From jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Fri Sep 28 12:33:18 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: jimc@math.ucla.edu X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_4_1); 28 Sep 2001 19:31:47 -0000 Received: (qmail 3043 invoked from network); 28 Sep 2001 19:31:47 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by 10.1.1.220 with QMQP; 28 Sep 2001 19:31:47 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO simba.math.ucla.edu) (128.97.4.125) by mta1 with SMTP; 28 Sep 2001 19:33:18 -0000 Received: from localhost (jimc@localhost) by simba.math.ucla.edu (8.11.3/8.11.3/SuSE Linux 8.11.1-0.5) with ESMTP id f8SJXHc02473 for ; Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:33:17 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: simba.math.ucla.edu: jimc owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:33:17 -0700 (PDT) To: Subject: Re: [lojban] periodic hexadecimal reminder In-Reply-To: <134.243c504.28e5176e@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: "James F. Carter" Everyone get your finger on the "D" key :-) On Thu, 27 Sep 2001 pycyn@aol.com wrote: > Ummmm. Is it not the case that the base of a number when specified by {ju'u} > has to be given in decimal, the Lojbanic default? If it were given in some > other base, that would have to be specified by another {ju'u} in decimal -- > and so on back. So, specifying bases does not seem to be a real problem (or > have I missed something dropping in late on this from indirect-question-land?) To me it seems rather inelegant that a language feature fails to function in the absence of a default radix. For example, if you were a rabid dozenal fanatic (or hex :-), would you want to be forced to specify the radix of your own favorite number system in that depraved base X (ten)? Or, stretching the point rather more than seems justified, perhaps if you were a heptapus you could not manage base ten, and it's nasty and dumb to shut the heptapi out of the Lojban world just over the radix. Even more off topic: the (fictional) heptapi are described in http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc/river_h.d/river06.html James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673 UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555 Email: jimc@math.ucla.edu http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)