Monument

The scene: A work break room. MARNANEL is getting a cup of coffee from the machine, and CLEANING PERSON is squirting disinfectant into the sink.

MARNANEL: Thank you.

CLEANING PERSON: ...For what?

MARNANEL: For cleaning the sink.

CLEANING PERSON: Cleaning the sink? (She wrinkles her nose in confusion.) You're saying "thank you" for me doing this?

MARNANEL: Yeah, so we don't all die of cholera. Because I don't LIKE dying of cholera.

CLEANING PERSON: ...Cholera?

MARNANEL: And other waterborne diseases! People died of them ALL THE TIME before we started disinfecting sinks and so on. So I'm glad you're cleaning the sink, because it's a horrible way to die.

CLEANING PERSON: It is?

MARNANEL: Yeah! Bloody diarrhoea! Vomiting! And then you die painfully.

CLEANING PERSON: *stares*

MARNANEL: *decides this would be a good place to end the conversation*

I haven't posted for a while. Here are four things:

1. Collabora have been supporting the CSS-on-window-borders project recently by letting me work on it during work hours. Here is a status update.


2. Recent updates to shavian.org.uk include a gentle Shavian tutorial and translations of all the recent XKCDs into Shavian.


3. Many years ago, I wrote a sonnet for use on a server's custom 404 page:
   

   So many years have passed since first you sought
   the lands beyond the edges of the sky,
   so many moons reflected in your eye,
   (familiar newness, fear of leaving port),
   since first you sought, and failed, and learned to fall,
   (first hope, then cynicism, silent dread,
   the countless stars, still counting overhead
   the seconds to your final voyage of all…)
   and last, in glory gold and red around
   your greatest search, your final quest to know!
   yet… ashes drift, the embers cease to glow,
   and darkened life in frozen death is drowned;
   and ashes on the swell are seen no more.
   The silence surges. Error 404.

   
   It's been spreading itself around, mostly without my permission, so I'm releasing it under a Creative Commons licence. Fly free, little sonnet! Please feel free to copy it onto your own sites, and if you would, let me know you've done so.


4. I need to write more of the Maemo tutorials. They will be coming soon. Sorry; things have been busy.