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How You Can Tell You've Pissed Off An Engineer
Message
From
12/07/2008 10:56:33
Hilmar Zonneveld
Independent Consultant
Cochabamba, Bolivia
 
 
To
12/07/2008 10:47:53
General information
Forum:
Politics
Category:
Other
Miscellaneous
Thread ID:
01330817
Message ID:
01330829
Views:
16
Indeed, I have seen several announcements here, in Internet shops, similar to "Calls to foreign countries for 0.50 centavos a minute", when they clearly mean 0.50 Bolivianos, not cents.

>:)
>
>http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-from-cents.html
>
>
>
>>>http://www.runningahead.com/forums/topic/a4c5268206114ea39c33433c16c522ad
>>
>>Hmmm... I'll take up the challenge, and try to figure it out.
>>
>>The infinite sum is fairly easy, 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16... clearly converges towards 1.
>>
>>For the exp(i * pi) part, I had to look up the definition of the exponential function, since I don't do complex math that often. From Wikipedia: exp(a+bi) = exp(a) * (cos b + i sin b), so here we have:
>>
>>exp(0 + pi * i)
>>= exp(0) * (cos pi + i sin pi)
>>= 1 * (-1 + i * 0)
>>= 1 * (-1)
>>= -1
>>
>>So it seems the entire check is for US$ 0.002 (0.2 cents) - assuming I didn't commit some mistake in the calculation.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
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