ArticlesWhy is “killing two birds with one stone” such a desirable attribute?
Stones aren’t rare; they are practically everywhere. No stones are considered endangered species. We are not approaching a “peak stone” crisis.
Stones are clearly not the bottleneck. It is time to stop such inappropriate optimisation of our processes.
Comment by Sunny Kalsi on May 18, 2008
I think ornithologists everywhere will be disheartened at your message.
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis on May 18, 2008
Groan.
Comment by Julian on May 18, 2008
Sunny,
The ornithologists should be rejoicing. Hopefully, people will stop focusing on trying to maximise the bird per stone metric and start asking themselves “Do I really need to kill more than one bird? Is one not all I need?”
Comment by Andrew on May 18, 2008
I think you’ve found the solution to the childhood obesity epidemic.
Comment by Jonathon Duerig on May 18, 2008
All of this comment on the bird-stone paradigm misses the fact that there is another variable which is just as important!
If you kill two birds with one stone, and they land in the bush, it is still only worth one in the hand. Even though bird-stone optimization may have hit a dead end, there are still many opportunities for research into the bush-hand problem.
Looks like we’ll need more Grad students. 🙂
Comment by Chris on May 18, 2008
Stone the crows! Stoning crows obviously bags you the bird mass of two average birds for the price of one. And if, as Jonathon suggests, you stone it whilst in the hand it’s worth at least four in the bush.
Oh wait. You wanted to stop inappropriate optimisation?
Comment by Julie Lawrence on June 3, 2008
You’re absolutely right. It’s not about the lack of stones; it’s the lack of time to throw them. It should be “killing two birds with one throw of a stone”. Or better yet, “killing two bastards with one throw of a stone”.
SSC: God, I’ve been playing too much Peggle. I’m now picturing stones bouncing off one bird (or bastard) onto another, giving me extra “long shot” points. Agh.
Comment by Zach on February 20, 2009
You guys are dumb…. If you can kill one bird with a stone, you can kill a thousand. All you have to do is keep track of the stone to make sure you use the same one next time……..