[wordup] do not calculate pi in binary

Adam Shand larry at spack.org
Sat Aug 4 17:35:59 EDT 2001


Via: Colin Dabritz <Colin at dabritz.org>
From: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/01/Jun/pi.html

WARNING: Do NOT calculate Pi in binary. It is conjectured that this number
is normal, meaning that it contains ALL finite bit strings.

If you compute it, you will be guilty of:

* Copyright infringement (of all books, all short stories, all newspapers,
  all magazines, all web sites, all music, all movies, and all software,
  including the complete Windows source code)

* Trademark infringement

* Possession of child pornography

* Espionage (unauthorized possession of top secret information)

* Possession of DVD-cracking software

* Possession of threats to the President

* Possession of everyone's SSN, everyone's credit card numbers, everyone's
  PIN numbers, everyone's unlisted phone numbers, and everyone's passwords

* Defaming Islam.  Not technically illegal, but you'll have to go into
  hiding along with Salman Rushdie.

* Defaming Scientology.  Which IS illegal--just ask Keith Henson.

Also, your computer will contain all of the nastiest known computer
viruses. In fact, all of the nastiest POSSIBLE computer viruses.  Some of
the files on my PC are intensely personal, and I for one don't want you
snooping through a copy of them.

You might get away with computing just a few digits, but why risk it?
There's no telling how far into Pi you can go without finding the secret
documents about the JFK assassination, a photograph of your neighbor's six
year old daughter doing the nasty with the family dog, or a complete copy
of the not-yet-released Pearl Harbor movie. So just don't do it.

The same warning applies to e, the square root of 2, Euler's constant,
Phi, the cosine of any non-zero algebraic number, and the vast majority of
all other real numbers.

There's a reason why these numbers are always computed and shown in
decimal, after all.





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