So tonight I'm swimming in the pool at the health club and I come to the 10x50 kick part of the program (Act 2, Scene 2, added during a quick rewrite before the curtain went up after reading Ande's Swim Faster Faster tip about kicking earlier today). Anyway, I have trouble counting when exhausted (which I will certainly be after even a short kick set), so what's a poor programmer nerd to do? I know! I'll use my zoomers and a couple kickboards to count to 10 on the pool deck in binary! Pointing up is a "1" bit. Pointing sideways is a "0" bit.
(I've done this before when stuck running on short indoors tracks, but there I've been able to count on my fingers without ruining my streamline.)
Am I weird or what?
Skip Montanaro
To decode visit nickciske.com/.../binary.php
'Twas more fun to write a little program to decode it. I guess that confirms that I'm a bit weird...
At any rate, thanks for the various suggestions. Anything that requires me to keep times, numbers or some other reference in my head during a long solo workout is subject to brain fade. It's easier to just have the number right there on the deck and increment it during my rest interval. ;)
Skip
4500 last night, 4100 this morning. I'm kinda pooped...
Huh? :bump:
For us math idiots out here, what the heck is a binary?
As Mel said, in binary something is "either on or off." In other words binary only uses the digits 0 or 1. You might think "why the heck would you want to do that?" Well, at the lowest level, this is how computers function. A circuit can either be on or off. We wouldn't have computers as we know them today if not for the binary system.
If you've heard of a bit in computer parlance this represents a single binary digit (a one or zero). Computers will group these together into bytes and this is how all data is stored on a computer.
Yes, everything you write on these forums is really just a bunch of zeros and ones :)
Actually, in binary, you would only need 4 objects to count to ten, so two zoomers and two kick boards. Not that bad.
My usual solution to counting issues is to either increase or decrease minute intervals by 5 seconds, so i can tell how many i have done by when I am leaving.
Huh?
For us math idiots out here, what the heck is a binary?
Susan,
your light switch in the living room is an example of something binary: it is either on or off. It's also a way of counting....
Huh? :bump:
For us math idiots out here, what the heck is a binary?
instead of having 1-9, and then putting a 1 in the tens place, binary only has one and zero. So lets say you wanted to show the number three. In our normal system you would just write the number three and that would be that. In binary though, you would put a 1 in the ones place, and then a one in the twos place. So our 3 would be a binary 11 and our 5 would be 101 (1 in the four place, 0 in the twos place, and then one in the ones place). Its kinda tough to explain unless you work with it.
Count minutes not 50s, If my 50 plus rest is 1 min - the 10 X 50s takes 10 minutes, do it by the clock. If my 50 plus rest takes 45 sec - the 10 x 50 takes 7.5 minutes.
