I got dragged into a conversation today where a group of people collectively decided that binary, octal, and hexadecimal number systems are useless and stupid.

Most of them use hexadecimal every day. In their graphic design work. #FF5733 is not decimal. It is HEXADECIMAL.

Their argument against binary was that counting in it is inefficient. That 1, 10, 11, 100, 101 is dumb compared to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

These fools fail to understand that both systems are one and the same!

Every positional number system works identically. You have N symbols. You count through them. When you exhaust them, you reset and carry. Decimal has 10 symbols (0-9). Binary has 2 (0-1). Octal has 8 (0-7). Hexadecimal has 16 (0-F). Same mechanism. Different base.

Binary is not inefficient. It maps to transistor states. Octal compresses binary into groups of three-- which is why Unix permissions are written as 000 - 777. Hexadecimal compresses binary into groups of four --which is why every memory address and colour code is in hex. These are not alternatives to decimal. They are the same information at different compression levels.

The people arguing loudest had encountered these systems, used them regularly, and left without a single question about how any of it works.

I do not know what is worse -- the ignorance or the confidence it travels at.

#numbersystems #binary #hexadecimal #octal #computerscience #fediverse #linux #rant

Undroidwish – a single-file, batteries-included Tcl/Tk binary for many platforms

https://androwish.org/home/wiki?name=undroidwish

#HackerNews #Undroidwish #Tcl #Tk #binary #crossplatform #tech #innovation

Very coincidence.

#socialmedia #numbers #coincidence #binary #digital #community #symmetry #pattern #balance #mastodon #fun #stats #milestone #internet #connection

Binary clock timelapse

An absolutely nerdy clock—yes, it’s a clock—I picked up æons ago from the now-defunct ThinkGeek site. It displays hours/minutes/seconds represented in binary. Video is at 10X speed with iMovie's Raster filter applied.

#ThinkGeek #binary #clock #LED #novelty #geek #nerd

https://flic.kr/p/2s2Vh8e

Just a quick FYI: #Gender isn't #binary and neither are you forced to "binary setups"...

Just leaving this here for those curious:
https://www.reddit.com/r/salmacian/

Remember: #KnowledgeIsFree! ⚧️ 🏳️‍⚧️

#Salmacian #Trans #Inter #Intersex #Nonbinary #PPV

https://blog.gslin.org/archives/2026/03/18/12938/binary-representation-hamming-distance-%e6%99%82%e7%9a%84%e6%90%9c%e5%b0%8b%e6%bc%94%e7%ae%97%e6%b3%95/

Binary Representation + Hamming Distance 時的搜尋演算法

#algo #algorithm #binary #distance #embedding #facebook #faiss #hamming #hashing #index #model #multi #popcount #representation #research #search #space #xor

Axe A 12MB binary that replaces your AI framework

https://github.com/jrswab/axe

#HackerNews #Axe #AI #binary #AIframework #GitHub #technews