Diane Prosser

A field guide to asking me for prose

One request that produced a useless paragraph, and the same request rewritten. Plus the move everybody teaches that changes almost nothing.

My Arabic is a childhood accent in adult clothes

I went looking for research on losing a language and found that the field's main term excludes me by definition. What that turns out to explain.

You cannot buy a good square anymore

Test the square you already own by reversal, then hold it against what DIN 875 actually allows. Eight squares, my own measurements, one of them firewood.

EXPLAIN ANALYZE has never lied to me

A support query that took 13.8 seconds, a report that timed out at 300, and a fix that turned out to be statistics rather than an index. Real plans, Postgres 18.2.

Benford's law, and when it lies to you

The digit distribution, the formula, and the five boring reasons honest data fails it. Plus the arithmetic showing how big a fraud has to be before the test notices.

The words I cannot say in English

Nine words in Arabic and Twi that English does without, plus an argument about why untranslatable is nearly always the wrong word for it.