The thing is, that the Dept of Homeland Security is just theatre anyway. Most governments, notably the US govt, just want us all to be fearful, and hence easier to manipulate.
In South Australia, the police pretty much insist you get two blood samples taken - you keep one, they keep the other (and a refusal to have it done is pretty much regarded as prima facie evidence of guilt in court). It saves a _lot_ of argument later.
He's not overestimating their influence. Their numbers aren't actually relevant, given that one of their number is, effectively, the ruler of the world (even though he's probably a puppet controlled by others).
I'm glad you've mentioned Lorenz, as it's saved me the trouble. However, I don't think you've understood him. You only need a teeny, tiny change in, say, global temperature caused by, oh, I don't know, humans burning too much fossil fuel, to fuck things up completely. Because the system is unpredictable, and potentially unstable.
It still hasn't rained a significant amount in South Australia this year, and it's now winter. Fuck! I'm still wandering around in shorts and a T-shirt.
But of course, this has nothing to do with global climate change...
What have you been smoking? I have a 19" CRT monitor I scored from a place I worked at about 4 years ago. I got 2 of them for $A50, because they were going to throw them out (they were old), and I gave the other one to my son. I haven't noticed the colours fading yet, and the screen geometry is OK. I think I've got the screen refresh set at 60Hz, which is OK for what I use it for.
I think he meant that mainframes are only still around because they're running Linux. I'm not entirely convinced myself, but on the other hand the last place I worked at that still had a mainframe decommissioned it about 15 years ago.
What the fuck are you talking about? Have you ever actually used Oracle?
TOAD is a nice little tool if you just want to snuffle around looking at your data, but you wouldn't use it to develop a bullet-proof database application.
They are using it in its original meaning, as they are talking about one bunch of numbers. Each datum is defined by its semimajor axis, flattening, and assumed centre (which may, as in the case of the old Australian Geodetic Datum, be defined implicitly by reference to a point on the earth's surface where the geoidal separation is believed - incorrectly as it happened - to be zero). A geodetic datum is then taken as a given thing on which all subsequent surveying calculations are based. Although I'm mot a geodecist, I've done number-crunching for them.
I'm not a big fan of equating "common usage" with "correct", by the way. That way lies madness (incorrect usage of apostrophes, using "different than" when you mean "different from", misspelling "received", etc.). I used to have arguments with my ex-wife, a kind of closet postmodernist, about this very point.
"Datum" _is_ still used. Talk to a geodecist sometime. They have the concept of a geodetic datum as a figure of the earth (and there a quite a few of them in common use). Of course, with the plural of "datum" being "data", they have a tough time when discussing several of them...
These people are deliberately trying to get MBAs. I'd say they deserve everything that happens to them, up to and including being boiled in oil. Fuck 'em.
The really important thing about relational databases is not the ability to perform ad-hoc queries (although that _is_ a nice feature), it's the fact that they guarantee referential integrity, and they have a rigorous mathematical model underpinning them. And yeah, I know that there aren't any perfect commercial implementations of the relational model, but the main players are pretty bloody good.
I've just recently acquired responsibilty for supporting a system which was originally written for ISAM files (it's _really_ old), but the DB back end (in our instance) has been force-fitted into an Oracle database. So... I've got these highly denormalised tables, with the ISAM-style indices built into them (multiple copies of the same data in different columns in the same fucking table). Christ on a bike! All the responsibility for data integrity and security and all the business rules are in the application. (And it does a pretty piss-poor job, let me tell you.)
I used to work for an oil company, and they had several Oracle instances, each of about a terabyte. We found that some queries were taking a _long_ time (often they'd time out, or they'd be terminated because they were about to interfere with the nightly backup). The problem was a braindead database design (Oracle Financials with some customisation) and these queries were looking at views of views of views of... well, you get the picture. One of the blokes I was working with looked at the queries, and found that they were actually quite simple if you unrolled them, and got them down from hours to, in some cases, seconds. Often the problem was that the queries were unable to use automatic query optimisation, because of their surface complexity.
However, the problem certainly _wasn't_ a lack of control over the processing steps.
It would handle it badly, given that 'select' is a reserved word (or whatever), and the standard (IIRC) specifies that strings are to be surrounded by single quotes. Dunno about 'sort', but I'd be wary of trying to use it as a table name.
Something you should bear in mind is that, at least in South Australia, a school's network administrator is likely to be a (not necessarily technically knowledgable) teacher, perhaps aided by a couple of students. A mate of mine, a French teacher by training, is in this happy position. He is responsible for a heterogeneous network of PCs and Macs of various ages, and it chews up quite a bit of what little "spare" time he has. Even though I'm an enthusuastic Linux user (and have succeeded in getting my very non-technical girlfriend to use Linux at home), I could not, in good conscience, suggest that my friend move his school's computers over to Linux. Once you start thinking about the various software packages involved as well, it's an absurd suggestion.
The only way that education departments are going to move to Linux is if it's mandated from the top.
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The thing is, that the Dept of Homeland Security is just theatre anyway. Most governments, notably the US govt, just want us all to be fearful, and hence easier to manipulate.
In South Australia, the police pretty much insist you get two blood samples taken - you keep one, they keep the other (and a refusal to have it done is pretty much regarded as prima facie evidence of guilt in court). It saves a _lot_ of argument later.
I haven't seen "The Ipcress File" for maybe 35 years. I must revisit it, because I enjoyed it enormously at the time.
He's not overestimating their influence. Their numbers aren't actually relevant, given that one of their number is, effectively, the ruler of the world (even though he's probably a puppet controlled by others).
I'm glad you've mentioned Lorenz, as it's saved me the trouble. However, I don't think you've understood him. You only need a teeny, tiny change in, say, global temperature caused by, oh, I don't know, humans burning too much fossil fuel, to fuck things up completely. Because the system is unpredictable, and potentially unstable.
It still hasn't rained a significant amount in South Australia this year, and it's now winter. Fuck! I'm still wandering around in shorts and a T-shirt.
...
But of course, this has nothing to do with global climate change
Now, everyone knows there's no polar bears in Antarctica, so _that_ must have been caused by ice-drilling Emperor penguins ...
Outstanding! I wish I still had mod points, but I pissed them away on a discussion about the environment.
What have you been smoking? I have a 19" CRT monitor I scored from a place I worked at about 4 years ago. I got 2 of them for $A50, because they were going to throw them out (they were old), and I gave the other one to my son. I haven't noticed the colours fading yet, and the screen geometry is OK. I think I've got the screen refresh set at 60Hz, which is OK for what I use it for.
Chris (my son) uses his for gaming, and loves it.
I think he meant that mainframes are only still around because they're running Linux. I'm not entirely convinced myself, but on the other hand the last place I worked at that still had a mainframe decommissioned it about 15 years ago.
Of course, the version of solitaire that comes with Linux is much more pleasant to play and probably more stable as well.
What the fuck are you talking about? Have you ever actually used Oracle?
TOAD is a nice little tool if you just want to snuffle around looking at your data, but you wouldn't use it to develop a bullet-proof database application.
Oracle have been providing OLAP capability for close to 10 years, iirc. They just don't make as much song-and-dance about it as Microsoft.
They are using it in its original meaning, as they are talking about one bunch of numbers. Each datum is defined by its semimajor axis, flattening, and assumed centre (which may, as in the case of the old Australian Geodetic Datum, be defined implicitly by reference to a point on the earth's surface where the geoidal separation is believed - incorrectly as it happened - to be zero). A geodetic datum is then taken as a given thing on which all subsequent surveying calculations are based. Although I'm mot a geodecist, I've done number-crunching for them.
I'm not a big fan of equating "common usage" with "correct", by the way. That way lies madness (incorrect usage of apostrophes, using "different than" when you mean "different from", misspelling "received", etc.). I used to have arguments with my ex-wife, a kind of closet postmodernist, about this very point.
Who's Alan Cox? (I'm serious, I've never heard of him.)
"Datum" _is_ still used. Talk to a geodecist sometime. They have the concept of a geodetic datum as a figure of the earth (and there a quite a few of them in common use). Of course, with the plural of "datum" being "data", they have a tough time when discussing several of them ...
> By not accepting these bright minds ...
Now come on, they're not bright minds, they're business students.
These people are deliberately trying to get MBAs. I'd say they deserve everything that happens to them, up to and including being boiled in oil. Fuck 'em.
The datum is - the data are. It's Latin for "what is given".
The really important thing about relational databases is not the ability to perform ad-hoc queries (although that _is_ a nice feature), it's the fact that they guarantee referential integrity, and they have a rigorous mathematical model underpinning them. And yeah, I know that there aren't any perfect commercial implementations of the relational model, but the main players are pretty bloody good.
I've just recently acquired responsibilty for supporting a system which was originally written for ISAM files (it's _really_ old), but the DB back end (in our instance) has been force-fitted into an Oracle database. So ... I've got these highly denormalised tables, with the ISAM-style indices built into them (multiple copies of the same data in different columns in the same fucking table). Christ on a bike! All the responsibility for data integrity and security and all the business rules are in the application. (And it does a pretty piss-poor job, let me tell you.)
The upside is, I reckon I've got a job for life.
I used to work for an oil company, and they had several Oracle instances, each of about a terabyte. We found that some queries were taking a _long_ time (often they'd time out, or they'd be terminated because they were about to interfere with the nightly backup). The problem was a braindead database design (Oracle Financials with some customisation) and these queries were looking at views of views of views of ... well, you get the picture. One of the blokes I was working with looked at the queries, and found that they were actually quite simple if you unrolled them, and got them down from hours to, in some cases, seconds. Often the problem was that the queries were unable to use automatic query optimisation, because of their surface complexity.
However, the problem certainly _wasn't_ a lack of control over the processing steps.
It would handle it badly, given that 'select' is a reserved word (or whatever), and the standard (IIRC) specifies that strings are to be surrounded by single quotes. Dunno about 'sort', but I'd be wary of trying to use it as a table name.
Eewww. Do people actually eat that? I've never seen anything like it in my life. It looks like it's made of ground-up beaks and cloacas, deep fried.
Something you should bear in mind is that, at least in South Australia, a school's network administrator is likely to be a (not necessarily technically knowledgable) teacher, perhaps aided by a couple of students. A mate of mine, a French teacher by training, is in this happy position. He is responsible for a heterogeneous network of PCs and Macs of various ages, and it chews up quite a bit of what little "spare" time he has. Even though I'm an enthusuastic Linux user (and have succeeded in getting my very non-technical girlfriend to use Linux at home), I could not, in good conscience, suggest that my friend move his school's computers over to Linux. Once you start thinking about the various software packages involved as well, it's an absurd suggestion.
The only way that education departments are going to move to Linux is if it's mandated from the top.