Very optimistic to have an 8th candle
this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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The candles are only available in packs of 8. It's the smallest addressable unit of wax in many cake architectures
Last birthday party I was at I just wanted a nibble of cake but they told me I had to take one or more bites.
I'd have a few words with them, kick them right up their rear endian
I usually just gather a nibble by picking up a couple crumbs... I'll see myself out.
Maybe this is a signed cake, so one can celebrate negative birthdays of people who aren't born yet. 🤔
Light all the candles as an announcement that you're gonna start having kids and hope she'll get pregnant in exactly three months. Not in 2, not in 4, but in 3 precisely.
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That's the sign bit. The cake is in two's complement
Old man's last words on his 256th birthday: "Unhandled IntegerU8OverflowException, terminating application."
33 was a special year for me because it's the same forwards and backwards both in decimal and binary
1 is asswell :3
If 1 is asswell, then 2 is assgood, and 3 is the beginning of an orgy.
00100001
Am I being dumb? How ist that the same forward and backwards?
If you drop leading zeros as you would in decimal
Damn. I AM dumb.
Why do I confuse Halloween and Christmas? Because Oct 31 is the same as Dec 25
Octal 31 = 3 x 8^1^ + 1 x 8^0^ = 24 + 1 = Decimal 25
- The Yuki language in California has an octal system because the speakers count using the spaces between their fingers rather than the fingers themselves.[2]
- The Pamean languages in Mexico also have an octal system, because some of their speakers "count the knuckles of the closed fist for each hand (excluding the thumb), so that two hands equals eight."[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octal
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I'd actually quite like an overflowing cake thank you very much
thinking of getting older than 255?
How about 4294967295?
with 8 bit? true, with 32 bit you might have a chance to see the sun die, but.... there are just 8 candles
64 bits and you get to watch heat death slowly set in. (Or, y'know, cosmological catastrophe depending on the full physics)
I will grow older than 255 because then it will overflow and I become 0 years old.
I only buy ipv6 cakes, so I'm good.
You probably know, but someone is going to point out an ipv4 address is four bytes.
Heh I've been making my wife do this since my 32nd birthday.
She still doesn't understand binary and thinks I'm a nerd when I try to explain it to her.
Maybe this year, when it's 1+8+32, things will click.
Who counts from right to left?
Is this image mirrored?
You will be surprised to hear that this is how we read decimal numbers too
Even in decimal, the most-significant digit is to the left. Binary in text form is no exception to this.
Unless we are talking little-endian, which would start with the least-significant bit.
Anyone who opens their egg on the small end deserves to be removed from our society.
Now that you mention it it is pretty fucky, but in every textbook thats tried to teach me counting in binary its gone from right to left.
It's not. Numbers are arranged (both binary and base 10) with the most significant digit on the left.
Whether you read the number from left to right or right to left is irrelevant and you can choose whichever one you want.
But it is completely consistent with base 10 (normal numbers).
Same here. University told me the lowest bit is on the right, the highest on the left. Never questioned it.
In kindergarten I was taught when reading the number 123, the lowest digit is on the right, and the highest on the left. Never questioned it either.
Binary is always right to left? I've never seen it written left to right at least.
Binary exists in both ~~big-endian~~LSb or ~~little-endian~~MSb. In other words, both directions can be valid.
As explained below: Endianness is specifically the order of bytes. I was under the impression that it also implied a specific order of bits but anyways, the correct terms for this discussion is Least/Most Significant bit order.
Ya, but we pretty much always write it with most significant on the left. The endianness is more to do with the order transmitted when serialized. Or are there cases where people actually write it backwards?
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This is a single byte, so it's represented the same in big-endian vs little-endian. Endianness defines the order of bytes, not individual bits
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I read 136 🤣
Look, an OpenRISC user.
I did this once, but just had holes instead of unlit candles. I only had like 3 or 4 of them, and nobody's got time to go buy candles when everyone's about to sing happy birthday.
Because of the Hayflick limit, 7 candles should be enough... but only for now, hopefully.
That's because humanity dates back to the teletype era, before bytes. It was decided that saving candles was more important than having the extra century of lifespan.
Now, by convention, the leftmost candle being unlit indicates it's a standard human and not a member of another species-alphabet, possibly requiring multiple cakes.
(On a serious note, aging is not necessarily thought to be as simple as just the Hayflick limit)
We're low on candles, great idea!
Oh, I like this. Nice.
I use that style of birthday candle, but I only place as many bits as needed.
The year before adding a bit then has all candles lit, the next has only one lit
Though the new bits don't come very often. My last was 31 to 32, my next will be 63 to 64, I don't like my chances to see one after that
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