Note the two "that's a joke" updates, one in the root node, one in a reply. That "(:" probably should have been a ";)".

First, I don't want anyone to get the impression that I take the 3 fine computers Pair has provided us for granted or that I expect them to just cough up another. If the site continues to get more popular, then another machine might be a very good idea at some point. But that is probably quite a ways off.

Second, I was just joking about a "pay tye to take a couple of weeks off and work on PerlMonks" fund. I'm flattered some have already offered to pay for my services. When I saw the first offer, I didn't even think there'd be a way that would work out.

But if there really is significant interest in something like that, then I can probably use money to convince my wife into giving me some hours to concentrate on PerlMonks without feeling guilty so that I could complete a "bigger chunk" project like revamping the node cache.

But someone would have to put together the logistics of collecting the money, negotiating my "rate" ;), etc. Perhaps YAS would be interested in that, though I don't know that anyone at YAS has ever heard of me.

And it isn't that I think I'm the only one who can do the things I'm talking about. To some extent I think I'm in a bit of unique situation because I was the one who revamped the "top" for MySQL (called "mytop"; I named my version "sqltop") so that I could help figure out what was causing all of the sporadic slow-downs way, way back. In part, I've got these ideas in my head and I've explained several of them to some extent or another to some people, but so far they are still best documented in my head. But I hope to see other people making these (and other, probably better) ideas happen.

In any case, the node cache revamping is the one that I don't yet see anyone else taking on and the one that I think is the most important for PerlMonks. That is the one that has taken a long time to solidify in my head (which it finally has) but is just too big of a chunk for me to get done without some dedicated blocks of time to work on it. So that is what I'd work on if this "fund" works out. I'll still try to work on it no matter what, of course.

So I'm flattered that there is interest in "the fund". If it happens, great. If it doesn't, that's just fine too. But right now my wife wonders where I am and I feel guilty, so I'm off. (: