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Domain: freeola.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to freeola.com.

Comments · 8

  1. We at Gnome Rotary Disks have a better solution by iminplaya · · Score: 3, Funny · on Western Digital Working On a 20,000 RPM Drive

    The disk is stationary and we spin the case for better cooling.

  2. Re:Horten Flying Wing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Drawing uncovered of 'Nazi Nuke'

    "Germany had no means of effectively delivering such a weapon"

    Oh dear you obviously didn't watch Indiana Jones and The Raiders of The Lost Ark:

    http://www.century-of-flight.freeola.com/Aviation% 20history/jet%20age/flying%20wings.htm

    Oh yeah and that 'borrowed' design was used for the Stealth Bomber.

  3. Re:White knight a Wunderwaffen? by hcdejong · · Score: 1 · on White Knight Testing X-37

    The 'Amerikabomber' isn't the first application of the concept either. The Nazis experimented with several similar combinations, often called 'Mistel'. Before WW2, the Short company tried combining two flying boats into the Mayo Composite. There was also a Russian bomber that could carry parasite fighters that's even older than the Mayo.

  4. Re:Postgres rocks! by rycamor · · Score: 3, Interesting · on PostgreSQL Wins LJ Editor's Choice Award

    Actually, there is nothing non-relational about the idea of a distributed foreign key. It has even been proposed by some ardent "defenders" of the relational model: Hugh Darwen (colleague of C.J. Date) mentions this as a desirable feature in his presentation How to Handle Missing Information without Using Nulls

  5. Re:"NULLS are bad." quote by Maditude · · Score: 1 · on SQL, XML, and the Relational Database Model
    If you removed NULLs from relational database design, people would reinvent them (poorly) -- probably by using IDs of -1 or 0, or IDs to a special magic "null" row, which I suspect is what he's talking about by "it can be handled relationally." To suggest that missing or inapplicable values are not part of "the real world" is so wrong it's... well... wrong. Anyone who's actually done database work (or programming work, for that matter) knows this.


    MattRog posted this just a few posts above, about how one could do away with nulls, and gain a (nominally, imho) greater approximation of reality.

    Interesting read, and reminded me of a time or two when I've taken normalization to extremes. Personal experience tells me that: nobody's ever correctly modeled reality, and simple models are much easier to change and maintain than complex ones.
  6. "NULLS are bad." quote by MattRog · · Score: 5, Informative · on SQL, XML, and the Relational Database Model

    Celko is misquoting Darwin in saying that "The idea that you will always know everything is arrogant".

    Date/Darwin/Pascal propose that you codify what you don't know (so to speak). Read their proposed solution here:
    http://www.hughdarwen.freeola.com/TheThirdManifest o.web/Missing-info-without-nulls.pdf

    And yes, XML DBMS are a throwback to IBM IMS and other hierarchical DBMS products. Anyone who has ever used a hierarchical DBMS will tell you that there are some pretty non-trivial problems that you cannot work around due to their hierarchical data model, yet XML DBMS proponents propose we go back to that old, inflexible system!

  7. Re:Null ruined it all by mAsterdam · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Boolean Logic : George Boole's The Laws of Thought
    With booleans, how do you express "don't know"?

    Good question. Hugh Darwen may have some answers . When you do you express "don't know" as nulls, how do you, later on - when you get the null as a result in a query - get it's meaning out of:

    • not applicable
    • unknown
    • false
    ?
  8. Need for united action now. by David+Hume · · Score: 1, Interesting · on SCO Hints at *BSD Lawsuits Next Year, And More

    So does this include OS X?


    First they came for the Linux users and I did not speak out because I was not a Linux user.

    Then they came for the *BSD users and I did not speak out because I was not a *BSD user.

    Then they came for the Apple users and I did not speak out because I was not an Apple user.

    Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

    With respect to PastorMartin Niemoller.

    Also:

    We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.


    Benjamin Franklin's.