Feb 12, 2026 from The Universe of Discourse The fivefold symmetry of the quince The quince is so-named because, like other fruits in the apple family, it has a natural fivefold symmetry: This is because their fruits develop from five-petaled flowers, and the symmetry persists ...
Feb 12, 2026 from The Universe of Discourse Mystery of the quincunx's missing quincunx A quincunx is the X-shaped pattern of pips on the #5 face of a die. It's so-called because the Romans had a common copper coin called an as, and it was divided (monetarily, not physically) into twe...
Feb 12, 2026 from The Universe of Discourse My new git utility `what-changed-twice` needs a new name As I have explained in the past, my typical workflow is to go along commiting stuff that might or might not make sense, then clean it all up at the end, doing multiple passes with git-add and git-r...
Feb 12, 2026 from The Universe of Discourse An anecdote about backward compatibility A long time ago I worked on a debugger program that our company used to debug software that it sold that ran on IBM System 370. We had IBM 3270 CRT terminals that could display (I think) eight colo...
Feb 12, 2026 from The Universe of Discourse Almost-trivial theorems A couple of years back I wrote an article about this bit of mathematical folklore: Mathematical folklore contains a story about how Acta Quandalia published a paper proving that all partially unifo...
Feb 12, 2026 from The Universe of Discourse Crooked politicians love crab cakes! I recently posted an article about the 2013 Philadelphia Traffic Court fiasco, in which most of the Traffic Court judges were convicted of accepting bribes: According to the indictment, Perri accep...
Feb 12, 2026 from The Universe of Discourse John Haugeland on the failure of micro-worlds BuyArtificial Intelligence from Bookshop.org(with kickback)(without kickback) One of the better books I read in college was Artifical Intelligence: The Very Idea (1985) by philosopher John Haugelan...
Feb 12, 2026 from Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com Untitled Read Around 2013 my daughter was working at a big New York university in a department that got government grants to perform special services (like disabled, autism etc). There was a woman in purcha...
Feb 12, 2026 from Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com It’s Easy To Get Lost In IKEA But This Is Ridiculous Read It’s Easy To Get Lost In IKEA But This Is Ridiculous All the kids have vests with numbers on them, and parents fill out a form with some information like the name of the kid and the parent, an...
Feb 12, 2026 from BIX dot BLOG Isn’t This A Pretty Fall Since last March, I’ve several times here referenced Stanford Beers’ heuristic that the purpose of a system is what it does, applying it in some fashion to the system that is me, to the general sys...
Feb 12, 2026 from Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com Paint Me Skeptical Read Paint Me Skeptical Me: "Ma'am, this is half empty." Customer: "But it's also half full!" Me: "Cute philosophy, but I can't accept it as a return." Read Paint Me Skeptical
Feb 12, 2026 from Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com When The Sandwich Gets Extra Consequence Sauce Read When The Sandwich Gets Extra Consequence Sauce Customer: "Make sure you get my sandwich right this time. This is the best job you dropouts are ever gonna have, so don't f*** it up." I took the...
Feb 12, 2026 from Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com As The Returns Churns Read As The Returns Churns Employee: *Into her radio.* "Was Michael working returns recently?" Radio: "Uh… yeah." Employee: *Into her radio.* "He… didn't check a box. Again." Radio: "God d*** it, M...
Feb 12, 2026 from Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com The Inner Child Came Out Today Read The Inner Child Came Out Today Customer: "Where's the TV?! The one from the ad!" Me: "There are still two in the store, but they may be in other people's carts. It's first-come, first-served, ...
Feb 11, 2026 from Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com Fired In The Heat Of The Moment Read Fired In The Heat Of The Moment Employee: *Before I can even say anything.* "Is there anyone who works here who is allergic to peppers?" Me: "Peppers? No, I don't think so." Employee: "Then th...
Feb 11, 2026 from Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com I’d Be Too Chicken To Try This Read I’d Be Too Chicken To Try This Manager: "How much you wanna bet she eats half of it and then tries to return it?" Me: "No way…" Manager: "Haha, wait and see." Read I’d Be Too Chicken To Try This
Feb 11, 2026 from Improve Something Today Podcast episode No. 0037: The wooden chair 0037: The wooden chair0:00/387.98933333333331×Episode details: Readings of two passages on the subject of wooden chairs, as seen in the Wooden chair as exemplar of emptiness section of the Quote ba...
Feb 11, 2026 from Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com Bigotry Is Yukky Read Bigotry Is Yukky Coworker: "Hey, you said your name's Yuki, right?" Me: "Yeah?" Coworker: "Okay, I just want to get something out of the way. There's another Yuki who works here on Tuesdays an...
