This reminds me of an afternoon I spent with my then-officemate Carl de Marcken at the MIT AI Lab, recasting Ackermann's function (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ackermann_function) as a pyramid scheme for the weekly "Girl Scout Benefit / Graduate Student Beer" announcement (http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gs...)

Re-reading it now, I'm struck by the fact that Larry Ellison actually owns a Hawaiian island (though not Kauai). The system works!