[CrackMonkey] [schoen@loyalty.org: Pill-weighing]

[Mr. Bad]

>>>>> "SDS" == Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> writes:

    SDS> Right.  Why are you doing this in base 10?  Isn't that a
    SDS> little wasteful?

Well, the digits you get with the number 101 don't work out so nicely
in any other base, do they? Although I guess you could do it in base
2, and shift each set by 7 bits (64 < 100 < 128).

So you add 2 ^ ((X-1) * 7) pills to the coffer each time. 1, 128, 2 ^
14, dot dot dot, and look for the groups of 6 where the bit pattern
isn't, uh, lessee, 110101.

However, that takes up MORE pills than my second answer (where you
just look at the disturbance in the digits). And you couldn't do it
the same way, because with bits, it's not so easy to see an addition. 

I think you could figure a base smaller than 10 that would let you do
overlaps and still get information out of them, but my brain hurts
from thinking so much today.

~Mr. Tired