From hfroark@bigmailbox.net Tue Oct 02 12:42:45 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: hfroark@bigmailbox.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_4_1); 2 Oct 2001 19:42:45 -0000 Received: (qmail 91813 invoked from network); 2 Oct 2001 19:42:45 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 2 Oct 2001 19:42:45 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n17.groups.yahoo.com) (10.1.1.36) by mta1 with SMTP; 2 Oct 2001 19:42:44 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: hfroark@bigmailbox.net Received: from [10.1.4.64] by n17.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 02 Oct 2001 19:41:45 -0000 Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 19:41:41 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: periodic hexadecimal reminder Message-ID: <9pd59l+ubtg@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: <9p5up2+ch62@eGroups.com> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 2809 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster X-Originating-IP: 204.211.254.26 From: hfroark@bigmailbox.net X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 11292 My first attempt to send this message didn't work for some reason. mark@k... wrote: > And no, I don't think we should change the default > base. I can't think of any advantage to hexadecimal outside of > computer work and a few specialized related settings (the same can > also be said for fibonacci base and base-7 (the specialized settings > part)). Incidentally, balanced ternary ( http://perun.hscs.wmin.ac.uk/~jra/ternary/ternary.html ) has its applications too. But I'm not going to deal with weird bases. One suggestion noted was using base one. Well one actually can: "pano ju'u vei pa su'i pa su'i pa su'i pa su'i pa ve'o" that is "10 base (1+1+1+1+1)" or expressing the base in decimal "10 base 5" or expressing the base in binary "10 base 101". My point is that if one feels compelled to be unambiguous one can; pa is 1 in every base and adding 1's always gives the same number in any base, even if it may be written in different ways. One could allow a cmavo to be used so that one wouldn't have to write all those "pa su'i"'s, but I don't think that it is common enough to use a cmavo. Regarding James Carter's suggestion of expressing the base by using the radix-1; that is easy to accomplish too: base two is "ju'i vei pa su'i pa ve'o"; base five, "vo su'i pa"; base eight, "ze su'i pa"; base ten, "so su'i pa"; base twelve, "fei su'i pa"; base sixteen, "vai su'i pa". However, I like the idea of being able to use dau - vai in the base directly: This makes base two is "ju'i re"; base five, "mu"; base eight, "bi"; base ten, "dau"; base twelve, "gai"; base sixteen, we don't have one. Since sixteen is the highest (relataively) common base (because of computers), I'd like to propose that a single cmavo be added which can be used as an R-expression for "ju'i" that indicates base sixteen. Considering that in base ten, sixteen is expressed as paxa. I've thought of using pa'a or xa'a, for this purpose. Since pa'a is already assigned that would leave xa'a as my suggestion. I do think that consideration should be given to giving the numbers A - F rafsi. There is one other mechanism I would like to see considered: a way to assign a sticky base, so that one could define a base at the beginning of a document or section, and have the later numbers interpreted as the base in question. Since, this wouldn't be a common operation, I don't think that a cmavo needs to be assigned for that purpose. The most radical part of my suggestion is creating a new cmavo for use in ju'i to indicate base sixteen. I would not suggest allowing that cmavo to be used in base seventeen numbers; indeed my suggested cmavo differs from the other number cmavo by being polysyllabic. The rest is an obvious extension of already used mechanisms.