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I hate to say this but this article just seemed to give me a few more reasons NOT to get a Windows 7 phone.

Dealing with a later part of this column concerning camera drivers. There were quite a few things suggested which I am willing to try but before I do so, I am wondering if any of those suggestions deal with the change from 32 bit to 64 bit which is what I have with Windows 7.

The derivation provided by Elias is essentially correct but there is a math error going from step 1 to step 2 in that PI has moved from the denominator to the numerator. Try this (using his setup):

D = R2 – R1
D = ( P2 / (2 x pi) ) – ( P1 / (2 x pi))
D = ((P1 + 3) / (2 x pi)) – (P1 / (2 x pi))
D = (P1 – P1 + 3) / (2 x pi)
D = 3 / (2 x 3.14)
D = 0.477 ft or about 6 inches

Note that coming to step 5, P1 drops out of the equation. This means that the three feet of added rope will change the radius of the circle of the string by about 6 inches without regard to the original circumference. Therefore if the original sphere was a point sphere (zero radius) the new diameter would be about a foot which is about what you would expect if the problem were phrased that way.