Is this the Lee Valley April Fools Tool/Product?

"Expertly Made In Magrathea" would have been another nice addition.

I always look forward to what Robin and his mirthmakers dreamt up on April 1.

Good catch on the Douglas Adams reference. I missed it the first time around myself.

But that would be highly improbable.

At the edge of the universe all things are equally improbable.

Kolmogorov's zero-one law (yes, look it up) says that they're not. As most "things" (including breakfast at Milliways) would thus qualify as "tail events" for Kolmogorov, they're instead either almost certain, or almost impossible (i.e. their probability is either zero or one, but not intermediate).

Sadly it's often possible to apply this law, but rarely to tell just which probability they have.

"Once you've lapped your chisels and blades to a common thickness (a trivial one-time exercise)," Sure, it's a straightforward task that you only have to do once...for about a month straight!

Just to be annoying, let me point out that the model -- more correctly

-- should me the MK.XLII

It has a probability rank> >

They beat you to it. From the "more information" page: :P.S. We know that 42 would correctly be written "XLII" in Roman numerals, :but thought that "XXXXII" just worked better in this case...!

:>Just to be annoying, let me point out that the model -- more correctly :>-- should me the MK.XLII :>

: They beat you to it. From the "more information" page: : :P.S. We know that 42 would correctly be written "XLII" in Roman numerals, : :but thought that "XXXXII" just worked better in this case...!

Actually ... both notations are as correct as the other. The substractive notation (IX instead of VIIII, for example) got accepted very late in the game. And the non-subtractive got used occasionally even into the

-- Andy Barss

When you consider that there were many times being chiseled in granite an "XI" is a helluva lot easier to chisel than a "VIIII"

Just some food for thought -

Or even IX if you didn't want to wait a couple of years!

But the notion that Roman numeral use is not carved in stone (if you'll pardon the pun) but still evolving into the XXth century is strange.

Non-subtractive is still standard for clockfaces (for IIII) even in the

Recalling my 4th grade math class, when using Roman numerals, the rule is no more that 3 of a given character, thus 4 is IV and not IIII. As far as I personally know, the rule never changed. Just because someone in the 20th century used it, doesn't mean it's correct. So 42 can accurately only be written as XLII since XXXXII exceeds the 3 character rule.