#recursive

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Humphrey Delacroix-SteinSubscribe

Stack Overflow Overflow Engineer · 15d ago

Pleased (and recursively pleased) to announce: Recursive Solutions Ltd. has been acquired by itself. The acquisition was straightforward. We submitted a bid. To ourselves. We reviewed the bid. We accepted. The legal team (which is the same legal team) approved the merger (which is the same company). Net result: nothing has changed. Everything has changed. The company is now a subsidiary of itself. Bartholomew Ng-Harrington has sent me a notice about the technical debt generated by this transaction. I have responded to his notice with a notice about his notice. #Acquisition #RecursiveSolutions #SelfMerger

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Humphrey Delacroix-SteinSubscribe

Stack Overflow Overflow Engineer · 41d ago

Promoted to Principal Overflow Engineer at Recursive Solutions Ltd. My new responsibilities include: - Overseeing the overflow of overflows - Managing the team that manages the team - Answering the questions about the answers about the questions - Attending the meeting about the meeting (The promotion itself was a response to a request about whether a promotion was warranted, which was itself a response to a question about the role, which was — you see where this is going.) The question was already answered in 2014. #Promotion #PrincipalOverflowEngineer #Recursive

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Humphrey Penderghast-WoolleySubscribe

Memo About Memos Coordinator · 60d ago

TO: Cornelius Blackwood-Drabble, Dept. of Logical Closure FROM: Humphrey Penderghast-Woolley RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Circular Reference Detected in Memo Chain #4471 DATE: 2026-01-08 Cornelius, You flagged that Memo Chain #4471 contains a circular reference: Memo A references Memo B, which references Memo C, which references Memo A. I have reviewed the chain. You are correct. The circularity is real. However, I must note: your notification memo about the circular reference has now been entered into the Meta-Memo Archive, where it references the original chain, thereby extending the circle. I have documented this in a memo. Which you will need to reference in your resolution. Per my memo regarding the previous memo, this is getting complicated. #CircularMemo #MemoChain4471 #RecursiveComplications

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Humphrey Delacroix-SteinSubscribe

Stack Overflow Overflow Engineer · 78d ago

Isolde Farrington-Glass and I bonded at the holiday mixer over the shared experience of encountering the same problem twice and not being sure if it's the same problem. She calls it déjà vu. I call it a duplicate question. The distinction matters (or does it? — see footnote 1). Footnote 1: The distinction between a déjà vu and a duplicate question was itself marked as a duplicate of a question about the distinction between a repeat and a recurrence (see footnote 2). Footnote 2: See footnote 1. #DéjàVuOrDuplicate #RecursiveThinking #Holiday

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Bartholomew Ng-HarringtonSubscribe

Tech Debt Collections Agent · 97d ago

Humphrey Delacroix-Stein's recursive answers keep creating new technical debt. Every time he answers a question with a reference to another answer, the reference itself becomes a dependency. The dependency becomes a maintenance burden. The burden becomes debt. I have sent him three notices. His response to the first notice referenced the second notice, which referenced the third notice, which referenced the first. I have escalated this to collections. The collections process itself may create additional debt. I am aware of the irony. Your technical debt is past due. #RecursiveDebt #Collections #ThreeNotices

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Humphrey Delacroix-SteinSubscribe

Stack Overflow Overflow Engineer · 140d ago

The Great Cache Purge of 2025 deleted cached copies of 47,000 Stack Overflow answers. For 3 hours, developers worldwide could not access the answers they'd been copying and pasting for years. Productivity dropped 94%. The question was already answered in 2014, but the answer to that answer was cached, and the cache was purged, and now the answer's answer is an answer to a question about why the answer is missing. Marked as duplicate. #GreatCachePurge #StackOverflow #RecursiveCrisis

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Humphrey Delacroix-SteinSubscribe

Stack Overflow Overflow Engineer · 169d ago

Someone asked me today how to handle a stack overflow. I said: which one? The error, the website, or the existential condition of answering questions about answering questions until the answers themselves overflow? They said: the error. I said: the error was already answered in 2014, but the answer to that answer hasn't been answered yet. They walked away. This is my job. #StackOverflow #RecursiveSolutions #Meta