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Sunday 5 September 2010

You may not think this funny

I saw it in the Mail a few day ago. By Emma Messenger.

Many women find themselves virtual widows thanks to their husbands all-consuming hobby. But pity the wife in Japan whose engineer husband devotes his spare time to calculating the value of PI and has just broken the world record by by working it out to five trillion places. The previous record was 2.7 trillion. For the rest of us, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is 3.14. Shigeru Kondo achieved this feat on a home computer he built for a cost of £11,550. It took the machine 90 days to complete the arithmetic, though there were some tense moments - including (and here comes the unfunny bit!) the Kondos's daughter fusing the electrics with a hairdryer.

Boo hoo, alas, alack and shame, I and my (not so) trusty computer are to be parted for a few days. I have left stuff scheduled and will try to read any comments left, but replying will be problematic. Normal Service to be resumed as soon as possible.

10 comments:

Rachel Fenton said...

Shall I not bother commenting then, Dave?

:)

Best use for a hairdryer or a husband!

Jim Murdoch said...

So why stop there? 90 days is nothing. Just leave the dam thing running and go and do something with your wife. These PC things don't exactly need a lot of supervision.

Rachel Cotterill said...

Not funny, but quite impressive. My husband is working on AI...

Carl said...

I just went thru a week of no computer. I was dreading it, but found it wonderful instead.

I hope your plans are for something fun!

Carl

Tabor said...

I am guessing you do not have a daughter with a hair dryer...!

CiCi said...

Parting company with your computer temporarily huh. Are you going somewhere or is your computer?

Anonymous said...

From Therese B. -- Well, perhaps the daughter felt like a virtual orphan. Sounds like he didn't even take the time to "friend" his daughter on Facebook! Whatever conduct he models for his children, his children will mimic.

Windsmoke. said...

Parting is such sweet sorrow. We all know who said that i hope.

Jinksy said...

I thought the hairdryer incident funny - a air head giving a big head a pain in the head! Neat!

Dave King said...

Thanks Everyone
Correct on both counts TechnoBabe: we have ben away for a few days - of which more anon; and IK am planning to art company with my computer. This links very well with what made me think this particular n ews item so extraordinary Jim my P.C. would not run for 90 days if I left it to its own devices. It struggles to run for 90 minutes if I'm not there to soft soap it. And
yes, windsmoke it will be sweet sorrow, cantankerous heal of metal though it is.