The Duodecimal Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 1, Year 1209 [pdf]

(dozenal.org)

44 points | by susam 11 hours ago

6 comments

  • Cosi1125 1 hour ago
    On page ↋: "Did you ever wonder just what the number system would be like if man had been created with 12 fingers?" (and an illustration).

    With the advent of modern AI tools, this question has never been more important.

  • hermitcrab 4 hours ago
    12 is, in many ways, a better base than 10 (divisible by 2,3,4 and 6 vs 2 and 5). And it was used in many British/Imperial units. But the chance of the world moving existing systems from base 10 to base 12 is surely so close to 0 as makes no difference?
    • ahazred8ta 1 hour ago
      In premodern engineering they used twelfths. The foot ', inch '', line ''', and point '''' were each 1/12th of the previous unit. (Yes, they used quad prime marks.) European typographic points were 1/144th of an inch. https://dozenal.org/
    • borgesat 1 hour ago
      Yes, but hexadecimal eight-bit computing introduces the octet as specifying information protocol (255.255.255.255) addresses.
  • Skwid 3 hours ago
    I'm more of a seximal man myself: https://www.seximal.net/
    • xg15 1 hour ago
      There better be some deep, decades-long feud between the Duodecimal and the Seximal Society, or I'm very disappointed.

      (Of course any squabbling is instantly forgotten the moment they have to act against their common arch enemy, the Hexadecimal Society)

    • Aardwolf 3 hours ago
      Base 16 (or base 10, as they would call it) is the perfect base: http://www.intuitor.com/hex/
      • Skwid 3 hours ago
        I'm standing my ground on optimal base, but I will absolutely be using those hex pronounciations in future
  • xg15 2 hours ago
    What's the deal with that upside-down 2 on the title page? I first thought it would be one of the two additional digits, but those are visible on the "clock face" circle on the first page and look nothing like it.

    (or are upside-down digits their way to mark icky base-10 numbers if they have to write them?)

    Edit: ah, they explain it on page 23.

  • omnicognate 5 hours ago
    1209 is 2025, to answer the first question I had.
    • ithkuil 2 hours ago
      I have a t-shirt with a jack o lantern with a Xmas hat with this text:

      31 Oct is 25 Dec