Well, it's not actually about the forum. More about my user name. What is that little number below my username, in green chars? u know, like that 0x0B9 or something. what is it???

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"There are three kinds of men: Those who learn by reading, the few who learn by observing, and then there's those guys that just have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."

I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's your hex code. If you know hex, you can see what it says. It's supposed to be your post-count, I believe.

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| mikeyman wuz here |
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Yes, the numbers represent your post count in hex form. I don't understand hex myself, so I just use my profile to figure out my post count

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roit. bear with me!

hexadecimal is a number system of base 16. what we normally use is one that uses base 10. the most obvious difference is the use of letters to make up the extra 7 digits that hex has that decimal doesn't.

Decimal
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Hex
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
A = 10
B = 11
C = 12
D = 13
E = 14
F = 15

Correction had a nifty little diagram, but I can't find it on the forums, so I've made my own *******ised version using your post count (low count = less work for me!) showing your count in hex and how to convert it on the left, and the same process in decimal on the right. once you 'understand' decimal (seeing as most of us take for granted how it works) it makes hex alot easier to grasp.



if this makes no sense, let me know, I'll have another stab at explaining!

[edit] ok, about the 0x0 bit (forgot!)
the 0x, as far as I know, is just a way of identifying hex, as a number in hex won't always have letters in it.
the 0 after the x is only there because it is customary to use three digits when writing in hex, this covers numbers up to 0xFFF = 4095, at which point you just move up to four digits.

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<Skimpy> a gamer girl thats interested in me is one thing...one that listens to harder music than I do and could own me at ET? thats something totally different

[This message has been edited by mavispoo (edited July 17, 2003).]

Math, teh ow...

I'd like to see the rest "deciphered" too for future reference, but for practical purposes, I'll continue using my profile. Icky math...

the rest?

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<Skimpy> a gamer girl thats interested in me is one thing...one that listens to harder music than I do and could own me at ET? thats something totally different

ah, ok. updated

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<Skimpy> a gamer girl thats interested in me is one thing...one that listens to harder music than I do and could own me at ET? thats something totally different

Just punch your base-ten post count into the windows calculator (in scientific mode) and click on the hex radio button. Instant conversion.

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Schism.

Ok. So, does this mean that if I see a post number that is completely made of numerals, then it's not only the hex count but also the base ten count, right?


Ooh, wait. Maybe not.


Woohoo! I converted my current post count, and if I'm correct I should have 35 posts (with a number of 0x023). Okay, thanks ppl. I've got it now.

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"There are three kinds of men: Those who learn by reading, the few who learn by observing, and then there's those guys that just have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."

[This message has been edited by Big_Fry (edited July 18, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by Big_Fry (edited July 18, 2003).]

maeve posts on ISB?

Anyway, here's the deal with hex.

hex is short for Hexadecimal, which means base 16. Now first of all why would we want to use something like base 16? Well here it is. Hexadecimal was introduced as a computer friendly way of working with numbers that didn't involve lots of 0s and 1s. Computers work in binary (base 2), but we find it hard to make quick sense of binary streams, for example

25 in decimal is something we can immediately take in
11001 (25 in binary) is quite difficult to interpret quickly.

So we use hexadecimal, which is nice and compatible with a computer (16 = 2 ^ 4 = 4 bits), so there's no need for complex conversions, but it's quite easy for us to understand. The only real complications you get are people forgetting that it's base 16 and not knowing what the letters are.

In decimal, you make numbers by putting numbers in the respective powers of 10:

e.g.
236
=
2*100 + 3*10 + 6*1

In hexadecimal you do much the same thing, except you use powers of 16 (1,16,256,4096,65536...)

e.g.
236
=
14*16 + 12*1
=
EC

When you write something in hexadecimal it's normal to prefix it with some indication that you're writing in hex, usually 0x or # or hex(

Usually you wont convert hex to decimal in your head, you'll get a calculator to do it, or you'll just remember numbers near to that and work from there.

e.g. FF = 255 (almost any HTML coder knows this one), so F0 is FF - F = 255 - 15 = 240.

[This message has been edited by Jagged Conscience (edited July 18, 2003).]