[Forwarded from comp.risks, written by Keith F. Lynch ,
posted with his permission - ed.]
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.
--
From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and
Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup
rec.humor.funny. Visit
http://www.netfunny.com/rhf to browse the RHF pages
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