• luciferofastora@lemmy.zip
      31·
      4 hours ago

      There are n types of people in this world: Those who don’t understand numeral systems, those who understand base x systems for x ∈ [2, n] and those who get pedantic about this meta-joke.

    • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      29·
      2 days ago

      There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who get ternary; those who don’t; those who thought this was going to be a binary joke

      • stebo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        11·
        1 day ago

        There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who get quaternary; those who don’t; those who thought this was going to be a ternary joke; those who can see where this is going…

          • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
            5·
            22 hours ago

            Regardless of what base you’re using, 10 is always the nth number. In base 10 (normal numbers), 10 is 10th. In base 2 it is the 2nd.

            1. 1
            2. 10
            3. 11

            In base 16 (hexadecimal) it is the 16th.

            1. 1
            2. 2
            3. 3
            4. 4
            5. 5
            6. 6
            7. 7
            8. 8
            9. 9
            10. A
            11. B
            12. C
            13. D
            14. E
            15. F
            16. 10

            The original joke is “there are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don’t l” because 10 in binary is 2 in base 10. But they’re pointing out that a similar joke works for all bases of numbers.