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Is it just me, or is it painful to do this correctly? :) Superm401 - Talk
I can do it just fine, including the pinky and middle finger thing. Am I a robot now? --84.81.10.224 15:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to change the order on the second hand. It's makes more sense if both hands are either palms up or down, not one up and one down. If anyone has objections, feel free to change it back. It's easier on the hands anyway. Briham 04:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I've always had a fascination with finger binary. I would like to see a standardization of finger binary. Firstly, I normally call it Binary Sign Language. Atucovic 21:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I've added the following: 'Fractions', 'X-Y Coordinates' and 'Buffering'. I've edited 'Visualizing Finger Binary' and 'Two Hands' to reflect a standard way of reading binary digits. Atucovic 04:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Hm. Why does an article that is composed entirely of self-evident information get these disclaimers about original research and citations? When you are skeptical about whether 101 is really 5 in binary, the problem probably lies with you. 80.60.77.155 (talk) 19:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
The images of hands need to revised so that numbers over 31 actually show both hands. I know, I know, it's shorthand. Atucovic (talk) 22:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
There was an easy way to read binary fractions without doing the fractional arithmetic that will need to be restored. Atucovic (talk) 22:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I certainly would like to formalize the geometry of coordinates so I'm wondering whether it's more natural to represent X (left hand) and Y (right hand) as in written notation or to reverse it (Y,X) so the right hand represents the X coordinate. In (Y,X) as I face in the Y-direction, right hand (00001) would represent +1 in the X-direction, to my right as represented by my right hitchhiking thumb. Atucovic (talk) 22:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
The curling method does not really allow you to count to higher numbers, right? As I see it, once you use the right index finger for 1024, it's no longer available for 1. I suppose you could have a "curled up" and "curled down." There should be some sort of note to this effect. What do people do? IQAG1060 14:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm lodging a protest before I take undo action: Father Goose has removed sections that are important to this topic. This topic is called "Finger Binary" and not "Finger Binary Counting" and therefore removing "X-Y Coordinates" and "Buffering" is a mistake. Binary is a number system that can represent scalars, vectors and other data, and buffering is a unique concept in computer science that can be represented by a finger binary game between two persons. Atucovic (talk) 22:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I started this animation project four years ago and completed it last night. (docs) I'm not entirely satisfied with the results but I won't promise when I attempt the next iteration. You choose. — Xiong熊talk* 19:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Excuse me; but it looks pretty bad -- a point well illustrated by its failure to communicate its substantive message. Assuming (as I was taught) that the power of the thumb is zero and increases with each digit, frame 24 shows (or is intended to show) 11010 (24); I believe all frames are strictly correct and in order. They are merely illegible.
You note correctly that I made an inexplicable change in orientation at 15; but I seem to have continued thus, more or less, from there to at least 23.
Timing an animation is always difficult. Your point is well taken that half-second frames are not easy to follow; but then to extend them to a full second each would drag the full running time, including the scant rests, to over half a minute -- clearly in excess of modern attention span trained at the glass teat.
I labored over a table version containing all frames in one still image, which permits leisured examination while the animation remains snappy. Alas, by the time the table is scaled to any reasonable dimensions bad studio and bad lab combine to produce nothing worth showing, even to discuss.
The plain fact (as I mentioned) is that this version is severely limited, both technically and artistically. My hand is cramped, particularly in the third finger. My purpose in uploading this is to stimulate comment and inform the next iteration, which will be done (if at all) from scratch.
Thank you for your comments. — Xiong熊talk* 10:54, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Now I look again and I agree with you about the out-of-sequence (and mislabeled) frames. Not sure when they got out of sequence but there it is. I still think this proves the point that the thing is substandard: Each time I look at it, I get a different notion of what it indicates. The figures simply aren't clear.
I have a new camera and am busy recruiting a more dextrous model. The next iteration *will* be better; trust me. — Xiong熊talk* 12:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
My brother and I started doing this some years back. Never found a real use for it, but it's fun, and you get to exercise the fingers. Good for computer breaks.
Anyways, we also found that we can easily count with two bits per finger, thus obtaining a quaternary system, and being able to count to 1 048 575 on two hands. Add in two positions for each wrist and elbow, and four for each shoulder, and you can count to 268 435 456. Plus, you look like a regular nutcase. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.109.14.166 (talk) 20:11, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Seriously, WTF? Am I correct in assuming that "the counter" means "the person who counts", and that it is the same person the hands belong to? In this case, if the hands are placed with the palm facing the counter's face, and if the left hand is on the left and the right hand on the right, then the order of the fingers does not match the table:
Left hand | Right hand | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pinky | Ring | Middle | Index | Thumb | Thumb | Index | Middle | Ring | Pinky | |
Power of two | 29 | 28 | 27 | 26 | 25 | 24 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 |
Value | 512 | 256 | 128 | 64 | 32 | 16 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
You would get instead:
Left hand | Right hand | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Thumb | Index | Middle | Ring | Pinky | Pinky | Ring | Middle | Index | Thumb | |
Power of two | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
Value | 32 | 64 | 128 | 256 | 512 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 16 |
which is completely counterintuitive, unless you cross your hands and put the right hand before (i.e. to the left of) the left.
More probably, the phrase "With palms oriented toward the counter's face" must be wrong. Teo8976 (talk) 19:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
It looks like something happened on 19 Jan 2015. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.13.125.19 (talk) 02:11, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
I went ahead and fixed the finger orders and the examples.
I added in a new table that shows how it works when you hold your hands either direction.
And I added a table about one handed left handed - which is useful for left handed people I guess. :)
68.13.125.19 (talk) 01:05, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Really?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.109.50 (talk) 21:11, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
So, who actually uses this? I look forward to reading that section. With its citations, of course. Morganfitzp (talk) 04:35, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
I originally doubted that 15 could be done (pinky only down) since I couldn't do it, but then I saw this video 15 should definitely be shown - since it is difficult for some people (me) to do
That sentence doesn't correspond with the alignment shown in the table above though --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:14, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
"... or from 0 to 1,048,575 (220 − 1) if the toes on both feet are used as well." Maybe I'm just not that dexterous, but I'd love to see some one pop off their shoes and show me them switching back and forth between 699,050 and 349,525. Stephen.G.McAteer (talk) 08:27, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
I had the same thought. There’s no way you can press down an arbitrary combination of toes. Try pressing down every other toe, while raising the rest. It’s easy on fingers, but impossible on toes, for a normal person. This OR claim should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:2F01:9730:415A:4791:5EE2:715F (talk) 22:02, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Realistically you might add another two digits per foot, by moving the big toes independently. This would get you up to 4095. But does anyone actually do this? Even that seems like a definite "citation needed" situation to me. Musiconeologist (talk) 13:07, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Update: I've changed this to make it clear that using one's toes is not standard practice. Sadly it's not as funny any more, but there you go. (I think the fact that we could theoretically get up to 1048575 is still of interest, so I didn't delete it.) Musiconeologist (talk) 17:23, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
I use binary finger counting fairly often, but in the opposite direction. I started it many years ago, not for communication but just for myself, and soon discovered in practice what my studies of human anatomy had already taught me in theory: that the flexor muscles that bend the fingers are stronger than the extensors that straighten them. Furthermore, since I wasn't trying to show my counting to another person, I didn't have to extend my fingers all the way. In fact, for 1 I only needed to touch my fingertip to the palm or my thumbtip to the side of my index finger, and to lift it off for 0. And feeling the touch or its absence gave me a clear sensory indication of the value. I practiced this, usually just for fun or to see how high I could go without tiring the muscles out, till it became automatic and I could count quite fast without thinking about it.
Then a few years ago I had a summer gig counting pedestrian traffic at certain points in a university neighborhood. Each assignment specified a particular point on a block, e.g. the boundary between restaurant X and its neighbor bookstore Y. We had to stand on the opposite side of the street directly across from the specified point and count the pedestrians passing it in a specified period. We were provided with clickers to count on.
But at busy times of day, such as lunch time or class change, the sidewalks would be crowded, with maybe a dozen people passing in one or two seconds. Often a cluster of 5 or 10 people would pass the observation point together. Not that they were necessarily all walking as one group: there might be two or three groups that happened to be passing in the same few seconds. What made it worse, on the broad sidewalks two or three people near the edge would block my view of people on the inside, making the counting even more difficult. And my finger got tired from clicking, even if I could keep up with the traffic. So I resorted to my automatic binary finger counting, which helped a lot.
I still use it sometimes, or just practice it for its own sake.
--Thnidu (talk) 06:40, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
I plan to upload a bunch of images of either my hand or a drawn hand in all of the poses. Where should I put the images, and is this a bad idea? Notanonymous1 (talk) 13:39, 9 September 2021 (UTC)