Categories
Blather

Australian Biomass

The fundamental question is this: do we prefer our biomass in the form of gorgeous reef and rain forest ecosystems, or Australians? Unfortunately, the only country that has any say in the matter is also the only one that finds the question hard to answer.

Maciej Ceglowski visits the Daintree Rain Forest

Categories
Blather

Bright kids keep messing with Granddad’s junk (but it’s still cluttering up our lawn)

My response to the Perl 5/6 FAR (Frequently Aired Rant) – latest example here – reposted from a comment.

Every once in a while, like when meeting a non-Perl programmer in person, or hearing another “Perl is Dead!” screed in the echo chamber (they are as rare outside the echo chamber as “Sun is hot!” rants, and for the same reason – nobody cares about restating common wisdom), a Perl person will wonder “why the heck don’t we get granddad to move that big pile of junk he’s been tinkering with off our front lawn, so the neighbors will stop thinking our house is an abandoned shack in the garbage dump?”

“I mean sure, it gives granddad something to do, and maybe once in a while he’ll get a bright kid to wander in and get excited. But really, once those kids mess around a bit with some loose gears, they get this compulsion to take the whole thing apart again, then gradually lose interest and wander off, leaving even more of a mess.”

“And granddad won’t let us clear it all up, says it’s his baby. Won’t feel right taking it away from him, after all, he put up this house and he’ll make all kinds of fuss.”

So the Perl person throws a fit, and his or her brethren say “right on!” or “let’s move!” or “let granddad move!” For some reason, numbers keep getting mentioned.

Then we all sigh and go back into the house to do our work. We ignore granddad and his big science project. We follow our neighbors and even talk to them on the street, and everything’s fine until we bring up where we live and they go “Someone still lives in that place? I thought it was abandoned”.

And we start again with “granddad’s blasted science project” and “get him off our lawn”.

Until we move.