Wednesday Is Pi Day

mrbluze points us to an AP writeup on the upcoming Pi Day — 3-14 (which some will observe at 1:59 pm). The article notes: "[T]he world record [for reciting the number Pi] belongs to Chao Lu, a Chinese chemistry student, who rattled off 67,890 digits over 24 hours in 2005. It took 26 video tapes to submit to Guinness," and mentions in passing a Japanese mental health counselor who last fall recited 100,000 digits, but did not choose to submit proof to the record book.

Perhaps a typo?

[tehSpork]

...a Japanese mental health counselor who last fall recited 100,000 digits, but did not choose to submit proof to the record book.

Shouldn't that read "Mental health patient ?"

None the less, that is still very impressive. I wish I had a memory for that kind of thing. :)

Re:Perhaps a typo?

[neiljt]

I wish I had a memory for that kind of thing

Me too. Then I could use it for something useful.

I am lucky...

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in rural Indiana. We have a whole pi MONTH!

Crazyness

[codeButcher]

a Japanese mental health counselor who last fall recited 100,000 digits, but did not choose to submit proof to the record book.

That's just plain crazy!

Re:To Celebrate....

[cabinetsoft]

And of course, the best way to celebrate is to eat PIE!

3.14159265*2.71828183

That would be the diet version, only 8 significant digits

Re:I live in Europe

[Petrushka]

Sure you do. On the 31st of April :-)

Obligatory quote

[Flying pig]

Now I, even I, would celebrate
In rhymes inapt the great
Immortal Syracusan rivaled nevermore
Who in his wondrous law
Passed on before
Left men his guidance
How to circles mensurate

Continuing to 100000 or so is left as an exercise to the reader.

The joke is that in writing this out I have to remind myself, as a non-American English user, that "rivaled" is spelt like that, and to do that I have to recite the numeric value of pi up to that point...go figure

Re:Perhaps a typo?

[fyonn]

None the less, that is still very impressive. I wish I had a memory for that kind of thing

naah, reciting a milliopns digits of pi is easy. the trick is, not to begin at the beginning....

dave

Re:Crazyness

[bad_fx]

Seems quite irrational to me.

Re:I live in Europe

[i_should_be_working]

Yeah but the basis is wrong. You can't compare hours, days and months to a base 10 system. Real pi day should be (3.14159..)*(365.25/10)=114 (rounding down for effect) = 11th of March. Hey that's yesterday. Happy belated real pi day!

Video tapes? Oooh , risky

[Viol8]

Can you image if he gets a mail from Guinness saying "Sorry , you missed the record by 10. Or at least we think you did but tape 26 got chewed by the machine at digit 54166. Bad luck son, try again next year and next time use Memorex!"

Re:I live in Europe

[mwvdlee]

In that case you'll just have to wait until 3141-5-9

Perhaps this kind of counselor ;)

[Moraelin]

Quoth Monty Python, "You know, there are many people in the country today who, through no fault of their own, are sane. Some of them were born sane. Some of them became sane later in their lives. It is up to people like you and me who are out of our tiny little minds to try and help these people overcome their sanity. You can start in small ways with ping-pong ball eyes and a funny voice and then you can paint half of your body red and the other half green and then you can jump up and down in a bowl of treacle going "squawk, squawk, squawk..." And then you can go "Neurhhh! Neurhhh!" and then you can roll around on the floor going "pting pting pting"..."

Well, it's one kind of counselling...

Re:I live in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

In Europe we can celebrate PI approximation day on 22 July (22/7).

1:59 pm?

[FirienFirien]

which some will observe at 1:59pm

It can also be observed at 3:49 a.m., which is then 0.159 of a day; it's also much easier to have a minute's respectful silence at 3:49 am ;)

on another note..

[mrsym0r]

I feel it's only appropriate to add that march 14th is also international steak and blowjob day [steakandbjday.com]

This deep down?

[remmelt]

... in the comments? I mean, seriously, who cares about Pi when you can get a steak AND a blow job (and if you're good, at the same time?)

Re:I live in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

Um...

We had farming and railways in Europe well before they existed in the US, so I can't see that your dates are somehow derived from farming or railways. If they were, we should have them too.

Re:ISO date - ignore the year

[91degrees]

Yes, but that woulkd mean violating the standard. I'm an anal retentive, you insensitive jerk!

To remember pi, just memorize this post!

[jacobw]

Now I make a reply involving my clever trick for rusty memories. Mnemonics usually challenge one; my own Slashdot post offers an easier path. You can memorize, and my account retrieves karma!

Re:1337

[TeknoHog]

I've never used just 7 to denote the year 2007. However, Europeans can experience 13:37ness every day thanks to our 24-hour clock.

Only on slashdot

[Overzeetop]

does steak and a blowjob day get buried when talking about March 14th. Of course, that's probably because most people here won't be celebrating.

Re:Video tapes? Oooh , risky

[psxman]

Bah, he shouldn't have bothered sending videos at all! He should've just sent a plaintext transcript on a CD.

Re:Crazyness

[suffe]

You're imagining things.

Re:Crazyness

[Dannon]

Now why did you have to go and turn this into a complex discussion?

Re:Only on slashdot

[TheRaven64]

Damn right. Some of us are vegetarians...

Re:I live in Europe

[Asztal_]

No problem, you can celebrate pi day on 31415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751 058209749445923078164-06-28 :-)