From: Luke-Jr (luke@dashjr.org)
Date: Fri Jun 04 2010 - 14:10:38 CDT
On Friday 04 June 2010 01:28:21 pm Rick McGowan wrote:
> People use complicated and potentially confusing systems all the time
> because to not use them would mean that (a) they can no longer communicate
> with everyone else and/or (b) they would represent an unnecessary
> discontinuity with all past usage, and thus people would lose touch with
> their history and literature.
This is only true if the old system ceases. Most of the world seems to have
switched to the metric system just fine despite these apparently barriers.
(and despite the fact that the earlier English system was superior to metric
in various ways)
> Hexadecimal/tonal will never be popular with ordinary humans for
> ordinary counting in social situations because people don't have ten
> fingers and nobody uses hexadecimal for ordinary counting, nor has any
> significant population ever done so, as far as I know.
The "ten fingers" argument is, has always been, and will always be flawed.
Humans have ten *binary digits*, or two *senary digits*, both of which make
better sense than combining them to create a single decimal digit.
> Just out of curiosity, why do you think it's useful or important for
> people to use hexadecimal as their primary system of counting? What
> advantages would it confer?
John W. Nystrom went over the numerous benefits to the tonal system
(contrasting it with not only base 10, but also other possible bases) a long
time ago...
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/tonal-system/10991090
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