this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don't want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That's ludicrous!

That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use "less" when they should use "fewer"

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

12 has more prime factors than 10. 12 has 2, 3, 4 and 6. 10 only has 2 and 5. This also means that thirds and quarters are much easier to do everyday maths on and those fractions are much more common than fifths.

For example, in base 10, a third is 0.33333..., going infinitely. But in base 12, a third is just 0.4. The times table for 2, 3, 4 and 6 is also much easier.

Tau makes much more sense than pi because it is based on the radius of the circle rather than the diameter. The radius is the more fundamental property of the circle. You'll actually see 2pi appear in many formulas. See also https://tauday.com/tau-manifesto

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Interesting take. Thanks for the explanation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Because op has six fingers on each hand

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

The primary reasoning I've heard is that it's easier to do arithmetic with numbers that are factors of your numeral base and 12 has more factors than 10 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12 vs. 1, 2, 5, 10)

Base 12 seems a little impractical to me since humans have 10 fingers, which makes base 10 easier to teach to children, but it's a matter of opinion i guess

τ is equal to 2π, which allows the formula for the circumference of a circle to be written more concisely (τr vs. 2πr or πd) but complicates most other places where π is used, like in the area of a circle (τr^2/2 vs. πr^2)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

My response to the 10 fingers thing is that it's easier to do certain calculations in your head. A lot of those calculations are larger than 10, anyway, so your fingers don't help.

A third of 24 is 8. A third of 60 is 20. It becomes second nature after a while.

One place I used this a lot was 40k. In between rolls, I grouped my dice into sets of 4. When the next roll called for 12 dice, I quickly pick up 3 sets. If it's 10, pick up two sets plus two dice from a third set. Made it really quick to count. At least for the base rolls, a lot of the stats in 40k tend to work in multiples of 4, so this worked out.