Happy Binary Day!
Oct. 10th, 2010 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonApparently today was full of Chinese weddings, or so the news tells me. I rather wish I had been down at the Botanical Gardens to smile and wave at all the brides having their photos taken, but I was busy running around buying knitting needles and then watching tyres fall off in the Grand Prix telecast. I know -- first beans, now this, it's hard to believe the levels of glamour.
One thing I did do is look at my home page, THANK YOU![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nenne and bryoneybrynn for the lovely LJ-gifts! Sorry about the tardy gratitude, er, Bry, really tardy in your case. Look, it's nothing compared to some of my unanswered comments.
I have also decided that today is the day I am going to start describing myself as a writer who edits for money, rather than as an editor who also writes. Mostly in hopes of changing the balance of both in my life and dropping the editing in the next year or two (before committing an act of thoroughly justified homicide).
Amusing side note to the above: we bought in an extract to run in Evil Mag of Exhaustion -- in this case it was from a book that is about to be published in its author's home country and shortly thereafter in the UK, US and Australia. Mass market, charming and warm, with some lovely passages of writing. It had been edited and was being prepared for print. I read through the chapter I'd decided to reprint, and it was perfect – except I had a nagging sense of something being wrong.
I looked at it again: the extract was the right length, it stood independently of the rest of the book, it was not going to offend any sane reader, it was a good read … but …
And then I spotted it. The author talked about the 12 people coming for Christmas dinner and listed them all. All eleven names. I counted three times. I emailed the publisher. The author sent her thanks and swore she had counted them three times herself -- I wrote back assuring her that it was not her: characters move around while you are counting them!
Don't you all feel a little better about the last stupid mistake you made in writing, now?
One thing I did do is look at my home page, THANK YOU
nenne and bryoneybrynn for the lovely LJ-gifts! Sorry about the tardy gratitude, er, Bry, really tardy in your case. Look, it's nothing compared to some of my unanswered comments.I have also decided that today is the day I am going to start describing myself as a writer who edits for money, rather than as an editor who also writes. Mostly in hopes of changing the balance of both in my life and dropping the editing in the next year or two (before committing an act of thoroughly justified homicide).
Amusing side note to the above: we bought in an extract to run in Evil Mag of Exhaustion -- in this case it was from a book that is about to be published in its author's home country and shortly thereafter in the UK, US and Australia. Mass market, charming and warm, with some lovely passages of writing. It had been edited and was being prepared for print. I read through the chapter I'd decided to reprint, and it was perfect – except I had a nagging sense of something being wrong.
I looked at it again: the extract was the right length, it stood independently of the rest of the book, it was not going to offend any sane reader, it was a good read … but …
And then I spotted it. The author talked about the 12 people coming for Christmas dinner and listed them all. All eleven names. I counted three times. I emailed the publisher. The author sent her thanks and swore she had counted them three times herself -- I wrote back assuring her that it was not her: characters move around while you are counting them!
Don't you all feel a little better about the last stupid mistake you made in writing, now?
Celebrating Binary Feast Days
Date: 2010-10-11 03:49 am (UTC)Getting into the spirit of things, I considered the significance of the next symmetrical binary date, so that I should be well prepared for its advent. I share my findings below for the edification of any other likewise interested parties.
The binary number ‘011110’ can also be expressed as ‘a score and ten’, which is suggestive of the equal suitability of a base 20 notation. ‘Duodecimal’ refers to base 12, so we might whimsically refer to base 20 as being ‘Dewey Decimal’.
If we wish to use the Dewey Decimal system, we will need to have an accessibly defined schedule. It is intuitive to let ten=t.
This makes the 011110 (in binary) equivalent to 1t in Dewey Decimal. In light of this, I suggest that it would be fitting and right to observe the day with books and a cup of tea.
Sorrel