We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Now I know what a rich man is Yesterday, I attended a most enjoyable Sunday lunch, with an old school friend and his wife . It began at a civilised time, 2pm, which enabled me, before departing, to hear the winner of CD Review’s pick of the best available recording of Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 on Radio 3. This delightfully sunny piece is one of my favouries, and Colin Davis and the Concertgebouw played it wonderfully. As I walked across the Thames to Vauxhall Station I took photos, in the perfect early February yet spring-like weather. The train I travelled on arrived at Vauxhall exactly when I reached the platform it stopped at, and was agreeably uncrowded. The walk from Wimbledon Station to my friend’s home was most pleasant. So I was in a good mood when I got there, and nothing happened from then on to spoil my enjoyment in any way.
Anyway. One of those present was a rather rich man, and I now know how you can tell a rich man. Ask him how many houses he owns. He hesitates, and then he starts counting on his fingers.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
Someone (Buncker ?) said: “if you can still count them (let alone on your fingers) you’re not that rich”.
If he was counting in Binary on his fingers , on one hand he would have 31 houses and if using 2 hands he could have up to 1023 homes. That sounds pretty rich to me.
Binary, BAH!
A REAL man would need hexadecimal:
FFFFFFFFFF = 1,099,511,627,775
Now that’s rich by GALACTIC standards!
When I saw the headline for this post, I thought, “Oh no, a morality play.”
Materialism – what a pleasant surprise!
I like the way the Koreans (and now how I) can count very simply to 100 using just their hands, and no binary tricks either…
I always thought a rich man was someone who could afford to live on the other side of the Thames from Vauxhall tube (as opposed to on the same side).
BTW, how do Koreans use their hands to count up to 100?
I always put the definition of a rich man as someone of my acquaintance who can look at a clock and smile, in the knowledge that in that second he has just made another £100 …
(Lucius Beebe, 1966, “The Big Spenders”, p. 222)
The “Buncker” I refered to above was Nelson Bunker Hunt
He was questioned in an official US Senate hearing, about his attempt to corner the global silver market (now – that would be “rich”). He was asked by one of the Senators:
– Could you kindly tell this distinguished commitee how much money you have ?
Bunker Hunt:
– I haven’t counted lately. Those who constanlty count their money, probably don’t own that much.
Back when I lived in South Africa, travel to Europe was hideously expensive (not to mention the cost once one arrived).
I was talking about Paris one day, whereupon one young lady commented: “I hate Paris. I’ve never been there when it wasn’t raining.”
On one wall of her house were about two hundred pieces of paper, each mounted in its own picture frame. They were letters written to one of her great-great aunts by one Charles Dickens…
smallwit: Two hands. One is 0-9, the other 0-90 in tens.
4 Fingers are 1-4, thumb is 0 (down) or +5 to the fingers (up).
Thus, 63 is one hand: three fingers up, no thumb (3), other hand: thumb and one finger up (6, i.e. 60).
It (almost) mimics the abacus with the thumbs being the “upper deck”.
You can then count to 99 (ok, I lied, it is 0-99, not really 100) and most people in the UK get stuck at 9…
TimC,
I used to count hexdec on my fingers all the time back in the early 1980s when I would calculate file blocking and stuff like that. Once I looked up from counting on my fingers to see a room full of people. The president of the company was bringing through a tour (the board?) to show them our wonderful state of the art computer center. Oops.
My method only went to 256. Fingers of each hand are 1,2,4 & 8 and the thumb was the memory. Saved converting to dec and back.