The Monster wrote: pokermind wrote:
According to David Weber, treecats have difficulty with human mathematics. But I wounder if their main problem is they are using base 4 rather than base 10? Treecats number things in hands, their hands have four fingers, therefore base 4. IE 1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 10=4, 11=5, ... 100=16 or a hand of hands.
Computers use base 2, and base 4 is just a variant so I wounder if in time treecats will become ace computer geeks, hum?
The main problem 'cats have with mathematics is that it is another language humans use to express certain ideas. Because 'cats haven't historically used language to communicate, they also haven't learned that language is valuable for thinking about ideas, even when no communication is anticipated. So it's going to take a while for it to catch on.
Base 16 (hexadecimal) is widely used in computing as the human-readable representation of binary:
hex: Base 4 = 'cat hands
1: 1 = finger
2: 2 = two fingers
3: 3 = three fingers
4: 10 = hand
5: 11 = hand and finger
6: 12 = hand, two fingers
7: 13 = hand, three fingers
8: 20 = two hands
9: 21 = two hands, one finger
A: 22 = two hands, two fingers
B: 23 = two hands, three fingers
C: 30 = three hands
D: 31 = three hands, one finger
E: 32 = three hands, two fingers
F: 33 = three hands, three fingers
10: 100 = hand of hands
11: 101 = hand of hands, finger1F: 133 = hand of hands, three hands, three fingers40: 1000 = hand of hands of hands
FF: 3333 = three hands of hands of hands, three hands of hands, three hands, three fingers (255 in decimal)
Each pair of base-4 digits maps perfectly to a single base-16 digit. Modern computers use "bytes" of 8 bits, comprising two "nybbles" of 4 bits, each of which maps perfectly to a hex digit. Processors generally use 16, 32, or 64 bits for their registers, again mapping to 4, 8, or 16 hex digits. That last number is a hand-of-hands of digits, each of which counts to a hand of hands itself. Very 'cat friendly, indeed.
Once a 'cat is assigned to Sir Horace and learns to count in this new fashion, as well as some of his other skills, and reports back to a Memory Singer, there will be plenty of 1337 h@xx0r k@7z.
Poker
and, Mangy Fur the Smart Alick Spacecat.