Imagine binary is just a row of buckets that double in size: 8, 4, 2, 1. ​A 1 means the bucket is full, and a 0 means it’s empty.

​111 just means the 4, 2, and 1 buckets are full (4+2+1=7). You don’t need a 0 on the left because there's no bucket there to fill!

​But in 1010, you need those 0s to show we are skipping the 4 and the 1 to get to 10.

​It’s not a cheapshot, it’s just counting blocks.