If you have time to care about databases, but you're turned off by the PostgreSQL community, just pick up a book that describes the relational model.
On the shelf next to me I have one of the best books I've ever bought, called "An Introduction to Database Systems" by C.J. Date.
Read some of that, and pick up some database that you haven't used before, like DB2, Oracle, Sybase, whatever. Those probably all have free trials. Try to understand the reason so many companies spent so much time and money perfecting a few good database concepts (constraints, referential integrity, and abstraction from physical storage).
It may be more of an academic journey than a practical one for most people, but I found it very interesting. PostgreSQL isn't the only way to open your mind to new database concepts.
At no point did you refute that it is legal to do so, you just said that there are pressures.
Of course there are pressures to gain shareholder value! That's blatantly obvious.
The act of going public means that you give up control over your company. At any moment when the shareholders think someone else can do a better job of making them money, they kick you out, along with your executive-size salary.
The bottom line is this: you can only be charitable and giving with your OWN MONEY. You can't donate all the shareholder's money to your pet cause without expecting them to get a new board.
So, if you want to be a charitable business, simply keep the business private, and don't make an IPO. Make sure any investors are in agreement with your values. I am my business, and I occasionally give my money to the PostgreSQL project (and other projects to a lesser extent).
I'd just like to add that nobody really takes into account what the rates actually are.
SOMEbody has to reduce taxes on "the rich" otherwise the taxes will asymtotically approach 100%.
So the real question becomes "what were the rates before Bush's tax plan, and are the new rates better or worse overall, and why?".
Most of the people who shout "tax cuts for the rich" don't even know what the old and new rates are, which really eliminates any basis for their argument.
To be honest, I don't know that data either. But what I do know is that the question has nothing to do with whether the rates were raised or cut, it only matters whether we are closer to the optimal rate (the optimal rate is of course a matter of opinion that depends on the individual you ask).
It's not a "false" solution. It is a solution, albeit a non-perfect one. It keeps nuclear waste far enough away that nobody will be harmed by it for some long period of time, unlike the casks, which leave the problem to be dealt with in a much shorter period of time.
Sure, criticize away. But the article said that Yucca was a terrible idea. It's not terrible if it's the best idea anyone has had.
Everyone KNOWS that stuffing the problem in a mountain in the desert is not perfect. But the criticisms have to add up to enough that another solution is better in order for it to make a difference.
First, technological innovation doesn't always appear in the areas we expect it. Take the flying car, for example, which we've been expecting for a long time, as well as robot servants.
Also, if we are leaving a problem for generations to come, isn't it better to leave the problem in the desert under ground that may (according to some people, at some time thousands of years in the future) need attention, rather than in casks above ground that will NEED attention for SURE? Future generations are just as likely to solve the Yucca problem as invent a miracle disposal system.
And one more thing. Even if the costs of fixing Yucca 1000's of years into the future are very large, the PDV* of the cost will be practically nothing.
*PDV = Present Day Value, an economic calculation to evaluate a future cost as a present cost.
The problem was that the documents were obvious forgeries. They only admitted it after their mistake was widely known.
When was the last time that cbs reporters made accusations about a democrat using obvious forgeries?
It would be a mistake if it were common to bypass any kind of basic fact-checking, but it's not. He jumped the gun on the reports because he wanted a sensationalist anti-Bush story before the election. It backfired.
If the "essential point" is right at heart, why did he need to so prominently present forged documents to back it up? Rather apparently didn't think his story could stand on its own. The documents were the centerpiece of his evidence.
No matter how much "chastising" a reporter accepts, it doesn't bring back his credibility.
I don't even have anything against cbs's liberal slant. Just call it what it is, don't pretend that they're objective. I think mainstream media reporters were like 12-1 for Kerry. No bias? I read biased stuff all the time (for the record, I don't read conservative blogs), but I try to get both sides. Just don't lie and say you're objective.
I've noticed that anytime someone makes something more cost-effective (self checkout, for example.) The customer never benefits from the extra hardship.
That's simply not true. An obvious example is the internet, and how it made shopping easier. Because it's easier for the supplier, new suppliers came around with lower prices, and forced everyone's prices down. Stuff is cheap, and it's a lot easier to prevent yourself from being ripped off (i.e. something is way cheaper somewhere else).
It's fashionable to critisize corporations as if they have all the power over us, when the opposite is more true. Corporations certainly have problems (why do shareholders get immunity from liability?), but they DO bow to customer demand.
and why the 2000 supreme court decision in Gore vs. Bush was sooo wrong -- but I digress
I have a real question (so don't assume I'm arguing something right now):
I thought that the U.S. Constitution requires the state legislatures to choose electors. When the FL supreme court intervened to require recounts, the U.S. supreme court stopped the recounts because that's the FL legislature's job. Basically I thought the U.S. decision was: "Nope, the FL supreme court doesn't have that power, so shut up and stop ordering things".
Now, what confuses me is why the FL legislature didn't stand up for themselves. I suppose because the requirement is a U.S. constitutional requirement?
So, anyway, what is the real story behind that decision?
This phrase is a contradiction in terms any time you're talking about credibility in journalism.
"standards of the NYT"
I think it's funny how you picked CBS and the NYT. Ever hear of Jayson Blair? The poor journalistic integrity of those two institutions has been revealed by their own reporters.
You know, troops cost money. A draft doesn't get troops for free, that's for sure. Most of the cost is opportunity cost: all the other productive things the person could do other than fight.
Maybe if they want people to join the military they will just increase the pay, just like if you need more workers at a plant. It doesn't save anyone anything by drafting, in fact it hurts much more. I really don't think there will be a draft because it doesn't make any sense.
You need to start thinking of the U.S. as a federation or a union of some kind. It's not just a monolithic nation. More like the E.U. maybe?
Texas and California are very different places, and they are united based on the Constitution, which is a compromise between the Articles of Confederation and a monolithic nation.
Within a state, it is pretty much democratic.
Since states are pretty much self-reliant (or at least designed that way by the Constituion), then to be part of the union the less-populated states wanted their people to be represented in some significant way.
Was, perhaps. Just like Dan Rather may have been respected in the past. Now the NYT is just a propoganda paper with editorials presented as "news". It's been happening for a while, but people like Jayson Blair have just made it more apparent recently.
P.S. i live in america, and actually work for fed govt.
And I'm the president.
Actually, based on what else he said, working for the feds makes perfect sense. If you have a government job, you are shielded from reality (an extreme example is a teacher, who is highly shielded from any of the realities of a market economy).
The reality is that when consumers get tired of the old deal (hundreds of dollars for what exactly? can you explain that one more time?), and the new deal (read: free software) works for them, they will choose to use it.
Certainly when our government misuses their powers to involve themselves in economic transactions, that doesn't help. However, it only goes so far. The person who thinks that lobbying can prevent free software from being useful is the same person who thinks that a lot of marketing will make people eat sand instead of food to the point of starvation.
People who like to think highly of themselves have to think very lowly of other peoples' ability to make good choices. At the heart of much of the legislation in this country is the assumption that some group is making poor decisions, and a government bureaucracy can make better decisions.
Communism doesn't fail merely because of corruption. In the absence of corruption, communism would still fail. In nearly all situations, even those with average intelligence can make far better decisions about their own life than someone else (no matter how smart).
MySQL has a modular design, allowing you to use any of several database backends
Do they actually have constraints yet? For all the RDBMS apps that I can think of, I wouldn't go without constraints. Last I heard, MySQL thinks 2004-02-31 is a date.
Also, I'm a little wary of the mix-and-match feature policy, perhaps because I don't understand it. Are there any features not available in the InnoDB tables? Can I do master-master replication and everything, all with transactions? I would be really troubled if each feature is it's own table type or something crazy like that, I want to be able to use all the features at once.
Indexes are also not the best plan unless only a small percentage of the pages contain matching tuples.
For instance, it's a good idea to use an index on a query like: SELECT * FROM slashdot_users WHERE name='jadavis';
but a bad idea for: SELECT * FROM nra_members WHERE sex='M';
In the former, it reads a couple pages for the index, and then it reads just one page from the heap; which is much faster than reading the entire heap storage for that table and looking at each tuple. In the latter, it would have to read many index pages, then many heap pages, all non-sequentially; which is much slower than sequentially reading all the heap pages.
I encourage you to examine PostgreSQL 8.0 upon it's release, which will most likely be November or December of this year.
It fits your requirements perfectly without requiring the commercial license. Of course the installer bit depends also on your application, but it shouldn't be too hard to do. You may want to check out the pginstaller project here: http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pginstaller/.
Wal-Mart's markup on stuff other than CDs ranges from 30% - 50%.
Where are you getting your numbers?
33% is most certainly not gouging.
I think the above statement is a misconception. Who is to decide what numbers are "gouging" and what numbers aren't? Why are we even talking about "price gouging" regarding such a luxury item?
33% is wildly high for some businesses, and very low for others.
Buying from a major label is sort of like buying name-brand clothes. You aren't really getting something better, you're just getting something more popular. The music is good because the radio and all the clubs overplay it, not in spite of that fact. Serious musicians don't care about that, but to the average person (myself included) the pop music is kinda catchy and gets stuck in my head. There are many similar examples, like how people will pay a lot for diamonds, but if de Beers flooded the market nobody would want diamonds anymore.
Price is not some arbitrary value which should be manipulated. It's the indicator of the current supply conditions and current demand conditions. A hotel room during a disaster (like a flood or hurricane) is highly demanded, but the supply is relatively low. When the price rises, it forces a more efficient use of the resources available. Those in need of space will be more likely to stay with friends if they can, leaving the hotel space for those more in need. Large families who might normally reserve two rooms might get one instead, leaving a room open for another family. Families might get the necessary portions of their house fixed and move back faster (again leaving room for another family), without waiting for their house to be restored to perfect condition.
Of course, all the efficiencies mentioned above would be called "price gouging". When the government steps in and prevents the price from rising naturally, it becomes a race to see who can reserve hotel rooms the fastest, and creates a shortage. Then, the families most in need might be left on the streets while families who could be staying with friends are enjoying a two-bedroom luxury suite.
Well, people could get confused and think that gwbush.com is official. I think that's a legitimate complaint. If it's not an official bush site, it should be something like gwbushsucks.com, or gwbushrules.com (In a shocking twist, that domain happens to be available!).
nothing will change until the viruses and spyware hit critical mass...
By my standards, "critical mass" happened a long time ago ('99).
I still have a windows computer, but I use it sparingly. I've spent more than a little time with computers, but I just don't have the patience to do everything necessary to prevent my windows computer from being hopelessley infected with virii and malware. It's not that I can't make it work right, but why spend the time?
So, I just turn it on occasionally when I find it useful for some compatibility.
Why should the federal government be buying software from a convicted monopolist?
Thank you! Finally someone else brings up the point I've been trying to make for a long time.
If the federal and state governments that were suing MSFT simply stopped buying MSFT products, that may solve the problem by itself. In my estimation, it would drop MSFT's market share below the critical threshold they need to hold their monopoly, since some alternative would get traction (the feds have to use some OS).
I have similar opinions about the antitrust trials in the past. I question whether ANY company could really have a monopoly if the likes of the DoD, DoE, DoT, etc just boycotted the "monopolists".
and stands to benefit from tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%
Heck, why not make taxes 100%? After all, 44% of American households don't pay federal income tax, so it's not costing those people anything at all. They can just vote the actual taxpayers' money away 'til the cows come home.
The fact is, taxes on "the rich" (usually just normal people at their peak income-producing years) need to be somewhere between 0 and 100%. People differ on what that number should be, so it seems obvious to me that the number may be lowered, and if it is lowered, it's not automatically bad. Remember that it's a tax break, not a gift from the government (a critical distinction: a tax break encourages investment, a gift just buys votes).
So, if you make a credible argument that the taxes on "the richest 1%" are too low now, and that those taxes should be raised, I will respect that. But I will not automatically assume that a tax break is bad.
You make some good points about the reps though. In about 10 years I figure pot will be legal here in the U.S. in some form. It just can't be contained. Too many people do it.
I would say it's more of a "back to basics" approach. The government is there to protect your property rights (from theives, etc), protect you from violent crime, protect from foreign invasion, and a few other things.
Anarchy doesn't protect you from those things, which I think is an important distinction.
Slashdot Mirror
If you have time to care about databases, but you're turned off by the PostgreSQL community, just pick up a book that describes the relational model.
On the shelf next to me I have one of the best books I've ever bought, called "An Introduction to Database Systems" by C.J. Date.
Read some of that, and pick up some database that you haven't used before, like DB2, Oracle, Sybase, whatever. Those probably all have free trials. Try to understand the reason so many companies spent so much time and money perfecting a few good database concepts (constraints, referential integrity, and abstraction from physical storage).
It may be more of an academic journey than a practical one for most people, but I found it very interesting. PostgreSQL isn't the only way to open your mind to new database concepts.
Disclaimer: I am a PostgreSQL user.
At no point did you refute that it is legal to do so, you just said that there are pressures.
Of course there are pressures to gain shareholder value! That's blatantly obvious.
The act of going public means that you give up control over your company. At any moment when the shareholders think someone else can do a better job of making them money, they kick you out, along with your executive-size salary.
The bottom line is this: you can only be charitable and giving with your OWN MONEY. You can't donate all the shareholder's money to your pet cause without expecting them to get a new board.
So, if you want to be a charitable business, simply keep the business private, and don't make an IPO. Make sure any investors are in agreement with your values. I am my business, and I occasionally give my money to the PostgreSQL project (and other projects to a lesser extent).
I'd just like to add that nobody really takes into account what the rates actually are.
SOMEbody has to reduce taxes on "the rich" otherwise the taxes will asymtotically approach 100%.
So the real question becomes "what were the rates before Bush's tax plan, and are the new rates better or worse overall, and why?".
Most of the people who shout "tax cuts for the rich" don't even know what the old and new rates are, which really eliminates any basis for their argument.
To be honest, I don't know that data either. But what I do know is that the question has nothing to do with whether the rates were raised or cut, it only matters whether we are closer to the optimal rate (the optimal rate is of course a matter of opinion that depends on the individual you ask).
It's not a "false" solution. It is a solution, albeit a non-perfect one. It keeps nuclear waste far enough away that nobody will be harmed by it for some long period of time, unlike the casks, which leave the problem to be dealt with in a much shorter period of time.
Sure, criticize away. But the article said that Yucca was a terrible idea. It's not terrible if it's the best idea anyone has had.
Everyone KNOWS that stuffing the problem in a mountain in the desert is not perfect. But the criticisms have to add up to enough that another solution is better in order for it to make a difference.
First, technological innovation doesn't always appear in the areas we expect it. Take the flying car, for example, which we've been expecting for a long time, as well as robot servants.
Also, if we are leaving a problem for generations to come, isn't it better to leave the problem in the desert under ground that may (according to some people, at some time thousands of years in the future) need attention, rather than in casks above ground that will NEED attention for SURE? Future generations are just as likely to solve the Yucca problem as invent a miracle disposal system.
And one more thing. Even if the costs of fixing Yucca 1000's of years into the future are very large, the PDV* of the cost will be practically nothing.
*PDV = Present Day Value, an economic calculation to evaluate a future cost as a present cost.
The problem was that the documents were obvious forgeries. They only admitted it after their mistake was widely known.
When was the last time that cbs reporters made accusations about a democrat using obvious forgeries?
It would be a mistake if it were common to bypass any kind of basic fact-checking, but it's not. He jumped the gun on the reports because he wanted a sensationalist anti-Bush story before the election. It backfired.
If the "essential point" is right at heart, why did he need to so prominently present forged documents to back it up? Rather apparently didn't think his story could stand on its own. The documents were the centerpiece of his evidence.
No matter how much "chastising" a reporter accepts, it doesn't bring back his credibility.
I don't even have anything against cbs's liberal slant. Just call it what it is, don't pretend that they're objective. I think mainstream media reporters were like 12-1 for Kerry. No bias? I read biased stuff all the time (for the record, I don't read conservative blogs), but I try to get both sides. Just don't lie and say you're objective.
I've noticed that anytime someone makes something more cost-effective (self checkout, for example.) The customer never benefits from the extra hardship.
That's simply not true. An obvious example is the internet, and how it made shopping easier. Because it's easier for the supplier, new suppliers came around with lower prices, and forced everyone's prices down. Stuff is cheap, and it's a lot easier to prevent yourself from being ripped off (i.e. something is way cheaper somewhere else).
It's fashionable to critisize corporations as if they have all the power over us, when the opposite is more true. Corporations certainly have problems (why do shareholders get immunity from liability?), but they DO bow to customer demand.
and why the 2000 supreme court decision in Gore vs. Bush was sooo wrong -- but I digress
I have a real question (so don't assume I'm arguing something right now):
I thought that the U.S. Constitution requires the state legislatures to choose electors. When the FL supreme court intervened to require recounts, the U.S. supreme court stopped the recounts because that's the FL legislature's job. Basically I thought the U.S. decision was: "Nope, the FL supreme court doesn't have that power, so shut up and stop ordering things".
Now, what confuses me is why the FL legislature didn't stand up for themselves. I suppose because the requirement is a U.S. constitutional requirement?
So, anyway, what is the real story behind that decision?
"[R]ather good"
This phrase is a contradiction in terms any time you're talking about credibility in journalism.
"standards of the NYT"
I think it's funny how you picked CBS and the NYT. Ever hear of Jayson Blair? The poor journalistic integrity of those two institutions has been revealed by their own reporters.
You know, troops cost money. A draft doesn't get troops for free, that's for sure. Most of the cost is opportunity cost: all the other productive things the person could do other than fight.
Maybe if they want people to join the military they will just increase the pay, just like if you need more workers at a plant. It doesn't save anyone anything by drafting, in fact it hurts much more. I really don't think there will be a draft because it doesn't make any sense.
You need to start thinking of the U.S. as a federation or a union of some kind. It's not just a monolithic nation. More like the E.U. maybe?
Texas and California are very different places, and they are united based on the Constitution, which is a compromise between the Articles of Confederation and a monolithic nation.
Within a state, it is pretty much democratic.
Since states are pretty much self-reliant (or at least designed that way by the Constituion), then to be part of the union the less-populated states wanted their people to be represented in some significant way.
It's the most distinguished newspaper in the U.S.
Was, perhaps. Just like Dan Rather may have been respected in the past. Now the NYT is just a propoganda paper with editorials presented as "news". It's been happening for a while, but people like Jayson Blair have just made it more apparent recently.
Actually, based on what else he said, working for the feds makes perfect sense. If you have a government job, you are shielded from reality (an extreme example is a teacher, who is highly shielded from any of the realities of a market economy).
The reality is that when consumers get tired of the old deal (hundreds of dollars for what exactly? can you explain that one more time?), and the new deal (read: free software) works for them, they will choose to use it.
Certainly when our government misuses their powers to involve themselves in economic transactions, that doesn't help. However, it only goes so far. The person who thinks that lobbying can prevent free software from being useful is the same person who thinks that a lot of marketing will make people eat sand instead of food to the point of starvation.
People who like to think highly of themselves have to think very lowly of other peoples' ability to make good choices. At the heart of much of the legislation in this country is the assumption that some group is making poor decisions, and a government bureaucracy can make better decisions.
Communism doesn't fail merely because of corruption. In the absence of corruption, communism would still fail. In nearly all situations, even those with average intelligence can make far better decisions about their own life than someone else (no matter how smart).
MySQL has a modular design, allowing you to use any of several database backends
Do they actually have constraints yet? For all the RDBMS apps that I can think of, I wouldn't go without constraints. Last I heard, MySQL thinks 2004-02-31 is a date.
Also, I'm a little wary of the mix-and-match feature policy, perhaps because I don't understand it. Are there any features not available in the InnoDB tables? Can I do master-master replication and everything, all with transactions? I would be really troubled if each feature is it's own table type or something crazy like that, I want to be able to use all the features at once.
I would just like to add:
Indexes are also not the best plan unless only a small percentage of the pages contain matching tuples.
For instance, it's a good idea to use an index on a query like:
SELECT * FROM slashdot_users WHERE name='jadavis';
but a bad idea for:
SELECT * FROM nra_members WHERE sex='M';
In the former, it reads a couple pages for the index, and then it reads just one page from the heap; which is much faster than reading the entire heap storage for that table and looking at each tuple. In the latter, it would have to read many index pages, then many heap pages, all non-sequentially; which is much slower than sequentially reading all the heap pages.
I encourage you to examine PostgreSQL 8.0 upon it's release, which will most likely be November or December of this year.
It fits your requirements perfectly without requiring the commercial license. Of course the installer bit depends also on your application, but it shouldn't be too hard to do. You may want to check out the pginstaller project here: http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pginstaller/.
Wal-Mart's markup on stuff other than CDs ranges from 30% - 50%.
Where are you getting your numbers?
33% is most certainly not gouging.
I think the above statement is a misconception. Who is to decide what numbers are "gouging" and what numbers aren't? Why are we even talking about "price gouging" regarding such a luxury item?
33% is wildly high for some businesses, and very low for others.
Buying from a major label is sort of like buying name-brand clothes. You aren't really getting something better, you're just getting something more popular. The music is good because the radio and all the clubs overplay it, not in spite of that fact. Serious musicians don't care about that, but to the average person (myself included) the pop music is kinda catchy and gets stuck in my head. There are many similar examples, like how people will pay a lot for diamonds, but if de Beers flooded the market nobody would want diamonds anymore.
Price is not some arbitrary value which should be manipulated. It's the indicator of the current supply conditions and current demand conditions. A hotel room during a disaster (like a flood or hurricane) is highly demanded, but the supply is relatively low. When the price rises, it forces a more efficient use of the resources available. Those in need of space will be more likely to stay with friends if they can, leaving the hotel space for those more in need. Large families who might normally reserve two rooms might get one instead, leaving a room open for another family. Families might get the necessary portions of their house fixed and move back faster (again leaving room for another family), without waiting for their house to be restored to perfect condition.
Of course, all the efficiencies mentioned above would be called "price gouging". When the government steps in and prevents the price from rising naturally, it becomes a race to see who can reserve hotel rooms the fastest, and creates a shortage. Then, the families most in need might be left on the streets while families who could be staying with friends are enjoying a two-bedroom luxury suite.
Well, people could get confused and think that gwbush.com is official. I think that's a legitimate complaint. If it's not an official bush site, it should be something like gwbushsucks.com, or gwbushrules.com (In a shocking twist, that domain happens to be available!).
I think it's naive to assume that Mao et al. were true believers. They were just dictators that said whatever was required to become all-powerful.
nothing will change until the viruses and spyware hit critical mass...
By my standards, "critical mass" happened a long time ago ('99).
I still have a windows computer, but I use it sparingly. I've spent more than a little time with computers, but I just don't have the patience to do everything necessary to prevent my windows computer from being hopelessley infected with virii and malware. It's not that I can't make it work right, but why spend the time?
So, I just turn it on occasionally when I find it useful for some compatibility.
...but they're using state resources to provide a forum for some candidates and not others.
Why should the federal government be buying software from a convicted monopolist?
Thank you! Finally someone else brings up the point I've been trying to make for a long time.
If the federal and state governments that were suing MSFT simply stopped buying MSFT products, that may solve the problem by itself. In my estimation, it would drop MSFT's market share below the critical threshold they need to hold their monopoly, since some alternative would get traction (the feds have to use some OS).
I have similar opinions about the antitrust trials in the past. I question whether ANY company could really have a monopoly if the likes of the DoD, DoE, DoT, etc just boycotted the "monopolists".
and stands to benefit from tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%
Heck, why not make taxes 100%? After all, 44% of American households don't pay federal income tax, so it's not costing those people anything at all. They can just vote the actual taxpayers' money away 'til the cows come home.
The fact is, taxes on "the rich" (usually just normal people at their peak income-producing years) need to be somewhere between 0 and 100%. People differ on what that number should be, so it seems obvious to me that the number may be lowered, and if it is lowered, it's not automatically bad. Remember that it's a tax break, not a gift from the government (a critical distinction: a tax break encourages investment, a gift just buys votes).
So, if you make a credible argument that the taxes on "the richest 1%" are too low now, and that those taxes should be raised, I will respect that. But I will not automatically assume that a tax break is bad.
You make some good points about the reps though. In about 10 years I figure pot will be legal here in the U.S. in some form. It just can't be contained. Too many people do it.
I would say it's more of a "back to basics" approach. The government is there to protect your property rights (from theives, etc), protect you from violent crime, protect from foreign invasion, and a few other things.
Anarchy doesn't protect you from those things, which I think is an important distinction.