The joke is that, regardless of how the type is declared in json, you are parsing a string. (your json blob is just a series of characters, not raw binary data)

The reply would have been return x % 2 == 0, or if you wanted it to be less readable return !(x&1).

But if you were going for a way that is subtly awful or expensive, just do a regex match on “[02468]$”. You don’t get a stack overflow with larger numbers but I struggle to think of a plausible bit of code that consumes more unnnecessary cycles than that…

Is this meant to be a joke or is it intended to be a serious solution?

Asking for someone who lacks a sense of humor.

Ok, fine, I’m asking for me. That person is me.

Omg, I have SOOoo many questions about what is going on in this picture.