There are numerous exercises in D E Knuth's Art of Computer Programming. Ones I found especially intriguing were calculation of Easter, Least Common Multiple, Greatest Common Divisor, and converting names into their Soundex representation. Other possibilities are converting a date into its Julian Day Number, and vice-versa, and an automated generator of knock-knock jokes.
emc
Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world.
—Mary Shafer, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center
