From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 02:53:19 +0800
To: Raccoon <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: camels and bananas, for some reason.
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19981005190213.00845510@205.83.192.13>
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19981006004529.00827b20@idiom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 02:21 PM 10/5/98 +0200, Raccoon wrote:
>On Mon, 5 Oct 1998, Reeza! wrote:
>
>> At 11:12 PM 10/4/98 +0200, Anonymous wrote:
>> >At 12:59 PM 10/3/98 -0400, Michael Motyka wrote:
>> >>> There is a desert which is 1000 miles across. There is a camel who can
>> >carry
>> >>> 1000 bananas maximum. The camel eats 1 banana per mile travelled. The
>> camel
>> >>> has a total of 3000 bananas to begin with. What is the maximum number of
>> >>> bananas that the camel can get across to the other side uneaten?
>> 
>> Are we stipulating that the camel will travel in a straight line?
>> Or will it meander a bit, following the path of least resistanct through
>> the dunes?
>
>Since we are looking for the best possible result (=the most bananans
>moved to the other side), we must assume that the path of least resistance
>equals a straight line. This may be improbable, but it is not impossible!
>Remember that this is maths, and that we're looking for the best possible
>limit.

No, this isn't maths, this is camels, and they'll give you as much
resistance as they feel like, and *you* may be looking for the most
bananas moved across the desert, but the camel's perfectly happy to
sit here and eat all the bananas here, crossing 0 miles of desert,
or dump you 50 miles out in the desert and come back and eat the
bananas.

But other than the PERL book, what's it got to do with cypherpunks?
Just that bananas are related to Bill Clinton?

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639