orfeo ]
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It's completely stupid to argue "an odometer can count distance so therefore my fingers can perform binary calculations". That is the non sequitur that I was responding to.
It's not a non-sequitur because that wasn't the argument, numbnuts.
a) we were talking about counting, not calculations in general
b) the comparison was between the way in which the dial on an odometer works (i.e. each column has a different value) is comparable to counting in binary on your fingers
c) they're transparently not completely analogous because one is base 2 and the other is base 10
d) counting with your fingers is not the same as counting your fingers
I didn't realise you were this fucking dense. If I had I'd have broken out the multi-link and mini-whiteboard for you. Can I just check, how many fingers do you have (it seems like it might be worth checking for a case of either "normal for Norfolk" or inability to actually count)?
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
a) we were talking about counting, not calculations in general
Yes...
quote:
b) the comparison was between the way in which the dial on an odometer works (i.e. each column has a different value) is comparable to counting in binary on your fingers
Yes...
quote:
d) counting with your fingers is not the same as counting your fingers
Which is exactly my point. "Counting your fingers", as you call it, which most people just call COUNTING, is a sequential operation. And odometers also count sequentially.
I'm sure you can do binary calculations on your fingers. But are you seriously telling me you COUNT in binary, in the sequential style of an odometer, on your fingers? 00000 00001, then 00000 00010, then 00000 00011, then 00000 00100, and so on and so forth?
I bet you don't. And if you don't, then what you're doing isn't counting, and what you're doing isn't what an odometer does. A odometer just sits there rotating through digits in order and then as each column's mechanism goes from 9 back to 0 it triggers the movement of the next column along.
And if that IS what you do, it is mindbogglingly inefficient and is going to give you RSI in one of your little fingers.
The entire point of binary is that it is very useful for machines that operate in on/off states. It is not very useful for the kind of rotary mechanism involved in an odometer. Nor is it terribly good FOR COUNTING.
What you're actually talking about most of the time is representing numbers with your fingers. Of course you can do that with binary. I entirely agree you can represent numbers up to 1023 with your fingers using binary. Representing numbers isn't counting. Representing numbers isn't the function of an oodometer, it's just the displayed result.
This is precisely why I said, several posts ago:
quote:
All you're basically saying are that columns are columns. And that base 2 columns operate just like base 10 columns.
No shit.
It's mindbogglingly obvious. Columns are a method used in a massive variety of contexts to translate 10 available symbols into more than 10 numbers, or 2 available symbols into more than 2 numbers, or 16 available symbols into more than 16 numbers.
The fact that your fingers can represent columns is also mindbogglingly obvious. But that doesn't mean that your fingers operate "like an odometer". It just means your fingers operate in exactly the same way as every display of multi-symbol numbers on the entire planet. It just means that binary "10" means something different to binary "01", just as decimal "26" means something different to decimal "62".
[ 22. October 2014, 10:21: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But are you seriously telling me you COUNT in binary, in the sequential style of an odometer, on your fingers? 00000 00001, then 00000 00010, then 00000 00011, then 00000 00100, and so on and so forth?
I bet you don't. And if you don't, then what you're doing isn't counting, and what you're doing isn't what an odometer does.
It's not how I normally count, certainly (on account of having learned to count without using my fingers at all - don't worry, you'll get there one day), but I do it from time to time, and yes in the sequential way an odometer does. If it's not sequential it's not counting. Regardless of whether I actually do it or not it is certainly possible, which was what you were arguing against in the first place.
You seem to be arguing that because fingers can do other things than count like an odometer does that they cannot, in fact, count like an odometer. Talk about non-sequitur...
[ 22. October 2014, 11:00: Message edited by: Arethosemyfeet ]
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Regardless of whether I actually do it or not it is certainly possible, which was what you were arguing against in the first place.
Eh?
Emphasis added.
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Regardless of whether I actually do it or not it is certainly possible, which was what you were arguing against in the first place.
Eh?
Emphasis added.
You were claiming that it was not possible to count in binary on your fingers.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Regardless of whether I actually do it or not it is certainly possible, which was what you were arguing against in the first place.
Eh?
Emphasis added.
You were claiming that it was not possible to count in binary on your fingers.
I repeat: eh?
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Higgs Bosun
Shipmate
# 16582
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Posted
A friend at university was a mathematician and a trombone player. As the latter, he would often have to count many bars rest. So, he counted using his fingers in binary. You need to be able to move your fingers reasonably independently, but it is not actually complicated. A finger touching a surface is a '1' and not touching is a '0' (or vice-versa, of course).
More interesting would be to use a Gray code, where you only move one finger at each point. However, calculating what the number is from the positions of the fingers is much harder.
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RooK
1 of 6
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Posted
Let's be explicit:
I count to 30 on one hand in base-2 regularly. It's easy, and useful.
The progression of base-2 on the fingers is indeed like the columns on an odometer, but it's not as mind-blowing as you seem to be assuming. Though I would recommend the tapping of fingers over the extension of fingers, unless you have considerably more dexterous fingers than I.
And even though RuthW might have some compiler trouble with her python code, I'm sure she'll freely admit that python makes programming waaaaay easier than one might expect such a powerful language to be.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
The progression of base-2 on the fingers is indeed like the columns on an odometer
And like the columns on everything else, for heaven's sake.
Look...
..1
..2
..3
..4
..5
..6
..7
..8
..9
.10
.11
.12
.13
.14
.15
.16
.17
.18
.19
.20
.21
.22
.23
.24
.25
.26
LOOK MUM! I'M AN ODOMETER!
And I didn't suggest it was mind-blowing, I suggested it was finger-blowing. Tapping would help. I've been known to tap in base 10. You should try it sometime.
[ 22. October 2014, 14:07: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
Dear all
You're really trying very, very hard to kill this thread, aren't you?
Sioni Sais
Hell host
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
He's finally onto me.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
My co-host and an admin are seriously having this discussion. This discussion is seriously taking place. Between those two.
Fuck this shit. It's not even 10:30—or 4:35, for those of you using decimal time—and I'm longing for a shot of Fernet.
Not enough chocolate in the world to make this worth it. Can't take it. Fuck you all and the 1.8 meter tall horses you rode in on.
Thread CLOSED.
—Ariston, Hellhost
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
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