I tried ordering 99 glasses of beer because why not, the waiter took a while and finally arrived holding 792 beers.

got to make sure both parties are using the same endian

I am guilty of having taught that to a five year old during a hiking trip. He is now an engineer.

I taught a 5 year old that 1 + 1 = 10, and they got in trouble at school for arguing with the teacher. Even after explaining that 1 + 1 = 10 in binary specifically, as the teacher was complaining to the parents "whatever that means". The parents asked me to be more careful with my "teaching".

I get your teacher was dumb, but technically it could be on the right side.

It all depends on whether you were writing it or saying it, "1 + 1 = 10" is true in binary but "one plus one equals ten" is not, not even in binary.

>I get your teacher was dumb, but technically it could be on the right side.

Let's be fair, a 5 year is only in kindergarten, so I would not expect a kindergarten teacher to be fully expecting a 5 year old to be talking about binary or even fully educated in other counting methods than base 10. That doesn't make them dumb. I'm sure that teacher could teach you things without calling you dumb.

Err... sorry I don't know said teacher, I was just following along your comment, where you seem to portray the teacher in such way.

You even do it in this comment, condescendingly,

>I would not expect a kindergarten teacher to be [...] fully educated in other counting methods than base 10

Honestly, it's not that big of a deal to know binary or not.

But anyway, that aside, you completely missed the point of my comment. Whew.

Are you saying that my not expecting a kindergarten teacher to be educated in binary math is condescending?

I got your point that 10 in binary is not actually base 10 10, but 2 in base 10. It was just not worth commenting as it was a discussion about a 5 year old conversation not the semantics of math.

I mean, I'd want my kindergarten teacher to be focused teaching kindergarteners. I don't want them to be an expert on calculus, just be the best teacher for a kindergartener. Same thing as "i want my IDE to focus on being an IDE, and not add facebook integration".

I feel like making sure the absolute fundamentals are well ingrained in your kid is way more important than trying to teach them binary.

Important stuff like learning the alphabet. How to read simple books. Things like that.

That was my point. Expecting a kindergaten teacher to do anything beyond those things you listed is not reasonable. It's great if after teaching a day of kindergartners they can then do an evening teaching college classes, but that's so not the norm. Stating that a teacher at this level is not fully versed in binary is not an insult. It's more insulting to think that someone was able to construe that from my comment.

That was not a condescending comment by my read.

Replace counting in other bases with “theoretical physics” or “woodworking” and it doesn’t read that way either.

I think this xkcd is relevant here: https://xkcd.com/2501/

I was taught how to count in binary in grade 5, is this not a normal thing that kids learn in school?

I think it depends on what curriculum your school's using; non-base-10 math is a punchline in Tom Lehrer's "New Math" [1]. Common Core might be getting rid of it?

As a side note, comparing the complaints in "New Math" (from 1965) to those offered about Common Core is educational :)

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA

I’m fairly certain I was taught the unary counting system in either kindergarten or 1st grade. And I wasn’t even in an advanced course.

Timmy has 1 rock. Johnny gives Timmy 1 rock. Timmy now has 1 rock. Jenny gives 1 rock to Timmy. Timmy has 1 rock.

– zero

0 – one

00 – two

000 – three

I think that's noary math instead of unary. or maybe nonary/nunary(can only count women in habits)/zipary/nilary/???

I was taught binary math in elementary school in the mid 70s. The problem was that they had to teach it to the parents too, unless the parents were not able to help their children with homework.

> and easily reach 1023 without needing a third hand

Given that most people cannot move their ring finger independently of their middle finger, this seems like a stretch.

Came here to comment on binary finger counting; found it'd already been said!

I have trouble with some positions due to the ring/pinkie connection, but for me it's more of an internal count anyway, so something like counting a 'down' finger as '1' instead of '0' makes it a lot more comfortable, or even '1' is finger touching a surface, '0' is not - which can involve moving a digit only a few mm or so.

The 1023 thing does require fine motor control of at least ten appendages, though even legs-arms-tongue gets you to 32, if a bit inconveniently.

Having just finished my commute home, I'm sorry the converse isn't true.

Try it. It works.

People’s anatomy differ, and with that also how easy it is to move these digits independently. See for example the answer to this question: https://biology.stackexchange.com/q/60075

Apologies, I didn’t realise people struggled to this extent. I’ve taught many people to count this way and not encountered anybody who struggled, but it was ableist of me to assume that was universal.

I've tried it. It doesn't work.

I personally can't bend my pinkie without bending the ring finger, not the middle finger.

Number 14 (pinky touching thumb, others raised) doesn't work for me. It hurts a lot.

The first time I saw this, it was a blind person on a train counting stations. Personally, I would need a lot of practice to gain that dexterity.

The number 4 may be an issue for some cultures!

And with two’s complement, we can even have negative numbers!

And just by touching your toes, you can do signed 10-bit addition and subtraction!