My submission to Tangled Bank #59 was accepted, and you can read all the science at this week's host site.

The editor did mention one peeve of his, which I am sympathetic to — discussion of maths subjects without any mention of maths. The author of Good Math, Bad Math has a mantra about the worst mathematics being no mathematics, because without the rigour of numbers almost any idea can seem reasonable at first glance.

So, do the regular readers here agree with the following summary?

... as a mathematician I can't help venting about a pet peeve of mine: writing about mathematics without actually showing, you know, any real math. The metaphor of "fingerprints" is very good for giving an intuitive sense of what hash functions are about. But how much would it hurt to add a paragraph with a simple example of how such a function is computed? It need not involve anything more than simple arithmetic. Must we really perpetuate the misapprehension that "math is so haaaaard"?

Or would you prefer I kept at the intuition level? I can't please everyone but it would be good to hear some feedback at this point.