Finance::Quote 0.18 is almost ready for release, although the documentation could do with some re-working. It'll be good to get a more stable and reliable copy of the library out there.

I now have access to more than $11.90 in cash, and the coffee is still very good.

That's not a weed, it's a feature
I'm still surprised at the large untapped and tasty food supplies we have growing around us. A large number of tasty and nutritious plants are hardy and quick-growing. So hardy and quick-growing that our society regularly sprays them with herbicides, roots them up from the ground, or otherwise tries to eliminate their existance.

It's hard to go far in Melbourne without encountering blackberry nightshade, a small plant related to tomatoes with clusters of small, black, sweet berries and edible (when cooked) leaves. The trainline near my house regularly grows clumps of salsify (aka `oyster plant') which has tasty young leaves, and a delicious and thick root similar in size to a large carrot. I'm drinking a tea made form it now, but I've also had it in stir-fried with noodles, and it is positively delicious. Unfortuanately, the train lines seem to be sprayed regularly, making them unsuitable for foraging. :( This is a shame, as I've spotted a relative of the bush banana growing along the tracks as well.

The fat-hen in my backyard is going to seed, and has attracted large numbers of small, seed-eating birds. This marvelous plant grew by itself, received no care, watering or attention, regularly had large chunks pulled off to be eaten in soups or omlettes, and eventually managed to grow taller than the house with never a single pest. The neighbours chopped the top off it from over the fence because they found it ugly. I wouldn't have minded that too much if they had eaten their harvest rather than left it.

On reflection I'm very happy with my garden. It gets either ignored or eaten, and yet it continues to grow more yummies without any input from myself. I don't even need to plant seedlings, as most of the plants are self-seeded.

For those interested in further reading on happy gardens and yummy weeds, I'd recommend Permaculture One by Bill Mollison et al, and Edible Plants of Australia and New Zealand by Tim Low.

I arrived with a whole 20 seconds before the train left, and despite me running up and down the length of the train looking through the windows, I couldn't spot Jacinta. :(

Money, Money Everywhere, But Not A Bank That Thinks
To top the evening off, I discovered that my new ATM card wouldn't actually let me access my account. I don't see what logic the bank sees in issuing me with a card that doesn't actually do anything, and being the holiday season I suspect that I won't be able to find out until Wednesday.

In the meantime I have the sum total of $11.90, all of it in small change. The rest of my money I spent on coffee -- very good coffee -- which more than makes up for my lack of hard cash.

Diplomacy
It's been a long time since I've had a good game of Diplomacy, and so I briefly ventured over to The Diplomatic Pouch to see how the community was faring. A while ago Hasbro purchased Avalon Hill (the publishers of the game), and there was some concern that on-line games might get the chop. I'm glad to see this wasn't the case.

Read an excellent article on Eliminating the Paradox in Diplomacy, and skimmed over the response to it. Lots of good arguments on both sides, but I won't mention them here.

I've been thinking of seeing if anyone's interested in playing a low-turnaround Diplomacy game at work, with maybe one `turn' (Move+Retreats) per week. Ian keeps telling me how much he loves strategy games, so I expect he will join.

By far my favourite new feature is weak references, which looks like it might be an effective asprin to memory-leak headaches. (Use only as directed. If pain persists, please see your debugger.)

The new our syntax for global various is very cute, and I like it a lot. Using subroutines as lvalues seems weird and bizzare, incredibly powerful, and slightly dangerous.

Finance::Quote
Brent made a number of excellent changes to Finance::Quote, particularly in relation to his TIAA-CREF function, and has even added regression testing checks for his changes. I'm now quite certain we're going to get along well as a development team. :)