Laid-Off Journalist Trying To Learn To Code Horrified To Discover The Code Is Binary

The Babylon Bee ^ | December 2, 2021 | The Babylon Bee

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

NEW YORK, NY—When Huffington Post writer Brutto Chalet discovered he was being let go earlier this year, he decided he was going to do what all Americans do when they lose their job: learn to code.

There's just one problem: he suddenly realized the code he was working in was binary.

"Excuse me, professor?" he said to his programming teacher. "Yeah, hi. Brutto Chalet, he/him. Did I hear you correctly? Are we only allowed to work in binary code? Are there non-binary options for us to work with?"

The teacher said that they would just be learning to program atop binary code systems in this particular class, as virtually all computer systems are written in binary.

"Wow -- that's really problematic, chief," Chalet said. After apologizing for appropriating the term "chief" from the Native Americans, Chalet excitedly realized that exposing the bigotry of the programming community would make for a great Huffington Post article. It was a few minutes before he remembered that he wasn't a journalist anymore, though.

[Sacajaweau]

I read the title twice...and became suspicious...But I admit it...the Bee almost stung me.

[dayglored]

LOL I get the Bee’s daily emails and I damn near posted this one earlier. So I’m glad you did, thanks!

[dayglored]

I have a co-worker who is very much woke, nice guy otherwise, great engineer, but we love messing with him. We were starting a conference call some months ago and all going around introducing ourselves, and he said, "Hi everybody, I'm Joe Baggadonuts, he/him,..." and you could hear the muffled snickers.

In another context I triggered him a little by introducing myself as "Dayglored, His Majesty/Exalted Leader", but he's a good sport and laughed.

[NetAddicted]

Learn assembler code.

[martin_fierro]

The Bee is Gold.

[kvanbrunt2]

very funny but code isn’t binary just the bits at the bottom.

[The Duke]

6502 Assembler - MAE 6502 Assembler to be precise! (supports 80-column green screen display card).

[Billthedrill]

Hexadecimal was way too kinky for me.

[higgmeister]

He has a problem with binary, wait until he sees hexadecimal.   LOL

[M_Continuum]

Sometimes they are too close. Got me this morning.

[USS Alaska]

I signed up for Babylon Bee emails and they are hilarious.

The good thing is that with a few lines, they can brighten your day.

The scary part is satire is so close to the actual daily craziness we witness constantly.

When you can't tell fact from satire the world is spinning out of control.

[poconopundit]

... code isn’t binary just the bits at the bottom.

* * *

1011000111 010101 00101 1100011010
01110 1100011.  101, 010011, 01110101
101100-01110 10101?  00101011: 00011010,
011101, and 101101?  0101 00101 01100011
10110001110101010.

      !@!

[poconopundit]

Hexadecimal was way too kinky for me.

* * *

LOL!  Excellent!

[liberalh8ter]

The Babylon Bee deserves awards, many awards.

[asinclair]

Code is not inherently binary. Our modern computer systems use binary-mode calculations almost exclusively. This was not always the case. For example, there have been computers that use decimal calculations. The IBM System/360 et al had decimal operations as part of its instruction set. The IBM 1620 went further: the computer nicknamed "The CADET -- Can't Add, Doesn't Even Try" didn't calculate, it exclusively used table lookup for its operations, which means that mathematicians could do calculations in a variety of base notations -- I knew one PhD who explored calculations in base seven.

Further, the underlying electronics did not have to be two-state, or "binary". Some research computer were built that used trinary, or three-state, circuits: 0, 1, and 2; or in the basic theory -1, 0, 1. Not very useful, as it turns out.

Calculating machines (pre-electronics) in wide use even today do their calculations in base 10. You see this in handle-powered adding machines even today, although these tend to be hard to find in any store.

[dfwgator]

There are 10 kinds of people.

[dfwgator]

Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes

https://www.theonion.com/microsoft-patents-ones-zeroes-1819564663

[Organic Panic]

There are 10 kinds of people. 1 that knows binary, and 1 that doesn’t.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I suppose that the old-fashioned manual cash registers in the grocery stores worked in base 10, too.