For his birthday last year, I got Mike a black t-shirt that says, “There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don’t.” It is the only shirt that he wears that gets comments, like the beleagured father/software engineer at the Minneapolis Airport who leaned over and confided to Mike, “Unfortunately, I do understand.”
The most recent comment was at my grandfather’s nursing home. While leaving, a woman stopped Mike with a loudly asked question, “What does your shirt mean? What is binary?” How do you explain binary numbers to a random person who asks? Mike gave me a look and then went to explain, when she said loudly, “Write it down. I can’t hear well.” Mike again gave me a look, and I quickly whispered something about adding computers to the explanation. I chatted with the woman and an older gentleman sitting next to her while Mike wrote down his explanation. When he was done, she turned the paper around, read it and smiled, saying, “Now if only I could understand them.” She thanked Mike, we said goodbye, and we headed outside.
When I asked him what he wrote down, he told me, “It’s a way of writing down numbers so a computer can understand them.” It sounds like a good enough explanation for a lay person, not overly robust, but it gets the idea across. Now, the next time Mike gets stopped about that shirt, he has an explanation.