These days, I rarely do anything above hardware-level programming. So I rarely have to look at the current state of C++, except out of exigency or curiousity. When I do, I’m usually stunned by the changes.¹ They tend to be, at the same time, boggling, insane, and perfect.

It’s not unusual to see someone adopt a set of principles, then hold on to them beyond the bounds of reason. It’s less common to see someone drive their principles so far into insanity that they come out the other side and make sense. Somewhere in Tom Stoppard’s Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, the pair try confusedly to evaluate Hamlet’s state of mind and end up describing him as “stark, staring sane”. It’s like that.

Backpacks, that is. I haven’t looked recently, but nothing I’ve seen previously ever changed my conviction that the only dog packs worth having are made by Wolf Packs. I like their Banzai pack because it has straps that let you cinch the bags down if they’re not full. Otherwise the pack becomes wobbly.

So that’s out of the way. There are only a few more points.

1. Don’t get a pack too big for your dog. Side to side, it should be almost flat across the back, like a lightly peaked roof, not hang down the sides like panniers. It should not hang below the chest or belly anywhere. The right size is very likely smaller than you think.

This site is owned and operated by David Rifkind (david at fuzzypictures dot com, also drifkind at acm dot org). There is very little here. It’s kinda ugly because it’s built using Hugo with the default Ananke theme, and I haven’t messed much with it. There’s nothing wrong with the theme. It’s only my laziness to blame.