jimlongley wrote:
Or something I guess. The ironic thing is that in grade school (talking 50s here) the advanced students in the class were "allowed" to investigate the other base numbering systems. I was a little less than advanced, so I was left out. Having maintained contact with a lot of old friends from those days, I have come to the conclusion that of the 15 or so students in the class who studied binary, octal and hex, not one ever used it in their lives or careers, but I did, up to and including teaching how to, manually, do a CRC, just to understand how THAT works.
You'll love this then: One of my favorite interview questions when I worked at Microsoft was two write a random number on the whiteboard, then ask the interviewee to show me how to display that number in negative base 2.
It was fun watching their fuses pop and double check that I wanted it expressed in a _negative_ base

(yes, a few passed with flying colors -- it's not that hard if the math is in your noggin).
I don't fear guns; I fear voters and politicians that fear guns.