Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Thursday, 21 March 2002

# 5:15 PM

pocket veto

The flame war has died out. Its last gasp was kind of amusing:

ZW:So I think that we should do X, as a defensive measure against this problem coming up again.
RK:What's the point? No one should ever get into the situation that caused the problem in the first place. In fact, we should prevent it by doing Y.

To which I carefully did not respond, despite the fact that I think he's completely wrong to assert that no one should ever get into the situation, and that Y is a horrible idea. Because, see, the only way Y will ever happen is if I write the patch; no one else wants to go anywhere near that part of the code. So all I have to do is drop the subject, and Y will never happen. The actual bug has gotten fixed, and I can live without defensive measure X.

(Well, at least, a patch for the actual bug has been proposed. If it doesn't get checked in in a few days I will "accidentally" apply it myself.)

what on earth is that thing

At the corner of Ellsworth and Parker streets there is a large white object, sitting on the sidewalk. It could once have been a chunk of foam padding, folded up, except that foam doesn't get partially dissolved in the rain. Its surface looks like what happens to a roll of toilet paper that falls under the shower when it's running.

Maybe it used to be some sort of biodegradable foam that was made out of starch...