When counting objects if they are distinct i make a mental image of them all, and move them around in it. Counting is done when I recognize clusters and sum them (batches of 4-5).

If objects are not distinct but movable I use two or three fingers to move them across to another place, also summing.

When objects can't move but are not distinct and too many I form a plan to iterate through them safely, and then usually count tens on my fingers, and ones in my head (i almost always roll back at some point: 47, 48, 49, 40).

When I'm not counting things it depends on the scale, but I try to rely on summing more than incrementing, because incrementing gets me bored very quickly, and if I'm bored I make mistakes.

-nuffin
zz zZ Z Z #!perl

In reply to Re: When I count, I think of numbers as... by nothingmuch
in thread When I count, I think of numbers as... by ambrus

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.