From: jwgh@earthlink.net (Jacob Haller)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: FTSD: Archimedes's Fables #2
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 22:48:55 -0500
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There once was an abstract painter who would paint complex shapes using
but a single color.

A friend of his admired the shapes and asked permission to trace them.
The painter, far wiser than his pencil-wielding friend, warned him
against it, advising him to find his own style and subject matter,
perhaps better-suited to his method.

The friend, however, would not be dissuaded, and continued to pester the
painter.  Finally, the painter agreed to leave his friend with his
paintings and allow him to do as he desired for one full day.

At the end of the day, he entered the room to find countless
pencil-nubs, mounds of pencil shavings--and one uncompleted drawing.
His friend had departed, humiliated, through the window.

Moral:  Figures with a finite area may have an infinite perimiter.

-jwgh
--
"Perhaps if there were an alt.postal-workers.recovery group (and it got
used), then fewer postal workers would go postal."
          - David M. Hungerford III, alt.tech-support.recovery 2/6/97