ation of a float, big-endian.

             The format is unique to Python, and shared with the struct
             module (format string '>d') "in theory" (the struct and pickle
             implementations don't share the code -- they should).  It's
             strongly related to the IEEE-754 double format, and, in normal
             cases, is in fact identical to the big-endian 754 double format.
             On other boxes the dynamic range is limited to that of a 754
             double, and "add a half and chop" rounding is used to reduce
             the precision to 53 bits.  However, even on a 754 box,
             infinities, NaNs, and minus zero may not be handled correctly
             (may not survive roundtrip pickling intact).
             )