Thursday, August 30, 2007

Hexadecimal Exits

I know I've been working too much when I drive past Exit "seven able" on the Turnpike.

Explanation: If you work with me, this should require no explanation. If you work with me and this does require an explanation, then thank you, because I know you'll be fired before me next time layoffs come around. If you don't work with me, have no fear about not understanding this - it just means you're normal.

The short explanation is that we spend a lot of time dealing with hexadecimal numbers at work. Hexadecimal is base-16, meaning you need 6 more digits than you do with base-10. The 16 digits we use are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A (able), B (baker), C (charlie), D (dog), E (easy), and F (fox).

So, when I see "7A" I think it's the hexadecimal number representing the bitstring "01111010" or 16*7 + 10 = 122 in decimal. The important thing is, as I headed southbound, I didn't expect to see exit 79 next.

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