@codinghorror it's exactly the same reasoning people give to stay on Twitter, long after... (vaguely motions towards the horizon) all of this happened.

@glyph this is interesting to read in the context of https://torrentfreak.com/annas-archive-hit-with-19-5m-default-judgment-and-global-domain-takedown-order/ . I'd think to ask about what the difference(s) might be, but I'm trying to cut back on asking rhetorical questions.

@nxskok I find that Acton is a little like Velvel Kahan (he of IEEE floating point standard fame) or Edsger Dijkstra: you don't always have to agree with what they wrote, but you should at least give them some serious thought.

@AmenZwa I am sure Acton knew what he was doing when he picked that book title. (In fact, in the original edition of the book, the title was ostensibly just "Numerical Methods That Work", and the "Usually" was in a faded shade of gray, like he was trying to sneak it in.)

(I don't know if @AmenZwa has already seen this, but I think he'll appreciate it.)

@gregeganSF In cases like these, a retraction feels not unlike closing the barn door after the entire herd has already fled.

Now, more than ever, I find myself contemplating the last two sentences from this page of Acton's "Numerical Methods that (usually) Work".