Geek Test

[Frosty]

It's not Christmas and Halloween.

How not? There's a jack-o-lantern with a Christmas style hat on... See, I get it

 

[CathyInBlue]

The jack-o-lantern wearing the Santa hat is a red herring. Ignore them. It's a math geek joke.

 

[jtdet01]

The Geek Test explained:

Some say that geeks get Halloween and Christmas confused because:
dec 25 = oct 31

also written as:
decimal 25 = octal 31

decimal is the base 10 numeral system, using 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
octal is the base 8 numeral system, using 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Other significant numeral systems include:
binary is the base 2 numeral system: 0, 1
hexadecimal is the base 16 numeral system: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F

For the non-Geeks, your computer's calculator (View - Scientific or View - Programmer) has radio buttons for changing from Hex, Dec, Oct, Bin.

Thumbs up to all those who got it.

Honorable mention to:
Scutter01, for binary response
T.Lex, for hexadecimal response
mudwater, for response of one one zero zero one

There were many other correct responses, so . . .
Geeks, Stand Up and be Proud . . .

 

[Frosty]

The Geek Test explained:

Some say that geeks get Halloween and Christmas confused because:
dec 25 = oct 31

also written as:
decimal 25 = octal 31

decimal is the base 10 numeral system, using 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
octal is the base 8 numeral system, using 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Other significant numeral systems include:
binary is the base 2 numeral system: 0, 1
hexadecimal is the base 16 numeral system: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F

For the non-Geeks, your computer's calculator (View - Scientific or View - Programmer) has radio buttons for changing from Hex, Dec, Oct, Bin.

Thumbs up to all those who got it.

Honorable mention to:
Scutter01, for binary response
T.Lex, for hexadecimal response
mudwater, for response of one one zero zero one

There were many other correct responses, so . . .
Geeks, Stand Up and be Proud . . .

I'm... I don't even understand the non-geek explanation

 

[CathyInBlue]

Counting from 0 to 31 in the four principal number bases.

[U]Hexadecimal Decimal Octal Binary[/U]
0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1
2 2 2 10
3 3 3 11
4 4 4 100
5 5 5 101
6 6 6 110
7 7 7 111
8 8 10 1000
9 9 11 1001
A 10 12 1010
B 11 13 1011
C 12 14 1100
D 13 15 1101
E 14 16 1110
F 15 17 1111
10 16 20 10000
11 17 21 10001
12 18 22 10010
13 19 23 10011
14 20 24 10100
15 21 25 10101
16 22 26 10110
17 23 27 10111
18 24 30 11000
19 [B]25 31[/B] 11001
1A 26 32 11010
1B 27 33 11011
1C 28 34 11100
1D 29 35 11101
1E 30 36 11110
1F 31 37 11111

Note how 25 in decimal is equivalent to 31 in octal, hence "dec 25 = oct 31". The joke being that dec 25 can also be interpretted as December 25th, or Christmas Day, and oct 31 can also be interpretted as October 31st, or Halloween, hence the image of a jack-o-lantern wearing a Santa Claus hat.

I defy anyone to figure a way to be more explicit in explanation than this.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Well the other math test thread is still going...Let's see how long we can keep this one rolling...

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

got it without looking. Since I haven't programmed a PLC5 in a while, I am a bit rusty on my oct.

You mean PLC 2's? Now you are old if you programmed those. I was thinking the 5's had pretty well done away with the octal crap unless you were using that good ole 1771 IO.

 

[Mackey]

If you come here to find out if you are a geek.
You are indeed a geek whether or not you get it or not.

 

[Liberty1911]

There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't.

 

[Frosty]

If you come here to find out if you are a geek.
You are indeed a geek whether or not you get it or not.

... Damn...

 

[mudwater]

Saw a few people mentioning PLC2 and PLC5's. Used to program both but not for some time now.
Remembering the BCD function. Binary Coded Decimal. With 4 inputs you could count all the way up to 15.
I currently work on some OLD CNC machines that have Binary rotary switches that work the same way.
Ok this is Geeky but it does show this math stuff is used in the real world.

 

[musicmonkey317]

And I tried so hard to get it :-(

 

[mudwater]

Do not feel bad about not getting this. This is not a mainstream way of looking at numbers. If you were not taught this ,there was no way on getting it. Also even if someone was taught this, it is easily forgotten unless you find it interesting or use it frequently.
The pumpkin with the Santa hat really throws a "wild goose chase" curve into the problem.
I used this puzzle on some family and coworkers. Only one person got it (another engineer) but other very intellegent people has no idea.

 

[CathyInBlue]

We need a new month of Hexadecember, and a major holiday on the 19th of that month, that way we'll have a three way equivalence to warp the non-geeks' minds.

 

[Liberty1911]

here's another geek issue to think about.

Sept = 7

Oct = 8

Non = 9

Dec = 10.

So why September the 9th month, October the 10th, November the 11th, and December the 12th month?

The correct answer is an interesting bit of history, to a geek anyway.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

here's another geek issue to think about.

Sept = 7

Oct = 8

Non = 9

Dec = 10.

So why September the 9th month, October the 10th, November the 11th, and December the 12th month?

The correct answer is an interesting bit of history, to a geek anyway.

It had something to do with some guys named Julius and Augustus...

 

[Liberty1911]

It had something to do with some guys named Julius and Augustus...

Nope. That's a common misunderstanding though. July and August were Quintilis (5th month) and Sextilis (sixth month). They were simply renamed. It didn't "push" the other months out further.

 

[T.Lex]

I know the history answer, but got busted earlier in the thread.

I do just want to say that an explanation of the different systems won't make much sense unless there's also an explanation as to why the different machines needed to "count" differently. That actually kinda blends science and history all together (which is something I always find cool).