<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Satire on billpg industries™</title><link>https://owl.billpg.com/tags/satire/</link><description>Recent content in Satire on billpg industries™</description><generator>Hugo</generator><language>en-us</language><copyright>© William Godfrey.</copyright><lastBuildDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2026 17:31:40 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://owl.billpg.com/tags/satire/index.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title>Let's All Burn Our Waste Paper!</title><link>https://owl.billpg.com/lets-all-burn-our-waste-paper/</link><pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2026 17:31:40 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://owl.billpg.com/lets-all-burn-our-waste-paper/</guid><description>&lt;p&gt;In these environmentally conscious times, we are constantly exhorted to recycle. This is a tedious ritual involving coloured bins, soggy cardboard and the faint smell of moral superiority. Yet I submit that recycling is, in fact, the least responsible thing we could do with our waste paper.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Instead, I propose a bold, innovative, and unquestionably sustainable alternative.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Burn it. All of it. Immediately. Preferably with gusto.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;figure class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped"&gt;
&lt;figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-medium"&gt;
&lt;img src="https://owl.billpg.com/images/Bonfire_by_Jonas_Bengtsson-300x225.jpg" class="wp-image-1383" /&gt;
&lt;figcaption&gt;"He's kinda sexy and mysterious about it. Hot eyes, all my judgement is clouded. I'm in your city, can you show me round it? You can put your money right where my mouth is."&lt;/figcaption&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&amp;ldquo;But burning paper releases CO₂!&amp;rdquo; you cry. But here is the true genius of the plan.&lt;/p&gt;</description></item><item><title>Gravity on a Flat Earth? Notes from a Helpful Glober.</title><link>https://owl.billpg.com/gravity-on-a-flat-earth-notes-from-a-helpful-glober/</link><pubDate>Tue, 24 Feb 2026 20:52:43 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://owl.billpg.com/gravity-on-a-flat-earth-notes-from-a-helpful-glober/</guid><description>&lt;p&gt;Lately, I&amp;rsquo;ve been posting in flat earth social media, mostly asking why ships appear to sink behind the horizon when they sail away. Why? Because of &lt;a href="https://xkcd.com/386/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"&gt;XKCD number 386&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;One thing I’ve noticed is the flat‑earther&amp;rsquo;s need to deny gravity. I’m not sure why because gravity is one of the easiest things to demonstrate. You drop something, it falls towards the ground instead of hanging in mid-air. That’s it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Flat earthers seem to tie themselves in knots trying to replace gravity. They&amp;rsquo;ll invoke buoyancy without realising that it depends on gravity to work. They&amp;rsquo;ll invoke electrostatic forces which doesn&amp;rsquo;t depend on gravity but breaks down when you ask where the like-charges-repel effect has gone.&lt;/p&gt;</description></item><item><title>PHP - Some strings are more equal than others</title><link>https://owl.billpg.com/php-some-strings-are-more-equal-than-others/</link><pubDate>Sun, 29 Apr 2012 21:33:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://owl.billpg.com/php-some-strings-are-more-equal-than-others/</guid><description>&lt;div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;
&lt;img src="https://owl.billpg.com/images/Equal_in_stature_by_Kevin_Dooley-218x300.jpg" data-border="0" width="232" height="320" /&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;You may have recently read about the PHP programming language, when it was found that if you compare the two strings &lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;922337203685477580&lt;/code&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;922337203685477580&lt;/code&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;8&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt; with the &lt;code&gt;==&lt;/code&gt; operator, PHP will report these as identical. Most of the time PHP does the right thing, but you need to be careful about these exceptions to the rule.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=54547"&gt;This was reported as a bug to the people who maintain PHP&lt;/a&gt;, but they responded that regarding these two strings as equal was really the correct thing to do. Programmers who feel these two strings should be treated as different should instead use the &lt;code&gt;===&lt;/code&gt; operator. This operator checks if two strings are equal, but this time, means it!&lt;/p&gt;</description></item></channel></rss>