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Comment by 082349872349872 | Hacker News Reader

The fencing mentioned is less for predator protection, and more to move the sheep around on the pasture. Left to their own devices, sheep will[1] overgraze.

(7 sheep is a hobby, not a flock. Shepherding does have a reputation as being for the lazy, but that's by agricultural standards. Even Giotto presumably did a fair amount of work in between developing his art.)

[1] The animals in Animal Farm are all well characterised. Sheep do do what the other sheep do. Dogs do love making sheep behave according to their master's dictates. Horses do have entirely too good a heart. Donkeys do get to live out their lives with no one paying attention to their carcass value. And pigs do resemble humans: compare long pig.

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I'm reminded of a former colleague who really did keep goats as a hobby. Entertainingly, even a single goat (not recommended, they're social) had to be registered as a "flock" with DEFRA and kept in the national goat surveillance database.

I believe that the parent is referring to the translation of a term formerly used among the Maori and Polynesian peoples for human flesh as food [1]; their reasoning being that pigs resemble humans, since they taste alike.

This taste-based taxonomy is reminiscent of Ishmael's taxonomy of whales in Melville's Moby Dick [2].

It is known, and can indeed be readily proved by inspection, that everything tastes like chicken [3]. I thus propose a taste-based taxonomy of edible organisms, aiming at restoring the former prominent role of Gallus gallus [4].

[1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/long_pig

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetology_of_Moby-Dick

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tastes_like_chicken

[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallic_rooster

I'm not sure if they were going off a taste-based or a diet-based taxonomy on [1].

As to [2], back when the austrian alps were underwater, they were home to the today little-known (apart from the occasional frightful skeleton) Krampus Whale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piemont-Liguria_Ocean

[4] Makes a fair taxonomic proposal, however. Could you provide a machine-readable (to make sure it can't be beat) supporting argument, suitable for import into a formal proof management system?

The Krampus Whale appears to be a homophone chimera of the Grampus [1] in Melville's Moby Dick and the Krampus of Central European folklore [2].

Parent's final request is a clear reference to Coq [3]. I yield, mumbling something about lions and claws.

[1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/grampus

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus#Origins

[3] https://coq.inria.fr/

Pleasure chatting with you — this is my stop: Mornington Crescent[1]. Until next time!

Why is Xmas like a lion on the beach?[2]

The Gnat and the Lion and the Hares and the Lion both involve claws. I prefer paws, a genre which has produced Androcles, the Lion and the Mouse, the Elephants and the Mice, and even apparently (I can't find it, but my hanzi search-fu is weak) the Tiger and the Mouse.

On the hares and lion, a Swahili argument against Sith morality: "Ndovu wawili wakipigana, ziumiazo na nyasi."[3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_(game)

[2] They both have sandy claws.

[3] Some wag has added: even if the elephants are making love instead of fighting, the grass still gets trampled.

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