In The Art of Computer Programming, Donald Knuth notes an interesting pattern in the common units of liquid measure in 13th-century England:

2 gills = 1 chopin
2 chopins = 1 pint
2 pints = 1 quart
2 quarts = 1 pottle
2 pottles = 1 gallon
2 gallons = 1 peck
2 pecks = 1 demibushel
2 demibushels = 1 bushel or firkin
2 firkins = 1 kilderkin
2 kilderkins = 1 barrel
2 barrels = 1 hogshead
2 hogsheads = 1 pipe
2 pipes = 1 tun

“Quantities of liquid expressed in gallons, pottles, quarts, pints, etc. were essentially written in binary notation,” Knuth writes. “Perhaps the true inventors of binary arithmetic were British wine merchants!”

(Thanks, Colin.)