But how many digits of π do you actually need to compute the numbers you need in your daily life? Did a hear a resounding “NONE!” there? Well, you might be surprised. For example, let’s say you’re an amoral real estate developer who has just greased enough palms to bulldoze a property full of low-income housing and put up fashionable high-priced condominiums. The area is one mile in radius, so you know you can build a boatload of condos. But how many, exactly, might that be? To know that number, you’d have to compute the area, and for that you need π. The formula for the area of a circle is A= π * r^2, the famous “pie are square” of the ancient hillbilly joke. If you take π as 0 digits of decimal accuracy, it becomes simply ’3′, so the area is 3 square miles. But that answer is actually .14 sq. miles (almost 4 million square feet) less than the actual area. You can build a lot of condos on that amount of land. So clearly, our hypothetical contractor will want to know π to more digits than that. It turns out that π to 4 digits (3.1415) is just about close enough. It comes up only 2583 sq. ft. short of the actual area. Of course, you might be able to squeeze one more condo into that much space, so 5 digits is probably best; using 3.14159 leaves only 74 sq. ft., much too small a spot on which to place even the smallest condominium. But if he wanted to make sure he had it down to an accuracy of 1 sq. ft., he’d have to know π to 7 digits: 3.1415926.

But what if you’re an astronaut trying to hit Mars? Mars is, at its closest, 34.65 million miles from earth. Let’s say that you’ve got a hotshot cowboy astronaut (aren’t they all) piloting your spacecraft who can get you into Mars orbit if you come within one Martian diameter of where you’re supposed to be. Turns out that π to 4 digits is enough. But if you want to be within 3 ft. of your target, you’d need π to 11 digits: 3.14159265358.

So when do you need π to 10,000 digits in real life? Never, obviously. I know it to 15 digits and have never needed even close to that much accuracy. So go ahead and be satisfied with knowing that π=3.1416 (rounded, of course). I doubt you’ll ever need much more than that. But if you do, you always can look it up online. Here it is to 1 million digits.

BONUS: There is a theoretical maximum linear distance which is the circumference of the universe. There is also a shortest possible length, which is incredibly small, called the planck length. What are the maximum number of digits of π you would need to calculate the circumference of the universe(hint: its diameter is approximately 93 billion light years) to within plus or minus one planck length? Okay, begin…

ANSWER: Not that anyone asked, but the answer is 39 (sorry, not 42). But we’ve gone ahead and calculated it to one trillion places, just in case.

Back in the 50′s and 60′s, IBM and other computer companies were fond of promoting their big ol’ computers in association with mini-skirted women (or ‘girls’, as they were called back then). Sex sells, right? For some reason, I now find these photos hilarious. Here are some I’ve found on the Interwebs:

The oldest I could find is this picture of two female technicians working with ENIAC during WWII.

This girl (and a guy) are working on an old IBM Type T04.

Here are two babes and a box at Lawrence Livermore Labs.

Here’s another at LLL, operating a UNIVAC. I think she’s got a kind of ‘Barbara Stanwick’ thing goin’ on there.

Whoa! These babes really know their way around inside the guts of a UNIVAC!

This chick uses a plunger to pull up the false floor in the computer room.

Here are two miniskirted techs on an IBM System 360 Model 67 computer as installed in Newcastle University in 1967.

This site has photos of lots of female (and male) computerists working at Bell Labs in the late 60′s.

And then there’s this blonde with black stockings who’s running a UNIVAC. Rowr!

IBM tape drive, circa 1955. And a blonde. But no mini-skirt. Not yet.

You’ve gotta love this redhead with her PDP-11! Yowsa!

This is a whole roomful of (mostly female) punchcard operators at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I’m guessing late 60′s.

This gal is operating a giant digitizer for drafting illustrations, around 1963.

I just love this pic of the “Computer Secretary of the Future”.

This site hosts a half-dozen excellent photos of women with mainframes.

As does, of course, Jim Lileks in his wonderful online Compu-Promo display area.

Don’t be afraid to check ‘em all out! What would you rather be doing? Working? (I thought not.)

Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell. But you know the funny thing is, I don’t remember anything about it.

Dating back to the 1600′s, thermometers were filled with Brandy instead of mercury. So before you go drinking the stuff in your thermometer, be sure to read the date of manufacture.

Rain contains vitamin B12. Of course, it also contains strontium-90, so it’s not a good idea to drink it as a vitamin supplement.

The first artificially sustained nuclear reaction produced just enough energy to light a small flashlight. But at 30 feet wide, 32 feet long, and 21.5 feet high, with a weight of 1,400 tons, it was decided that it just wouldn’t work as a viable flashlight power source.

Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works. I actually learned this just last week, when I found this.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is predicted to topple over between 2010 and 2020. So for goodness sake, get out of the way!!!

Bacteria can reproduce sexually. It’s just that they have a lot of trouble finding someone who’s willing to.

The densest substance on Earth is the metal osmium. But this study excluded people, many of whom are much denser than osmium.

Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to have been born in a hospital. Does this mean that Ronald Reagan was the last president to be born in a log cabin?

It’s hard to believe it’s already been three years since you died.

I think of you every day.

You are still the love of my life.

Thank you so much for being my wife and my friend.

I love you.

-Mark

It was the first time I had ever seen her. I didn’t know that she had already starred in the film G.I. Blues with Elvis (and had a torrid affair with him, by all accounts). I didn’t know that she was already a world-famous singer and dancer, or that she had once been engaged to Frank Sinatra.

I just knew that, from that moment on, I would judge a woman’s beauty by the standard set by Juliet Prowse.

I’m 56 years old now, and Juliet died in 1996 from cancer. And I still think she was the most beautiful woman to ever grace this planet.

I love cartoons, comic strips, and comics. Of all these, the editorial cartoon is the only one that is considered ‘respectable’. There’s even a Pulitzer Prize awarded every year for ‘Best Editorial Cartoon‘.

My good friend Bob Patton hasn’t won his yet, but he’s an excellent political cartoonist for the Iowa City Press-Citizen newspaper. They’ve recently given Bob his own Blog so you can go check out his “Patton’s Pad” comics yourself:

http://mypc.press-citizen.com/blogs/blog.php?id_blogs=14

Way back in the days of the Vietnam War, I figured out that it cost $15,000 for the U.S. military to kill every Viet Cong it claimed to have killed. That was easily equal to the amount that your average Viet Cong earned in a lifetime. My logic was, why not just hand every Viet Cong you wanted to eliminate a check for $15,000, turn him into a capitalist, and save all that fuss, bother, and violence? And we wouldn’t have to send our kids into harm’s way.

I decided to work out the same figures for the war in Iraq.

Since you can’t tell who’s your enemy in this war, I figured I’d just include the whole population of Iraq in the equation. According to reliable sources (the Interwebs), Iraq has a total population of 25 million, 60% of whom are adults, which makes a total population of 15 million adults.

By all the best estimates, the war in Iraq has cost about $300 billion so far, which works out to about $20,000 apiece for every Iraqi adult. If we figure the total cost until the end of the war (about $1 trillion), that means we’re spending on the average about $66,666 apiece to wage war in Iraq.

If we just chose to not have a war, we could hand a check for that amount to every adult Iraqi. Since the average income of an Iraqi citizen was about $3000/yr. back in 80′s when things were relatively stable, and is down to about $1000/yr. now, a check for $66,666 would equal 66 years’ income for your average Iraqi. (The four Iraqi women shown in the photo with Hillary and her aide would get a total of $266,664, over a quarter of a million dollars.)

This is enough to turn them all into peaceful, America-loving citizens with an affluent Western lifestyle. Poof! No more problems. If any of them still wanted to cause difficulties, I’m sure the rest will act quickly to quiet them down. Maybe by reminding them that 30,000 of their peers didn’t have to die in a stupid war about oil. (And remember that, even with a war going on, Iraq is pulling in $20 billion a year in oil revenue, which is another $1333 per adult per year, if some way were found to divvy it up fairly.)

And we wouldn’t have to send our men and women into combat. Remember, this war has killed over 3,000 of them, crippled many more, and ruined their family lives.

Of course, the problem with this approach is that it doesn’t line the pockets of American defense contractors, and Dick Cheney’s war profiteer buddies wouldn’t make any money. Maybe we could just give every Iraqi $33,333, and hand the other half trillion over to them. Or we could advise them to go over to Iraq and sell them crap and make money that way. Isn’t that what capitalism is all about?