this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 131 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (10 children)

Using binary with bent/straight fingers gets you up to 31. There are other ways - like touching your thumb to different phalanges of different fingers, for 0..12.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I never thought about doing it that way, so I counted in binary with my right hand... Tricky but oddly satisfying

Edit: shit, I'm getting faster at this. I might have to convert

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Imagine how boss a culture would be being able to count up to 31 on a single hand, and 1023 with two hands.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (6 children)

I'm physically unable to make 8 in binary with my fingers.

My finger just refuses to go up by itself, it will just go up with its friends.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, 4 is tricky socially and 8 is tricky anatomically. I touch it to something, as an alternative to holding it up.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

17 is 🤙 right?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I can do it but I have to hold down the other fingers with my thumb or by pinching them into the palm of my hand.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

I don’t bother to fold my fingers all the way when I do it. All you need is a binary on/off, so just bending any discernible amount is sufficient.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Bend them the other way. Start with all fingers open for zero, and curl them as needed. You only need to move them a bit, so even twenty (thumb and ring finger back, the others curled) isn't too hard.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Try bending at the first finger joints instead of at the knuckles.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago

Help! I was counting and somehow hit negative 15. Is there a bug?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In American Sign Language you can sign at least up to 999~10~ with one hand

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Well at that point you can also draw any number in air, no?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Or use a piece of paper, as long as you don't steady it with your other hand.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

great point.. and if after the 12 you start touching your thumb to the other side of those phalanges, you now have 24. now each time you go through the 24 cycle, your other hand can tick along the same cycle like an hour hand. now you are counting to 550+ with 2 hands.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

You can technically count to 6000000000 with one hand and a way to measure angles

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

0..16 if you add fingertips.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You can count up to 99 with your hands if you use them like a Japanese abacus.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Up to 1023 if you use binary!

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

If you watched the series Chernobyl I highly recommend the Titans of Nuclear podcast's five dedicated episodes expanding on the misinformation it contains.

Nevertheless, excellent miniserie.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

When did dramatized tv become misinformation? It wasn’t a documentary…

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Misinformation, not disinformation.

Also, many if not most people take “based on a true story” on TV at face value. Therefore it's important to point out the inaccuracies.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago

Since idiots reference it as if it were a documentary.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Couldn’t hide my disappointment at the end when they were like [strong female character] was created from the stories of over fifty different scientists…

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's how many historical movies and contemporary shows work though. Like, we all know CSI techs aren't clearing rooms like SWAT in real life. But the story is far easier to follow if we keep it to a few characters the audience knows.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

For sure. And ultimately they gave credit where it was due, which is nice but it was a bit jarring. I think that means the filmmakers did their job well and crafted a character I could identify with.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago

Did we bring 'pointing out comedy homicide' over from reddit? Because a giant reaction face to point out a joke is peak that.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 months ago (6 children)

It's a great show but it's also all bullshit pretty much, it only follows the broad strokes of the real story.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

If we're talking about the HBO show, then calling it a documentary is just straight up wrong in the first place.

It's a "based on real events" TV drama that never claimed to be a rigorous retelling of the catastrophe.

There are a ton of immediate differences to reality that anyone even vaguely familiar with soviet history would notice.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago

I really wish they made that clear though, the show tries very hard to make you believe that's the real story.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

It was never supposed to be more than the broad strokes though. Even those were largely unknown in the West.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Oh. People from English-speaking countries don't sink you with downvotes immediately for criticizing that show anymore. Nice.

Even the broad strokes are, eh, how do you say it, eh ... worse than Tom Clancy and that's an achievement I'm not sure everyone is capable of measuring.

It's funny though how such series about "USSR" talk in fact about something American. Reminiscent of the "17 moments of spring" series which were about a Soviet spy in Berlin in the last months of WWII, but mostly explored Soviet ideology and morality issues.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Ever since my father told the teen me that "based on a true story" doesn't mean it's a documentary I stopped watching those things altogether, since then I only engage with historical fiction if it's so out there it's obvious it's not real.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago

Chernobyl still is one of the best shows I've ever watched. Not a documentary but it doesn't try to be. It tries to be good historical drama and it is. Very gripping.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's a pretty narrow way to cut yourself off from a LOT of great storytelling.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, that wording is so misleading. "Inspired by real events" is the more accurate wording, but I feel like I haven't seen anything with that in ages.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Some works will outright lie about it. For example, the TV show and movie Fargo specifically tell you it’s a true story, and even that names have been changed but ‘the rest has been told exactly as it happened’.

To me that’s weird. It doesn’t really add to the end result in my opinion, but would breed distrust when people discovered it was wholly fictional.

Still, even with things that are meant to be accurate portrayal of an event, it’s always good to check the facts. Hollywood just can’t help but fiddle with reality to tell a more interesting story, even when it doesn’t need it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

The wood chipper scene in Fargo was inspired by a thing in Connecticut.

That’s about as accurate as it really is.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago

are we talking about the HBO show? The one that's not a documentary?

yeah, i too like that documentary.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (7 children)
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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago

The real Children Of The Atom.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Literally went over like everyone in this thread

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (6 children)

You can't just leave it there and not elaborate what the inaccuracies were.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago
  1. The reactor's kill switch worked fine, but another reactor reacted to it
  2. None of the Soviet's spoke fluent BBC english at the time
  3. All the scientists were squashed into a single organism called "supafrique" who was the main antagonist
  4. The level of radiation blasted into the atmosphere was greatly exaggerated by captain planet
  5. Superman sealed up the hole in less than 10 minutes
  6. Chernobyl is actually pronounced "Churro-nob-yell"
  7. Everyone who was underwater and worked to kill the reactor actually gained telepathy later on
  8. It was actually hard to write this list. This was a great tragedy.
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Hand generated by LLM, of course.

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