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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Article ends with:

    There was no independent verification of the surgeon’s claims.

    The internet tells me that “plant growth requirements” are air, water, nutrients, space, and light.

    Let’s imagine. The growing plant was found in a lung. It must have:

    Air. Plants ingest carbon dioxide, exude oxygen. Both gasses are present in our own respiration. So that checks out.

    Water. I guess water was leeched from the lungs’ blood supply, since we’re all just bags of mostly water.

    Nutrients. See water, above. If the mamallian reproduction system can supply a growing embryo with required nutrients, why not those required by a fir sapling? Sure, they’re different requirements, but press on.

    Space. Assuming that no other competing species of plant is growing in the lung, this isn’t a problematic issue.

    Light. Ah, well. Photosynthesis requires sunlight, and I am reminded of a joke attributed to Groucho Marx, Abraham Lincoln, Nicola Tesla, and Albert Einstein:

    Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read, or to cultivate horticulture.

    I am as dubious of this fir sapling story as my quoted joke’s provenance.





  • I also have heard Squirrel, the first time I ever heard of SQL. It was in a webinar info session for just a very superficial top-level type of understanding, really intended for nothing more than to acquaint first-tier support staff with technical terms and concepts. “SQL stands for Structured Query Language. For short, we can call it ‘sequel’ or ‘squirrel’.” (Cue stupid clip-art graphic of a buck-toothed smiling squirrel on a tree branch, holding an acorn, because what’s a webinar without insipid mnemonics?) That sort of thing.

    I grokked the use of ‘sequel’, because the letter sequence S-Q-L is exactly that word, sans vowels, and even if schwas are substituted for the vowels, the pronunciation doesn’t change much.

    But for ‘squirrel’ I had to imagine that they were taking the R from ‘queRy’ and injecting it to make SQL into SQrL for the sake of a cute memory device that would resonate with people who weren’t expected to have any interest or investment deeper than a front-line customer service drone.