Some might say it’s giving finger counting too much thought, others might say it’s a tangent too serious for dad jokes, I say… the efficiency gains seem to come from a change in technique for how a count is stored.

Base-10 finger counting technique just accumulates, the number of fingers held up is the count.

Base-12 uses a pointer (your thumb) to point to a value (a knuckles or finger segment).

Base-2 uses a finger up or down to show a place value as one or zero.

You could tattoo numbers on your forearm so all five fingers from your other hand could point to a value for up to five more places to point.

Someone else who knows how to finger count in base-12 and binary!

I think the binary one I learned as a joke, show someone they are number four.

The base-12 was an explanation for how the ancient Sumerians finger counted, using the other hand’s fingers for groups of 12, leading to base 60 (5×12).

I have the same problem with binary counting practically though, and using a modified Sumerian system (both hands to 12) gets you to 144, which is plenty for anything where finger counting is actually useful.

One other thing, I use the finger bones rather than the knuckles, little easier but same idea.

The classic joke:

Rabbi Altmann and his secretary were sitting in a coffeehouse in Berlin in 1935. “Herr Altmann,” said his secretary, “I notice you’re reading Der Stürmer! I can’t understand why. A Nazi libel sheet! Are you some kind of masochist, or, God forbid, a self-hating Jew?”

“On the contrary, Frau Epstein. When I used to read the Jewish papers, all I learned about were pogroms, riots in Palestine, and assimilation in America. But now that I read Der Stürmer, I see so much more: that the Jews control all the banks, that we dominate in the arts, and that we’re on the verge of taking over the entire world. You know – it makes me feel a whole lot better!”

I accept no credit, I simply copy-pasted from Wikipedia.

Don’t give them ideas.

It’s more that MS has leaned into the subscription model with Office 365 and such.

Windows is already kind of a “Freemium” OS, so I’m expecting them to continue in that fashion. Your are right, the article is mostly pointless speculation that was refuted anyways, but I’ll admit it sounded a bit off to me anyways. MS wants people to be running Windows, so they can seem then GamePass subscriptions, Office365 subscriptions, and whatever other services they can think of. As such, I expect the core OS to be very free. Just what constitutes core functionality versus Premium features might change.

The actual infrastructure was horribly inefficient, but that may have improved with ETH’s move to proof of stake.

There’s other issues, but the idea of using the digital receipt as an “investment” seems fundamentally flawed.