The first edition came out in 1991. The 4th ed came out in 2012, by which time Perl was no longer the duct tape of the internet. Perl 6 had muddied the waters, and Ruby and Rails had peaked.

Still, 1000 is painfully low, esp. for a high quality product.

The Camel book was already a huge bestseller, and was one of the anchor books of the early OReilly series. It made Larry a pretty penny

I had no idea how famous or influential she was. She first taught us how to make our own juggling balls: snip the ends of a balloon, fill with enough rice to feel comfortable in the hand, then wrap that with another balloon to seal the rice in, then snip the ends of the second balloon.

Then she went through the usual sequence: throw a ball, er, balloon, from one hand to the next, then practice with two and so on. By the end of that 2 hour session, we had got the essentials.

The remarkable thing about this workshop was that Judy was at an advanced stage of multiple sclerosis at that point. She was pretty much completely immobile from the neck down, and couldn't even see our hands properly from her wheelchair. She could only see the arc of the ball, but that was sufficient information for her to tell us how we could improve. "Pull your elbow in". "Focus on the left hand, the right will follow".

After the 2 hour workshop, she'd go to Golden Gate park to teach juggling. All for free. I feel extraordinarily privileged. She's been my polestar in life.

Taiwan is only a couple of miles from mainland China at its closest point. It is possible to land large numbers of boots on the ground. Next, unlike the US, the Chinese govt is not dependent on the approval of its citizens for waging a war. It exercises complete control of the media, and squelches dissent immediately. AndIt has the largest navy in the world and a relatively modern fleet, and the supply chain is very very short. The US has no leverage over China.

Meanwhile, the American public wants a quick skirmish and a bold "We WON" claim .. it has no appetite for body bags coming home and the price of oil rising.

Which is why if China makes a move on Taiwan, the US can do nothing.

This is a way of spending taxes on the public, the kind Denmark does. It isn't "no private property; everything belongs to the govt".

Also, if we are redistributing taxes to fund endless wars and subsidizing almond/avocado farmers, and propping up public money to ensure banks don't collapse, we are already in socialist territory. Have always been. But God forbid we spend the money on healthcare ... that's "taking us back to Mao".

In other words, it is exactly a database, albeit an in-memory one.