[Fwd: Re: [CW] CW re: 3rd finger..]

[George Maurer]

There are, in indeed, two kinds of people:
Those who divide people into various kinds,
and those who don't.

Dexterity is the crux, if one is to keep track of the count.
Using just one finger, it is possible to count to any number one wishes, 
in any base one desires, as long as one can add and remember one's count. 

Using the thumb to mark my count on the four fingers, until I arrive 
at 15, then naming the thumb 16, is the method of my one handed binary count. 

Of course one can continue, by other means, digital and mental, to extend the  
count. However, as a practical matter and for my purposes, holding the count  
with the thumb, on the one hand, and being able to continue the count at any  
time, on the other, regardless distraction and without recourse to memory, is 
my point. It is, as I suggested, how I count to 16 on one hand. 
And remember the count. 

If one "had good enough dexterity instead of only to 5 with one hand", then 
there is little doubt that one could do much better than I.

73,
George k6ite

   Some do presume too much, and so, then, you are such, 
   But let the "longest middle finger" never this to touch;
   Your lips, moving ever as you count, 
   The mind that lapses while numbers mount.

On 19 Aug Ken Brown wrote:
> There are 10 kinds of people:
> 01: Those who understand binary
> and
> 10: Those who do not.
>
> Which brings up the point that using the fingers as binary digits, we 
> could count to 11111 (which is 31 in decimal) if we had good enough 
> dexterity instead of only to 5, with one hand.
> 
> Isn't the longest middle finger used to mean "you're number one" when 
> someone takes your right of way in traffic.
> 
> DE N6KB