Colloquial English doesn't make as strict of a distinction as mathematical usage does. It doesn't introduce any ambiguity here.

Given the subject matter colloquial English is not appropriate here.

The article isn't even using π, but 'pi'. I don't think they strove for rigour and formality.

So, if the article was serving up on a raspberry pi instead of sprinkles on frosting, that would make things more rigourous/formal?

Or per 'simulating pi', what was done to rule out the article being baked & served using a qem rasberry pi?[0]

[0] emulating a rasberry pi with qem : https://gist.github.com/plembo/c4920016312f058209f5765cb9a3a...

Huh? Sorry, I'm a bit dumbfounded.

What does the Raspberry Pi have to do with anything here?

Semiotic breakdown:

Ok, jumping into the deep end of the pool, potential semiotic [0] interpretations:

bug screen (Poisson) & computing grid (Fourier).

Permits one to crunch the numbers without eating the sprinkles. aka gets around the 'You can't have your cake and eat it'[1] issues.

symbolically supports the no formalism approach: a) Pi is irrational number. b)Raspberry is stand in for Bronx cheer [2][3].

Perhaps not being able to eat the cake & complete the project is a good idea (less sugar high & more realistic interpretations/results).

[0] : https://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/semiotics_and_ads/terminology....

[1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_can%27t_have_your_cake_and...

[2] : https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/bron...

[3] : https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bronx%20Chee...

Well the subject matter is someone baking a cake for “pi day” - I think colloquial English is probably fine in this context :)

No, you refused to infer the plain meaning. Author uses words like on, outside, inside and you pretend they don't apply.

Plain logical references would imply no sprinkles on the frosting & one very uninteresting frosted topic.

Platters and donuts confusion would be more concerning, as typical hard drives take more than one byte to properly digest.

The article did take a top down approach, instead of a bottom [platter] up approach.