The Chronicle of Higher Education From the issue dated August 18, 2000 Of Flames, Fan Mail, and Software That Can Tell the Difference By ELLEN SPERTUS ... In the offline world, some people enjoy baiting others with intentionally offensive behavior, then enjoying their reactions. Online, this has become a sport called trolling for flames. Some trolls lack subtlety, like the one posted to the cat lovers' discussion group that asked for recipes for cooking cats. But others are deliciously clever. For example, in response to a discussion of the mystical and mathematical importance of ratios in the Great Pyramid of Cheops, John Baez posted a note that the ancient Greeks, too, were very sophisticated: If you take the ratio of the circumference to the radius of the columns they built, he wrote, you get an excellent approximation of pi. Gullible readers, not realizing that Baez was a mathematics professor with a sense of humor, protested that this was true of any circle. "That's what makes it so spooky," Baez cryptically replied, adding to the confusion. ..