howto remove the thousand separator

[Roy Smith]

In article <kkfodv$f5m$1 at news.albasani.net>,
 Walter Hurry <walterhurry at lavabit.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:29:17 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:
> 
> > There are actually a lot of optimizations done, so it might turn out to
> > be O(n) in practice. But strictly in the Python code, yes, this is
> > definitely O(n*n).
> 
> In any event, Janssen should cease and desist offering advice here if he 
> can't do better than that.

That's a little harsh.  Sure, it was a "sub-optimal" way to write the 
code (for all the reasons people mentioned), but it engendered a good 
discussion.