Post #2941155
2026-02-26 16:00 UTC
Replies (2)
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@Aedius@lavraievie.social 2026-02-26 16:19
[@CanadaPlus](https://lemmy.sdf.org/u/CanadaPlus) Because if you add 1 to 1111111 it will overflow and give 0000000 so you have to have the baby in 1 year exactly
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@Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 2026-02-26 22:22
Longer explanation: Because most computers use *two's complement* to make negative numbers. To produce -*x*, you take *x*, flip all the bits, and then add 1. Conveniently, this process works both ways, so if you have an `int` with a positive MSB, i.e. `1*******`, that's a negative number, and if you invert and add 1, you get the positive number. So if you take `11111111`, and apply this process, you get `00000001`, which equals 1. Thus, `11111111` = -1 Secondly, the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and there are 12 months in a year. So if you have binary candles and all of them lit, that can suggest, which it does in my previous comment, that you're celebrating a child's -1st birthday.