a better way to count

What Hacker News said

Strong rec ar-nelson · 2020-05 · on “Roman Finger Counting”

This video convinced me that base 6 would be even better for simple pen-and-paper math, as well as just about everything else: [this video]

Strong rec jodrellblank · 2020-09 · on “Show HN: Base32H, a human-friendly duotrigesimal number system”

Time to link the ConLang Critic's video "A better way to count" where he compares decimal and dozenal (base12) with seximal (base6) and base 6 wins. [this video] One of the best videos of number-base related comedy.

Recommends jodrellblank · 2018-11 · on “International System of Units overhauled in historic vote”

Why are you so obsessed with thirds? If you care about short, clean fractions on a human scale, base 6 is overall better, see this table: [this video] Plus you get all the convenience of having five digits on a hand and 5 as the highest counting digit, so you can count to 55 on two hands, and all the rest of the benefits in that (totally serious) video.

Recommends cjhveal · 2021-04 · on “My Love Affair with Dozens (1972) [pdf]”

One of my favorite language Youtubers, jan Misali, has an interesting video on Dozenal and "Seximal" (base 6) number systems. [this video]

Cites jodrellblank · 2025-08 · on “We'd be better off with 9-bit bytes”

> " (like you just need to remember 2 more digits) " "The standard among mathematicians for writing larger bases is to extend the Arabic numerals using the Latin alphabet, so ten is written with the letter A and eleven is written with the letter B. But actually doing it that way makes ten and eleven look like they're too separate from the rest of the digits so you can use an inverted two for ten and an inverted three for eleven. But those don't display in most fonts so you can approximate them with the letters T and E which also happen to be the first letters of the English words ten and eleven. But actually as long as we're okay for using the Latin alphabet characters for these digits then