Blog - Like having 1023 fingers
Like having 1023 fingers
This morning I had to count something that was gonna take a little while, and I couldn't rely just on my memory 'cause I was going to think of other stuff at the same time. The usual reflex is to count on your fingers, only I knew I would want to count to more than 10 and maybe more than 20, so I thought of counting in binary!
Each finger is given a value equal to an exponent of 2 (thumb: 20 = 1, index: 21 = 2, middle: 22 = 4, ring: 23 = 8, baby: 24 = 16, ...) and when a finger is up its value is added to the total. Therefore having the index and middle fingers up equals 12 (4+8)!
Of course it helps to be a programmer, as I know my bit values on my fingertips (pun!), but it shouldn't be too hard for someone to at least remember 5 bit values and therefore be able to count up to 31, that's on one hand!
If that sounds like something that you could use, read Finger Flip Flop at Google Blogoscope, and use this hand counter applet to practice.
Posted on June 16, 2007 at 10:31 | Tweet
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ha ha -- my dad taught me that trick when I was 6 or 7 -- really, going past 31 is ungainly...
Posted by alan on June 25, 2007 at 08:20
Haha, cool!
Is your dad a programmer too? :)
Posted by Patrick on June 25, 2007 at 08:30