Ain't it da trooth...

[kayshapero]

And once again I'm reminded of why I like xkcd so much...

Comments

[janeg.livejournal.com]

Thanks for flagging this one; I don't read it every day. Sounds like my work in ethics/corporate social responsibility. And like work Phil used to do in government IT - in a department that set up task forces to discuss significant topics like "what is a fish?" and "what is a tree?".

[kayshapero]

And the proliferation of bloatware in software and law. Sigh...

As for Phil's old department, both of those questions could be significant if you're talking about regulations to deal with same. It's a matter of exactly where the boundaries are. For example, look up "heritage trees" sometime. These are supposed to be trees of considerable age and significance to their location, and cutting them down is regulated. At least for awhile, these were defined by diameter. Which is fine for oaks, not so good for eucalyptus which grow like the proverbial weeds and may reach "heritage" diameter in ten or twenty years...

[janeg.livejournal.com]

I see you understand the natural resources stuff well. But the standards committees at that organizations met for maybe four years each and never agreed on a standard. Which is not much good for measuring results!

[kayshapero]

But which explains perfectly why most of what I know about this stuff comes from when someone's dropped the ball (newspaper account about one poor soul who found himself stuck with a backyard full of "heritage" eucalyptuses overhanging and threatening his house. Never assume anything about a property you're about to buy...) :/

[ghostwolf.livejournal.com]

Then there's the "What's wrong with the current standard?" crowd, who refuse to let go despite the draw backs to theirs and benefits to another.

Metric System conversion, anyone?