I don't know about the $8 per gallon to support the entire petroleum industry, but according to the British government the security cost of middle eastern oil is $1 per gallon. Almost all of this cost is paid by the US, but the Europeans, Japanese and everyone else reaps the benefits. Might be worth reminding them the next time they launch into an anti-american tirade.
Views are updatable in oracle - even views that are based on joines. The only proviso to this is that only the fields in the key preserved table in the join view are updatable. i.e . in a one to many relationship the 'many' table is the key preserved table when you join them together.
As for forcing users to perform queries - isn't this the whole basis of OO? You provide a set of public interfaces and keep the implementation private. If users require a different interface - then develop a new view/stored proc.
A different solution that I am experimenting with is the notion of treating the database as another class. Using this paradigm the database tables are the equivalent of private fields/methods and a combination of views and stored procedures are equivalent to public fields and methods. In this way the DBA is able to update his implementation of the class i.e. the table structure, while maintaining a consistent interface for users of his class through the views and stored procedures. The problems experienced with typical applications where developers interact directly with the database tables are exactly the type of problems the OO paradigm is designed to prevent.
The ISS can best be understood by looking at its history. It was conceived amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union and related worries that and underpaid Russian space scientists would sell their services to Iran,Iraq, North Korea etc. and assist them in their missile and nuclear programs. It is a tremendous engineering feat but it represents a difference in degree rather than kind when compared with Skylab or Mir. I took an astronomy course a couple of years ago. The professor teaching it had served as chief scientist on the Hubble Space Telescope project. He mentioned during the course that the only truly useful and unique function of the ISS would be as an isolation lab for handling samples returned from Mars. To read some of his other reflections on his time dealing with NASA I can highly recommend his book. Hubble Wars - Eric Chaisson
I've been contracting as a European working in Australia. The easiest way I have found has been working for an umbrella company. Basically they take care of the work permit, getting the money from the client, tax returns etc. You need to find the contract, pay the legal fees for the permit and a percentage of your salary (I'm paying 4%) to the umbrella company.
The company I deal with it called Lester Associates They have offices in the UK as well so they should be able to provide the same services there.
Why is it that religious people never blame the bad things on their god(s) and yet are forever giving credit for the good things. - Sounds like a case of self reinforcing delusion to me!
Do you have any references for the scientists you speak of? As far as I know all oil is created deep within the earth - but it is reliant on the decomposition of organic matter. There is a lot of biomass stretching miles beneath the earths surface but the problem is TIME. I don't doubt that with a functioning biosphere the organic processes that lead to oil production would continue. This could lead to replenishment in geological timeframes (i.e. hundreds of thousands of years). This will not be of benefit to our current civilization. Also note functioning biosphere! I found an article in science magazine(subscription required for full text) which discusses the latest US Geological Survey assessment of global oil reserves. The main points they make are 1. that they expect world oil production to peak around 2015-2020. 2. the experience of production in the US is that improving technology will not be able to halt the decline once the peak is reached.
While it is true that you don't pump crude oil into your car, the refining process (as I understand it) breaks down the crude oil into its component parts and then selectively reconfigures them into the desired products. The current average product mix is about 45% gasoline. (19.5 gallons per barrel) This can be compared historically to 70 years ago when only 25% was refined into gasoline. All told 80% of a barrel of oil is used for transportation or heating purposes - for which alternative energy sources are feasible. In scanning several petroleum organization websites I was disturbed to find that even they claim that there is only 80-90 years supply of oil left at current consumption levels. Taking this as the most optimistic estimate I believe my concerns are legitimate.
One thing that seems to be forgotten in all these debates is how dependent we are for oil for other purposes. What is going to happen to the chemical and plastics industries - and indeed all the subsidiary industries that rely on their products once we run out of oil? We may well discover other sources of energy for transportation and heating - but there is no obvious substitute for the oil we require to manufacture the plastics we use. Just think of how prevalent plastics are today - just look at the big lump of plastic in front of you right now - and all the components under the hood that are keeping everything ticking over! If we waste all our oil resources on transportation and our technological civilization depends on oil derived plastics then how long can we survive with this level of technology? If we were a more responsible and mature society we would restrict our consumption so that future generations (and we should really be thinking way beyond our grandchildren) will enjoy some of the same resources we have today.
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I don't know about the $8 per gallon to support the entire petroleum industry, but according to the British government the security cost of middle eastern oil is $1 per gallon. Almost all of this cost is paid by the US, but the Europeans, Japanese and everyone else reaps the benefits.
Might be worth reminding them the next time they launch into an anti-american tirade.
Views are updatable in oracle - even views that are based on joines. The only proviso to this is that only the fields in the key preserved table in the join view are updatable. i.e . in a one to many relationship the 'many' table is the key preserved table when you join them together.
As for forcing users to perform queries - isn't this the whole basis of OO? You provide a set of public interfaces and keep the implementation private. If users require a different interface - then develop a new view/stored proc.
A different solution that I am experimenting with is the notion of treating the database as another class.
Using this paradigm the database tables are the equivalent of private fields/methods and a combination of views and stored procedures are equivalent to public fields and methods. In this way the DBA is able to update his implementation of the class i.e. the table structure, while maintaining a consistent interface for users of his class through the views and stored procedures.
The problems experienced with typical applications where developers interact directly with the database tables are exactly the type of problems the OO paradigm is designed to prevent.
The ISS can best be understood by looking at its history. It was conceived amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union and related worries that and underpaid Russian space scientists would sell their services to Iran,Iraq, North Korea etc. and assist them in their missile and nuclear programs.
It is a tremendous engineering feat but it represents a difference in degree rather than kind when compared with Skylab or Mir.
I took an astronomy course a couple of years ago. The professor teaching it had served as chief scientist on the Hubble Space Telescope project. He mentioned during the course that the only truly useful and unique function of the ISS would be as an isolation lab for handling samples returned from Mars. To read some of his other reflections on his time dealing with NASA I can highly recommend his book.
Hubble Wars - Eric Chaisson
I've been contracting as a European working in Australia. The easiest way I have found has been working for an umbrella company. Basically they take care of the work permit, getting the money from the client, tax returns etc. You need to find the contract, pay the legal fees for the permit and a percentage of your salary (I'm paying 4%) to the umbrella company. The company I deal with it called Lester Associates They have offices in the UK as well so they should be able to provide the same services there.
Why is it that religious people never blame the bad things on their god(s) and yet are forever giving credit for the good things. - Sounds like a case of self reinforcing delusion to me!
Heres another interesting article from science magazine. It provides an overview of the experts estimates of when oil production will peak.
Do you have any references for the scientists you speak of? As far as I know all oil is created deep within the earth - but it is reliant on the decomposition of organic matter. There is a lot of biomass stretching miles beneath the earths surface but the problem is TIME. I don't doubt that with a functioning biosphere the organic processes that lead to oil production would continue. This could lead to replenishment in geological timeframes (i.e. hundreds of thousands of years). This will not be of benefit to our current civilization. Also note functioning biosphere! I found an article in science magazine(subscription required for full text) which discusses the latest US Geological Survey assessment of global oil reserves. The main points they make are 1. that they expect world oil production to peak around 2015-2020. 2. the experience of production in the US is that improving technology will not be able to halt the decline once the peak is reached.
While it is true that you don't pump crude oil into your car, the refining process (as I understand it) breaks down the crude oil into its component parts and then selectively reconfigures them into the desired products. The current average product mix is about 45% gasoline. (19.5 gallons per barrel) This can be compared historically to 70 years ago when only 25% was refined into gasoline. All told 80% of a barrel of oil is used for transportation or heating purposes - for which alternative energy sources are feasible. In scanning several petroleum organization websites I was disturbed to find that even they claim that there is only 80-90 years supply of oil left at current consumption levels. Taking this as the most optimistic estimate I believe my concerns are legitimate.
One thing that seems to be forgotten in all these debates is how dependent we are for oil for other purposes. What is going to happen to the chemical and plastics industries - and indeed all the subsidiary industries that rely on their products once we run out of oil? We may well discover other sources of energy for transportation and heating - but there is no obvious substitute for the oil we require to manufacture the plastics we use. Just think of how prevalent plastics are today - just look at the big lump of plastic in front of you right now - and all the components under the hood that are keeping everything ticking over! If we waste all our oil resources on transportation and our technological civilization depends on oil derived plastics then how long can we survive with this level of technology? If we were a more responsible and mature society we would restrict our consumption so that future generations (and we should really be thinking way beyond our grandchildren) will enjoy some of the same resources we have today.