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So students, mathematicians, engineers, etc. who use these constants all the time should use an unintuitive system with ugly equations so that yokels with tape measures don't have to divide by two?

Sounds like it could be a Far Side cartoon. Or maybe you're remembering the scene from the Simpsons where Mr. Burns has a room full of monkeys at typewriters. "It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?? You stupid monkey!"

Nobody is saying they should make exceptions for celebrities. The problem is that they lock people out of all their Google services for one alleged infringement, potentially cutting off access to important personal data, with no real avenues of appeal. And also that by not allowing anonymous Google accounts they're screwing over people such as activists who need to be able to use services like this anonymously.

...if the daughter eventually donated it to her daughter in turn, and it became a family heirloom.

At first I read that as "Moodle for 1.9 Second Language Teaching". Now that would be impressive.

I've found the LOVE game engine to be pretty good. (http://www.love2d.org) It uses Lua which is easy for beginners.

I don't think "mathematics" is really a plural though. It may end in "s" but it refers to the overall field of study. If someone's talking about mathematics they refer to it as "it" not "them". That's why I think "math" makes more sense even though I grew up with the term "maths".