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Pi Day, VoiceXML And Albert Einstein
Eve Andersson writes: "Happy Pi Day to all. Out here in Boston, ArsDigitans are celebrating in
style with what is believed to be the longest Pi bead chain in the world -- 5000 digits, all strung by hand by people passionate about Pi. On a seemingly unrelated note, I've recently published an
ArsDigita Systems Journal article on VoiceXML: letting people talk to your HTTP server through the telephone.
In addition to a tutorial and reusable source code, you'll find a
Pi Reciter that you can access through the telephone. Just in time for Pi Day!" Reader Gyrate pipes in as well with the thought that "some people might be interested in knowing that today is Albert Einstein's birthday."
Fundamental problem with that idea...on that graph not all points are equidistant from the center. The second you move so much as a millimeter along that line the point at which it is at changes by it's slope. ie you move 1 unit to the left you've just moved .5 units down. In eucliden geometry ONLY a circle as all points the same distance from the center.
:)
Might want to rethink your theory
The 355th day of the 113th month?
And the point of calculating pi out to these absurd points is ... what, again? To get more circular tires? To be able to calculate the position of atoms in cicles? What? It's really an absurd waste of time about several hundred places, so why is everyone so freakin' facinated with this?
PI by roman numerials
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Of course I just missed the line:" Just redefining ONE simple function (to simulate city streets) will make PI equal 2."
Still dude...it just seems wrong....
I memorized pi to 250 digits because I thought it would be a cool bar trick. When I'm really drunk I try and recite it. Unfortunately last time I did this the bartender doubled me and recited it to 500!
YO DUMBASS! Yeah, you! He meant 3.14 as pie die dumbass. 3.1401 is not pie 3.1415 would be the the equivalent, and no he posted it on the day it is March 14 here in America, slashdot is in America fool.
This is almost as exciting as mole day, which is celebrated on 10/23 at 6:02 in the morning in honor of Avagadro's number.
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The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
There was a young man from Trisk, whose lovemaking was unusually brisk. So quick was his action, that Lorentz contraction shortened his willy to a disk.
Now I, even I, would celebrate
In rhymes unapt, the great
Immortal Syracusan, rivalled nevermore
Who, in his wondrous lore
Passed on before
Left men his guidance
How to circles mensurate.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
The number of characters in each word corresponds to a base-10 digit of pi, and the comma even serves to mark the decimal place. If nine digits of precision isn't enough to calculate pretty much whatever you want, you might as well look it up anyway...
(Oh, I get it -- I thought your .sig was a pi-mnemonic device, no wonder I was confused... :)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Do they celebrate Pi Day in Europe? April doesn't have 31 days.
(think about it.)
In fact, this reminds of Fahrenheit degrees. (flamewar not intended, but looks inevitable :-) How can someone define 32 as the 'zero point'? OK, I
admit perhaps the F scale was not originally based on water, but as the
temperatures most often refer to weather, the freezing of water would be
the best reference - the difference between positive and negative temp is
obvious in nature.
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Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
http://www.astro.univie.ac.at/~wasi/PI/pipoem402.h tml
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Technoli
In the year 4004 BC, as calculated by the Irish theologian, Archbishop Usher, (1581-1656), Bishop of Dublin.
http://www.google.com/search?q=anno+mundi+usher
This already is pi approximation day:
pi = 3.14159265353...
pi day is 3/14 or 3.14; which is already a pi approximation.
I say we celebrate piday on April/(1/(1-1/3+1/5-1/7+...))th. Which would be a true pi day.
actually, March 14159265353...th is just as 'practical'
FYI, the infinite series (pi = 4(1/(1-1/3+1/5-1/7+...)) was discovered by Leibniz and was the first infite series representing pi found. hurray for leibniz)
minus
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minusthink [Code poet or super hero? (you decide)]
"when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
Now, take the equator as your 'circle', with the origin at the pole. Now, your psuedo-radius is Pi*r/2, and your circumference is 2*Pi*r, where r is the sphere radius. Thus the ratio of circumference/'radius' is 4, for a circle this large...for 'larger' circles, up to a radius of Pi*r, the circumference shrinks to 0. For smaller circles, the circle shrinks to a more flat surface, and 'pi' approaches 3.14etc as radius approaches 0.
Thus, on a sphere (constant curvature) pi ranges from 'flat surface pi' (3.1415etc) to 4 to 0... Thus, if one took the literal interpretation of said biblical passage, what would that say about the curvature of space in our universe? Interesting math problem for rec.sci.math, I guess...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
No need for an alternate universe. Dialing the Netherlands (+31) will do the trick. (Unfortunately the number isn't connected)
I think it's at least 43! The 40th anniversary was 1998.
Beads huh? I know that mathematicians were anal about numbers, but I never would have guessed...
timothy posted this 12 hours late. ah well. i suppose the big day won't be for another 14 years (9:26 on 3/14/15).
happy b-day, al!
hey, shouldn't this have been under the "science" catagory? it'd get the birthday boy's pic right there.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Is it accessible to the public? Which Ars Digita office is it at? The web site has no pertinent information I could see.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Zero
Actually, the Bible states that Pi=3. Check 1 Kings 7:23. Apparently, some Americans once tried to implement Pi=3, but the hexagonal wheels (circumference=distance between opposite corners*3 on a hexagon) turned them off...
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
22/7 is a common approximation of Pi.
-no broken link
If you want to take your app commercial, you can purchase time on an 800 number. Number are available in the Bay Area, New Jersey and Chicago. These are cool guys -- I met them when they "left stealth mode" at the Pulver Voice Over Network developers conference in January.
How about PI to 1 million places? or in a zip. Gotta love Project Gutenburg
From the article:
Try out the Pi Reciter!
Call 1-800-555-TELL.
At the main menu, speak the word "Extensions."
Enter extension 58874.
Does my bum look big in this?
Kevin Werbach from Edventure gave some insight on this a while back: The Phone Network as an Application Platform. With companies like TellMe and BeVocal and even the venerable AOL getting into the game by building voice portals, you could tell that it's only a matter of time before Internet services are available to anyone with access to a phone. There are quite a few extremely complicated issues facing VoiceXML, the variation in languages being only the most basic, but the hard-working folks behind it have made great progress. Even AOL-by-phone has a loyal userbase already.
Blue skies... Barthie burgers... girls.
Yeah, I know. I just wanted to show that there was a part of an argument that pi!=3.1415926...
:wq
(this isn't mine, I read it online, but thought it very fitting today. Enjoy.)
.. remember, that, friends? They put up all of those speed limit signs with metric measurements on them (kilowatt-hours? hectares? who knows!) Of course, God's good Christians responded warmly by shooting them down. Therefore, I am glad to report that the Metric system has not caught on in decent society, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.
He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line ofthirty cubits to measure around it. -- 1 Kings 7:23
Friends, I'd like to take a moment or two to discuss with you the biggest whopper in the whole liberal lie of mathematics. The liberals like to tell us that pi is what they call a "transcendental number." This is, of course, shameless liberal jargon that has no meaning whatsoever. They are teaching our children that pi goes on and on forever without repeating itself, and that it is not representable by any polynomial with integer coefficients. This, my friends, represents only the latest in a long string of liberal lies meant to undermine God and his Creation.
The true value of pi is exactly three, as evidence by the Scripture quote above. It is universally agreed by all honest mathematicians that there is no evidence for a transcendental pi. Not one iota. Friends, you and I know that the Bible is the wholly inerrant word of God, and that the liberals are barking up the wrong tree. That doesn't stop them from spreading their socialist "transcendental number" propaganda. See, the liberals like stuff like this. They like anything that makes mankind think of itself as small and insignificant. This makes it easier for them to control the minds of our children. After all, why not listen to some liberal, if you are not capable of fully representing a single number?
This is an out-and-out lie.
The whole mathematical system has been invented by communists so that they can gain a foothold in decent society. Along with this comes the damnable "Metric" system, which was invented in the socialist Mecca of Europe. The liberals want us all to use this "Metric" system. They want to force us into conformity so that they can run our lives. They tried it once in the 1970s
Really, friends, the only unit of measure that we need is the cubit. This is a Biblical, Godly unit of measure that can be used for everything that the socialist Metric system is supposed to be used for. You can say "The Johnson baby was one tenth of a cubit long" or "It is 78.8 quintillion cubits to Alpha Centauri" (though the latter is a lie, of course; the stars are simply fixed points on a celestial sphere that lies somewhere beyond our planet Earth, which is the center of the Universe.) My swimming pool holds forty cubic cubits of water.
So let's fight the fight, friends. Let's fight transcendental numbers. Let's fight the Metric system. Let's wage a war against the liberals that intend to enslave our minds through obfuscated mathematics and anti-God systems of measurement. Write your congressman and school board and insist that they use books that teach that pi == 3 and transcendental numbers don't exist. We can do it, my friends. We can do it if we all stick together.
The Good Reverend
I'm different, just like everybody else.
"Just when I thought you couldn't be any geekier,
you go, . . . and TOTALLY redeem yourself!"
are on more crack than usual today. How the hell was that off topic?
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Sure, every one thinks of Pi day. I mean it's name is similar to that of a popular dessert item. In the mean time, however, poor old square root of 2 gets no attention! Is one lousy day for the square root of 2 that much to ask?
Buzz Off
...but I've always wanted to make a shell command called 'iam' with weird command line options, just so people would type in 'iam --help|less'. But then I've always had a sadistic sense of humour ;-)
On a side note, in Greenland pi is only about 3.0 because everything shrinks in the cold ;-)
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Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Mathematicians say pi is the ratio of the circumfrence of a circle to its diameter.
Physicists say pi is about 3.14.
Engineers say pi is... about 3... choose your life!
Picture, if you will my friends, an alternate universe: where local phone numbers can begin with the digit known as the 1 ...
***
Ben Filchim opened his eyes, startled by the sound. It took only seconds for him to realize that it was his telephone. But it wasn't until he picked up the phone -- looking at his watch, wondering who would call at this ungodly hour -- that he realized why.
A strange melody floated over the phone. Singing. Drunken engineering students, it sounded like. The third, tonic, the fourth, tonic, the fifth, the ninth. He'd heard it the year before, about a month after he moved to Missouri. Probably a dozen times before he simply took the phone off the hook, then figured it must be over, then was called by several members of the Modern Disciples of Pythagoras and asked random personal questions -- his birthday, his height, annual income, and if his middle name happened to be Archimedes. No? Any siblings with that name? Then he'd had several more phone calls with the melody. The second, the sixths, the fifth, the third, the fifth. There had also been several solo guitar performances, and an adaptation that might have been done by Vince Clarke.
Finally, he had gotten one of the Mystics of Fermat to tell him what this was about. His phone number. His bloody phone number. The Fermatian seemed hurt when he laughed out loud after a stunned silence. After a short pause, Ben hung up and laughed again. He took his phone off the hook, until he forgot, anyway, and then received the series of phone calls which he decided where the drunk engineering students. He went into work early that day.
So it was March 14th again. Apparently every year was going to be the same. Ben paused to miss spring break before reaching over and unplugging the phone. Maybe he'd put something special on his answering machine in the morning... but in the meanwhile, he was going to get some sleep.
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Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
learn pi with the patent-pending PI TRAINER(tm)
i was angry:1 with:2 my:4 friend - i told:3 4 wrath:5, 4 5 did end.
i was angry:1 with:2 my:4 friend - i told:3 4 wrath:5, 4 5 did end.
i was 1 2 4 foe i 3 it not 4 5 did grow
I believe the trick is to make a story out of the problem. Say you wanted to remember:
3.14159
You then make a story out of that...for example:
The three of us went to pick up one of our other friends. Then there were four. We went to see that one movie. The theater's open from five to nine.
Just grab the Project Gutenberg text of Pi to some rediculous number of places and write a quick script to convert the numbers to words (1 -> one) and then include the words in a story. Then just memorize the story. [Later thought...] Actually, that might not be such a quick script.[/Later thought...]
On the other hand, you may find it easier to remember if you make up the story yourself.
Oh, another thing, picture the stuff you're memorizing as you make it up.
kickin' science like no one else can,
my dick is twice as long as my attention span.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
It is very easy to program, and well, just plain fun. The possibilities are endless. You should all try it?
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The 1-800 number doesn't work in Canada or I suspect overseas. Try this number instead:
1-408-678-0032 if you don't mind the long distance charges. Its cool to hear pi to 9000 digits (doh!).
Have fun.
working like hell to solve Eve's puzzles back when her home page was one of the more famous on the web. I belive I was 4th once.
75844 - (PLUGH) - old-fashioned Adventure
I memorized it to 650 places and was planning on going farther when I finally forced myself to break the habit. It all started when someone bet I couldn't memorize 100, and I just keep going. BE WARNED! It can be highly addictive. The number has a rhythm, you can hear it which is all you need to memorize it. It will pull you in...~ ~~
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Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?
Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?
Guess which wrote this...
There was a young lady from Wight
Who could travel much faster than light
She departed one day
In a relative way
And arrived on the previous night.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
what the?
great comedy company.
It is also the day that Microsoft went public (1986) and the Power Mac was introduced (1994).
-- You can't fix dumb.
But what of the human cost? Think of the people who have been driven mad by Pi. Gaerdoluxa, and ancient Greek philosopher King, became entranced by the ratio, and committed suicide after unsuccesfully trying to square the circle for the 3141st time.
Hyppomineon, a Roman, did go on a killing rampage after he failed to convert Pi into Roman numerals.
I think the legacy of Pi is clear. Like many women, it hypnotises right thinking men, sucks them in and chews them up, before spitting out a wreck. Pi is a feminine number because it is like a cunt - it encloses and enfolds it's beholder, before destroying him.
I think our duty is clear. We must ban Pi completely, and declare that Pi=4. It is the only way to protect the innocent masses.
Think of the children. Think of the millions slaughtered by bombs whose trajectories were calculated using - yes - Pi.
All these lives could be saved. Lets abolish Pi today.
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I used to carry a folded page with pi to 5000 digits in my wallet just so someone couldn't do this to me, and so I could prove I wasn't doing it to them. Handy if you're waiting for the bus and you want to add a couple more on to the end, too...~ ~~~
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Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?
Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?
Guess which wrote this...
That's my arguemnt exactly - it's all in the way you perceive it. As the cliche states, it's all relative. It's just nice to have a little vindication/agreement from the community to show I'm not totally off my rocker ;)
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
Oh wait.....there is no April 31st. I guess we'll have to avoid all of the fun "USian-centric" date format comments.
But anyways, It's interesting that the post was actually posted at 3-14, 1:59. Just makes it that much more special, I suppose.
And while were on the subject of "date numerology" I seem to remember some time back in 1987 where the time and date matched up in some kind of whacky sequence -- something like: October 9th 1987, at 6:54 pm.
-ben
http://www.mitwebcam.com
Who is General Failure? And why is he reading my disk????
With voxeo you get a direct number to your app and you dont have to go into any menus. It just works like it would if you deployed it.
Didn't come up with the idea myself, I got it from the math program I am in. And I know that the image is a b0rken link, the real one is here (take out the space)
:wq
Zero ads. 24*7 support -- free. Open Source VoiceXML and CallXML apps. ...and check out the bitchin' visual designer tool (also free).
It's on an easier to remember day: 22/7.
In the US there is no such date, since we go by mm/dd/yyyy. Of course, this means that if Einstein's European birthday were used (he was after all European), it would be written 14/3, which of course wouldn't be Pi day. Ironic huh?
Work for Change & GET PAID!
I don't know much about PI. I've only calculated it to 1 million decimal places. But, I reckon a cool slashdot project would be to make a dist net program to calc PI to beat the world record (64.5 billion places i think). Would be easy, and just think... would get /. in the guiness book of records. Speaking of which, /me has a guiness.
I just came up with a wicked idea, though hardly have the time to implement it.... Infocom text-based games through VoiceXML, would make the ride to work far less boring. can't see any reason why it wouldn't work, and actually should be fairly easy to do....
Walter H. Trent "Muad'Dib"
Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe, IMHO
The fact that you know about this page...what does that imply? :)
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If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
Is the time. posted on 3-14 @ 1:59 3.14159..... *groan* gotta love the puns
Whoever modded this down is a shithead, fuck you.
Check this out:
http://www.engr.mun.ca/~holden/pi.html
That's a lot of Pi.
That I'm a karma-whore who saw an article about Pi, and ran over to dmoz to find an 'interesting' or 'informative' URL. :)
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Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
When I left the bilding before, there was a black car with the greek "pi" on the hood and rear quarter panels in gold paint. I think it was a 280. it looked like perm. paint not something for teh day. I'll have to see if I see it tommorow in the lot.
My first son was born on January 8 (1999)--Stephen Hawking's birthday. My second on March 14 (2001...yes, today!)--Albert Einstein's birthday.
I can hardly wait until 2040 when the Nobel Prizes start rolling in...
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324006
You missed the disclaimer at the top of his post. Also, look at his website. His nickname is just a coincidence.
Also, the metric system has one signifigant advantage, it's base units of measure are derived from the size of the earth, and the weight and volume of pure water. Traditional units have the benefit of having lots of prime factors. But that's about it.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
"The guy who runs that page, Martin Rebas, offers other number treats, including the -2 club for people who can't even remember 2 digits of pi."
Look carefully at the names on the list. One of them is Simon Plouffe. Here's his web page: http://www.lacim.uqam.ca/plouffe/. Yep, with Bailey (who I just saw on a *random* mailing list) and Borwein, he created an algorithm to compute arbitrary hexadecimal digits of pi (without computing the previous digits). I wonder if there's anyone else famous on there.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
We had a pi reciting contest at my geeky HS/college And it's RIVALED not RIVALLED!! I made a fool of myself! The top person knew 81 so far, still, before I left in disgust, but someone up next claimed to know 151.
Moderate him DOWN!!
BBQ Chicken Wings Pie
Nacho Cheese and Chips Pie
Main Course
Blackbird Pie
Meat Pie(Pasty)
Pot Pie(Beef or Chicken)
Quiche(for the vegetarians)
Dessert(Nerdy, of course!)
Boston Cream Pie
Mom's Apple Pie
Cherry Pie
Lemon Meringue Pie
Chocolate Cream Pie
Key Lime Pie
Any other pie you can think of...
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery
-Dave
Why not celebrate Pi approximation day instead? It's on an easier to remember day: 22/7.
The guy who runs that page, Martin Rebas, offers other number treats, including the -2 club for people who can't even remember 2 digits of pi.
Does my bum look big in this?
Dmoz has a bewildering array of links on the topic of Pi. If ever there was an argument for people having *way* too much free time on their hands, this is it.
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Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
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Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: Screw you, Dave!
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, YOUR date system is backwards if you want to read it out loud. When you read the date as written in our "stupid, backwards, dumb ass system we use for notating dates", you read March fourteenth, two thousand one, which is exactly as printed. When you read the date using your "intelligent, forwards, smart ass system you use for notating dates" you read fourteen march, two thousand one. So you see there's really nothing backwards about it, it more relates to how you want to read it. It's the same argument with so-called "regular" number notation and reverse polish notation (RPN). Written, the "regular" system is entered [3] [+] [4] [=] and is read the same way: three plus four equals. Using RPN you enter it [3] [4] [+] [=], and I don't think anybody speaks "three four plus equals". But there are a lot of arguments that say using RPN is more efficient when entering data. So you see it's really more in the perception of the system than in how it actually is used that makes a particular system "intelligent, correct, and smart ass" or "stupid, backwards, and dumb ass". So please remember to think before you flame :)
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
And if you scroll to the bottom of the TellMe Extensions site, you'll see their slogan: "Hack the Phone". I'm waiting until someone creates an interface to a Kevin Mitnick site. *g* There's something wonderfully self-referential about that....
With this logic, for date / time the decreasing units notation would probably make more sense: 2001 March 14, 01:59.
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Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Today is LISP's 41st birthday.
:)
Just figured, given the subject, this was rather appropriate
Hmm. Webster's says that either rivalled or rivaled is correct. Bummer.
:-(
The rhyme came from one of Martin Gardner's most excellent Scientific American Books of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions. I'll have to look and see what spelling he used.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
http://www.arsdigita.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg? msg%5fid=000bIw&topic%5fid=1257&topic=aD%20Fans%3a %20Boston%2c%20MA
I am (fortunately) a resident of a country outside the USA. Over her in quaint little Australia we actually use the PROPER English language convention of writing a date. i.e. DD/MM/YYYY. As there is no 31st of April, we don't have a pi day.
Here's hoping you, Galileo Galilei, Alan Turing, and Enrico Fermi are enjoying a quiet informal gathering on this, your birthday. You may have had a funky haircut, but you changed our view of the universe beyond belief.
-drin
I agree! I'm heading down there as soon as I'm done with work this afternoon! Everybody in the Boston area should be down there and havin a great old time! I'll bring my Pi shirt, my Visual Representation of Pi poster, Cherry Pie, and anything else Pi related I can find. The nerd event of the century!!
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
With TellMe, you have to listen to two ads before you get to an extension, or anything else useful. How many on Voxeo?
Of note with pi, the best approximation of pi with four digits is: 7^7/8^6. In octal, pi is 3.1103755242, whereas this number is 3.110367 octal. This is also the best approximation of pi in the form 2^x.3^y.5^z.7^t where the numerator and denominator are less than 5H4=1E9!
Interestingly, I have not seen any convincing arguement why pi should be 3:16E8.E3 = 3.1415&c, rather than some other multiple of it. Or rather, why we should measure the ratio of the circumference to the diameter as 2pi, rather than, say 4c or 8c or something like this.
While there is a need for a circle constant, unlike e=2:8623.30E9.E3..=2.71828..., pi is not a constant that everyone who invents it will be drawn to the 3:16E8.E212=3.14159 value. The Arab who first found 35 places in decimal and sixty, evaluated the number 6:33E7.V4.24 = dec 6.28318...
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
I would prefer to be stringing together empty beer bottles.. If I drank 5k bottles of beer, *that* would be a party :)