this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2026
132 points (88.8% liked)

Mildly Interesting

27392 readers
485 users here now

This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?

Just post some stuff and don't spam.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 47 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] ytsedude@lemmy.world 60 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I think you mean "numerals" (or just "numbers"). πŸ˜…πŸ˜¬

[–] sudoMakeUser@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago

That's what she said. sigh

[–] ccunning@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Thanks - I was so confused before you cleared it up for me

[–] Zulu@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

No no, they're on to something. No repeating decimals too!

[–] silver_wings_of_morning@feddit.dk 40 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There are no decimals in the serial number, therefore there are also no repeating decimals

[–] sudoMakeUser@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Every whole number has infinite repeating decimals of zero, kinda.

[–] Sunsofold@lemmings.world 2 points 1 month ago

They're implied, kinda.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It's not possible because that's 16 digits.

[–] Ziglin@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Base 16 would like a word.

[–] badlilbean@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago

Please tell me base 16 isn't trying to hex-a-decimal

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Credit card numbers are in base 10

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Everything is in base 10 (unless it's in unary).

[–] general_kitten@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 month ago

not if i debase your currency >:3

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 points 1 month ago

Base ten then

[–] Ziglin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Seems to be correct, I was thinking of a different card in my wallet.

Ahem I mean I fancypants McGee have the 16 element identity permutation for my card number!

[–] mangaskahn@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What if they are generated in base 16, but numbers containing a-f are discarded. Did you think about that? Huh?

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 points 1 month ago

Yes. The check digit is calculated using base 10

[–] RogueBanana@piefed.zip 3 points 1 month ago

Let me be the judge of that. Maybe you missed it, let me verify it for you.

[–] Bluegrass_Addict@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 month ago

hey neat! I have that exact same bill!

[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 9 points 1 month ago

I can’t help but wonder how you noticed this

[–] mavu@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 month ago (4 children)

fun fact: 1$ bill weighs almost exactly 1 gram and you idiots don't even use the metric system.

[–] whambawhomp@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

Fun fact, all US customary units are defined in terms of the metric system. For example, 1 inch is exactly 2.54cm. which means a US mile is 1.609344km. Americans have be using a bastardized version of the metric system since 1959.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units

[–] Janx@piefed.social 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It actually changes based on how much cocaine and human fluids it absorbs. That sounds like a joke, but I used to calibrate currency scales. There would be one setting for regular bills, and one for crisp, brand new ones; those would weigh measurably less and required compensation.

[–] affiliate@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

We might consider it if you updated the definition so that 1 gram was exactly the weight of a US dollar

[–] ThePrimitive@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

A nickel is 5 grams and you don't use the metric system either.

[–] Mac@mander.xyz 7 points 1 month ago

Now that's an interesting firing order.

None of this 1-8-7-2-6-5-4-3 nonsense, no

Just 8-4-3-1-6-7-2-5 πŸ‘Œ

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago

This is very satisfying

[–] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I heard somewhere recently that the length of a USD One Dollar bill is the average human penis length

[–] Town@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

US bills are 6.14 inches (156 mm) wide, which is significantly larger than the average US penis size (5.16 inches).

https://www.science.org/content/article/how-big-average-penis

A 6.3 inch erect penis is larger than 95% of men.

[–] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Well okay, but the average width is still 2.61 inches, surely

Pretty sure that's the 5 euro note mate.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Someone figure out the probability!

[–] BeanGoblin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If I remember high school math correctly, The first digit can be anything so, 10/10 options, the second digit cant be be the first so only 9/10 options, then 8/10 for the third, continue this pattern for each digit and multiply together you get 1.8% chance.

[–] bigbangdangler@reddthat.com 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

10 x 9 x 8... etc. yields 1,814,400 possible combinations of no repeats, right? I'm confused what the "whole" is if this is expressed as a percent.

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

100 000 000, the number of possible serial numbers.

[–] bigbangdangler@reddthat.com 4 points 1 month ago

Aha, that makes sense. Thanks.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A lot of people collect bills with interesting serial numbers, with stars, etc. a serial number with all the same numbers, or in numerical order, a palindrome, etc., all carry premiums.

This is an intriguing one. It would probably be interesting to them, because it doesn't have any repeating numbers, but it isn't obvious, like if they were in order. Still, I'll bet it's worth a little more than $1, but not much.

[–] Biffsbraincell@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Somebody might, but as a group they don't value these. They are pretty picky, there's a lot of notes of there.

The type closest to this would be Ladders I think. Like 12345678 or 23456789. True ladder are very rare and valuable but broken ladders are pretty common. By the time you get to something like 67890432 you probably wouldn't have any premium to the average buyer

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 1 points 1 month ago

Yeah, that's what I figured. It's mildly interesting, but mildly doesn't translate to $.

[–] Astronut@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago

β€œWell doggies, Ain’t that something!”

            ~Jed Clampet~
[–] teft@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago

You might be able to get more than a dollar for it from a collector. There are numismatists that like interesting serial numbers. Probably won't get a lot since they aren't in order but who knows.

[–] SirHery@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I don't understand what you mean.

[–] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Approximately 10987654*3/10^8 so about 0.0018144 I think?

A sequential bill