heheheh a bit of PI in your eye
Aug. 18th, 2003 06:10 pmIf 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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-18 01:28 pm (UTC)