The 2019 TLS certificate serial number mess

Remember the Great TLS Certificate Serial Number Brouhaha of March, 2019? Millions of website certificates have been mis-issued! Everything is insecure! The sky is falling! Revoke and replace, ASAP! I barely do, but I remember thinking it was a really stupid overreaction. Now I've gone back and reviewed what happened, and I'll try to explain …

Does 0.999… equal 1?

Does "0.99999999…", with the 9s continuing indefinitely, equal 1? Well, of course it does. This is not a new question. The internet was invented on a Tuesday, and by Wednesday afternoon half of its denizens were trying to explain to the other half why 0.999… does, in fact, exactly equal 1. The explanation, we're told, …