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> "The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding." — AD/WJD

Very cute but that's all. No reason for me to consider it true. This if we are making unbacked claims then let me riposte thus, "the past is another country, they do things differently there". Which if true would mean the past has little bearing on the present – if true.

I'm riffing on bluestein, not defending lo_zamoyski — as far as I'm concerned, the invention of the web has made it far easier to go through the pockets of older cultures and discover what sorts of things they have that are worth taking a five-finger discount on.

(then again, I also find it worth learning how things are done in other countries, so I believe both the Durants' statement and your proposed riposte may be true at the same time)

[as for the truth: from a DBMS' WAL (the past) one may always reconstruct its tables, but for queries it's more convenient to always have them materialised (the present); does that make sense?]

> Durants' statement and your proposed riposte may be true at the same time)

For whatever it might be worth, I'd also tend to agree - they are not incompatible notions ...

That is such a great quote.-

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