Comments | wimble: It's my party...

wimble

It's my party...

Jan 07, 2009 16:23

So, Christmas, two weeks ago. I brought a 1 kilogram box of Marks & Spencer's Belgian Chocolates back from my parents. (The tin's A4 in area, and two layers of biscuits deep ( Read more... )

work, idiots

Comments 11

ar_gemlad January 7 2009, 16:35:52 UTC

Happy grumpy birthday ;)

wimble January 7 2009, 16:37:55 UTC

Oh. Whoops. Cheers :)

This wasn't actually a plea for congratulatory messages.

But if you've got any semi-automatic weaponry, I'll gladly accept it as a birthday present. Might need to bubble wrap it though, in case I hurt the poor dears with the corners...

ar_gemlad January 7 2009, 16:39:21 UTC

Hmmm.... nearest thing I have is a stapler. It's a big stapler though!

emmzzi January 7 2009, 17:22:41 UTC

you gave someone else chocolate????

gaspode January 7 2009, 19:04:30 UTC

uh oh ..

gaspodia January 7 2009, 19:46:28 UTC

Schoolboy error :)

undyingking January 7 2009, 17:40:04 UTC

Why would people even think the tin was necessarily a birthday thing, with Christmas (when such tins are pretty commonplace) only a few days before?

Maybe they couldn't conceive of you not having gorged it all down between Christmas and New Year.

venta January 7 2009, 18:55:24 UTC

For the future, you could try the following:

Q Was it a big number?
A Well, it's interesting you should ask. As it happens, it's the smallest number which is the sum of 4 primes in 3 different ways, and the cube root of one of the numbers used as part of Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem...

I bet they won't be able to get away fast enough. (Except for a small subset of people who will be even more intrigued, and will notice that you made up the facts referenced above.)

wimble January 7 2009, 19:40:28 UTC

Damn you! Now I need to work out the smallest number which is the sum of 4 primes in three different ways. Do the primes have to be different? In which case, we're looking at least 17 (2+3+5+7), rather than 8. And that's only one different way.

Bugger. There goes the evening.

(And who knows whether 1 is prime these days?)

elenopa January 7 2009, 22:06:51 UTC

Of course it will be a big number if you count in binary, and likely will have a 0 in it.

Oops, sorry... venta January 8 2009, 09:39:35 UTC

Er, I think that places you firmly in the small subset :)

I did mean distinct primes, but I also deliberately chose the question to be something pissy and annoying to work out in an attempt to render the subset as small as possible.

I think 1 is currently not prime.