There is still an on-shore niche for Excel/VBA programmers, definitely in the financial industry (I know one top-tier bank that has serious financial reporting done that way, and it's NOT niche). And they do fit nicely in between the macro expert and the full-on multi-tiered.NET or J2EE etc. programmer. Pay isn't great, but it isn't bad, and can keep a programmer from selling his shoes if the rest of the work goes to Mangalore.
Yes, Excel is the front end of the database (and certainly not the best, but the customers are married to their spreadsheets) -- the data source is in what the ODBC definition, generally set up through the control panel/admin tools/data sources. You can fit a lot of logic in an SQL stored procedure & then show it in a view attached to ODBC DS, but when you want to do serious transforms on the data (e.g. turning cryptic SWIFT transactions into something you can read into a ledger (something I've done this way) you often need the heavy Al Gore Rhythm of program code. Typically though a table or view is represented as an odbc "data source" and you tap into that.
And the Alt-F11 trick needs Visual Studio in the latest version, I believe -- but 2003 and before should have the IDE there for you without it. And yes, I've done that trick a few times.
An Excel macro itself is nothing but a hidden bit of VBA code, and the built-in IDE lets you tap that if you need a bit more strength in your algorithm. No magic.
I'm pulling my extra-large roll of tin foil out, indulge me for a moment...
Is it possible that somewhere, someone is manipulating this copyright hysteria -- a driving force behind the RIAA et.al. -- who is actively, deliberately working to kill off the music industry altogether on the basis of some bizarre hatred of music itself? Profile -- someone turning back on a traumatic experience during their music-loving days, who transferred their reaction to some major abuse to blame music itself? Someone rich, very powerful, and behind the scenes? I'd think Richard Nixon, but he's dead -- someone like Phil Spector, but with a hatred for the media instead of women. Some cat-stroking Bloefield.
Music is an extremely powerful voice of individuals, and yet the big labels appear to be trying to channel it into a particular mold, freezing out the indies with everything from media levies to terror campaigns. Is it in anyone's best interest to curb independent thought on a broad scale?
Perhaps. Geez what a meme. Scared now, pulling the blanket over my head.
Was there really a "Sahara" at that point? Seems I remember reading that most of the desert was made by a certain species overloading the ecosystem in a spreading fashion -- Humans? Goats? Goats were called "The Desert Maker" for a very long time.
And I filter out anything from the.cx domain, thank you very much.
Have done so -- which is one of the reasons I am not sure either way. I did a lot of reading and a lot of thinking about it in the intervening years, just to see if I could figure out if I was missing some vital brain capacity. Mind you, I'm sure my brain is working perfectly now. BRB, I have to finish some of this VBA code as soon as I finish this Slashdot session so I can go back to leveling my VG Sorcerer...
I agree -- I do believe, like Einstein, that all scientific progress is made by challenging an axiom.
Earth/Air/Fire/Water was once a coherent chemical model, but we couldn't do much with this chemical model until we refined it to the point Tom Lehrer could sing about it. I do believe that metaphysics tends to move toward mainstream physics as the scientific process evolves -- geometry and trigonometry weren't "just maths" in Pythagorus' day, they were serious mumbo-jumbo occultism. Same thing with Bacon's Novum Organum -- which just happened to describe the scientific method in detail (hypothesis, experiment, independent corroboration were detailed) when it was pretty much marketed as a treatise of mystic philosophy at the time. I think we're still at the "four elements" level in our understanding of the NDE/OOB experince, myself.
Aided by an undercurrent of social desire expressed in the media, strong memes (memes with a high-index transport motive such as humour or adventure) develop, and the mystery is eventually filtered out and what you're left with (if there's any real content left) is a provable, independently repeatable science. And once you get the principle down and have something to measure, we can usually develop an amplifier for it.
I figure about the time we fully understand about death, we'll have working transporters and I'll be able to be decanted into a new android body, maybe one where the knees work better. Powered by Mr.Fusion, no doubt.
After all, we have to -- the Memes insist on it (/joke).
No, I'm not sure. How could I be? Yes there was massive trauma, but the entire experience was rather coherent and, as it turned out, consistent with considerable of the material I read on the subject since (many years since -- at 10 I read about cars and baseball, not metaphysics). I'm just not entirely certain that the trauma could explain such a consistent view of the proceedings -- I would have thought that if it were assembled from fragmented, aphashic disassociations caused by blunt trauma it would have looked more like a broken-mirror sort of thing. But it wasn't, it was like being in a flowing, gentle, painless 3D movie made up on the spot. None of my prior imaginings were anything like it, it was totally new. When the experience was over, I was fully conscious and aware, in my body -- just totally aphasic, with my attempts at speech turning into fragmented and inappropriate phraseology. I remember trying to say "I'm okay Dad" and having it come out "Teacup on the door is fraying" or some such. The only thing I could say coherently until after the surgery was to the doctor, "Can I go to sleep now?" I was adrenaline-awake until that point. So, despite the fun I'd have at myself by saying it was true OOB or simply an elegant synthesis put together by my meat server under stress, I don't know, and may never know the truth. But an honest self-appraisal puts it very firmly in the "undecided" basket, not one way or the other. I am sure, however, that we don't know everything about the subject of death yet, or the persistence that software image we call "consciousness" yet. It did provide me with a strong set of questions, though, but I've bored you all enough.
I never saw myself and the doctors in the hospital from above...
Well, I did. 11 years old, skull fracture from little league game (I was pitching, before the hard hat rule (which I was told I instigated)). No pre-knowledge or exposure to such states, or even the concept of mortality -- never a church goer. Genuine OOB perception, howling winds, players gathered around my supine body, sound of my dad calling me back (he was the team's manager). Followed by aphasia, surgery, long recovery.
Nothing has ever been really spookey since. Meh, it's life. Do the next thing.
Spreadsheets you're limited to raw data and charts to display the information. No way for you to plug into it with some kind of external application.
Actually, that turns out not to be the case. You can back Excel with a database, just use ODBC or suchlike. And connecting to files is dirt simple.
Here's a little exercise for you -- find a comp with Excel on it. Open an new Excel spreadsheet. Create a macro, and within it open a file -- a CSV file would be best. Close the macro. Next, enter ALT-F11. Voila, VBA application IDE and code framework. In the code you'll see all the VBA to open and process a file. Edit to fit, massage data into different forms, do subs, whatever. It's a programming language, and there's a fair bit of functionality in it (and a place to enter comments, you lazy sods!).
It's this convenience that causes a lot of spreadsheet creep into large financial organisations -- often they have to move quickly, get something developed in a hurry. Getting it written in a decent language or platform would require many hoops to be jumped through, but if you're "just writing a few macros" the dev effort goes into a different budget, and an "Excel expert" is easier to justify than a "programmer". I know it's semantic BS, but then that's how a lot of development money is allocated these days.
I think the Mac floppy disk controller had an IWM chip in it though, didn't it? That was definitely a Woz invention -- it was the original Apple ][ floppy software reduced to a chip. IWM = Integrated Woz Machine.
Interestingly enough, the development of the Data General mini was written into a book, "The Soul of a New Machine" which was one of the first attempts to capture the group dynamics of a high-technology R&D effort in the world of computers. Good read.
The blog said no precedent was being set, that it was clear it was the best the RIAA could expect from the case given that the subject was not likely to give much return on the collection effort, and another high-handed collection effort from a penniless mum would work against them. There was very little that could be taken from her, being another single mother receiving housing and income assistance. I'd say that that $300 was a pretty big whallop out of her budget though, and will make the RIAA look even worse as a result.
You have to kind of understand our ACCC. They're good, very good consumer advocates -- but they also contain professional paranoids of the shoe-banging sort (I've actually seen one of their execs banging a shoe in a high-level committee meeting -- it wasn't pretty, but it was wildly entertaining -- fortunately an adjoining office caught fire and we all had to adjourn via the fire escape.).
Erk. I just imagined Kruschev wrapped in an Australian flag. I think I'll go have my hypothalectomy now...
I think the Vax/VMS ASMP multiprocessor machines (not to mention CI-based clustering configs) predated the Parallel Sysplex, didn't it? I think I can remember being annoyed about that back then...
IBM more or less invented virtualization back in the 60s for the System/390...
You're right, but in the 60's it was System 360. Then they went to System 370 in the 70's, and the 3090 in the 90's (go figure).
Mainframes are stable not entirely because of their architecture, but because of the cast-iron operations environments you find them in. You spend a few million on a comp, the folks paying the bills will insist that it's looked after. Lots of x86 based servers end up kicked under someone's desk, which I find a bit annoying -- people equate their cheapness with their value to an organisation, and mistreat them. You get a mainframe, it's false floor and air conditioning all the way, baby.
Have a look at what Abba did with their fame and fortune -- they had a sensible investment plan, and ended up fabulously wealthy. Possibly the most successful (in terms of wealth generated) indie band ever (check it out -- they managed the whole publishing effort themselves, along sound business principles). They certainly didn't fit the wreck-the-hotel image, they just made good popular music that had broad appeal, and they were sensible about how they ran their business.
Vice President Gerald Ford went on record during the Watergate-led impeachment proceedings of President Richard Nixon that Nixon would receive a full pardon if convicted of any of the crimes the impeachment proceedings would send to trial. This changed the end-game a little, but not that much. Another clear example of abuse of presidential pardon, interestingly even before Ford took office.
Your President has a lot more power than people suspect. Did you know, for example, that he has complete jurisdiction over inland waterways? That is, if he required all industrial users of inland waterways to take their water downstream from their effluent discharge, it would have the force of Federal law?
(Disclaimer: IANAL, I just read this in a book written by an Annapolis graduate.)
Except not. If they're any good, they'll get local recognition, and move up.
One way to move up is to simply find a good reviewer and give a copy to them. Artists get good free marketing (if they're appealing) and the music critic gets free music. Seems to work. There are good indie reviewers out there, ref. http://www.myspace.com/baron_g/ in the prog-rock/electronica space as one example.
Ok, I'm NOT an electrician. However, I've heard about the 60Hz cycle having its roots in the past.
An old friend, an ex-Navy sparky (aircraft carrier radio engineer) told me that 60Hz made calculations a bit easier due to something about a 360 degree phase baseline. That may have something to do with the original choice of 60Hz. No clue as to why Australia/England chose 50Hz, possibly they preferred different calcs.
So, when I moved from the US to Australia (50Hz) I ended up with two notches in my hearing due to computer room fans, rather than one.
I think (or perhaps hope) that the motoring public is a little more willing to accept innovation today, now that costs are such a driver (sorry).
R.Buckminster Fuller developed an interesting teardrop-shaped car back in the square-fender days -- think it used a Ford Model A engine -- that had wheels that could pivot 90 deg. or better to allow parallel parking with a couple inches clearance. Got up to speeds of 100mph fairly easily. It was called the "Dymaxion Car" and a good place to start is here http://www.washedashore.com/projects/dymax/
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, Excel is the front end of the database (and certainly not the best, but the customers are married to their spreadsheets) -- the data source is in what the ODBC definition, generally set up through the control panel/admin tools/data sources. You can fit a lot of logic in an SQL stored procedure & then show it in a view attached to ODBC DS, but when you want to do serious transforms on the data (e.g. turning cryptic SWIFT transactions into something you can read into a ledger (something I've done this way) you often need the heavy Al Gore Rhythm of program code. Typically though a table or view is represented as an odbc "data source" and you tap into that.
And the Alt-F11 trick needs Visual Studio in the latest version, I believe -- but 2003 and before should have the IDE there for you without it. And yes, I've done that trick a few times.
An Excel macro itself is nothing but a hidden bit of VBA code, and the built-in IDE lets you tap that if you need a bit more strength in your algorithm. No magic.
Mod this post up, insightful. We're dealing with a serious structural issue, and he or she pinned it.
Is it possible that somewhere, someone is manipulating this copyright hysteria -- a driving force behind the RIAA et.al. -- who is actively, deliberately working to kill off the music industry altogether on the basis of some bizarre hatred of music itself? Profile -- someone turning back on a traumatic experience during their music-loving days, who transferred their reaction to some major abuse to blame music itself? Someone rich, very powerful, and behind the scenes? I'd think Richard Nixon, but he's dead -- someone like Phil Spector, but with a hatred for the media instead of women. Some cat-stroking Bloefield.
Music is an extremely powerful voice of individuals, and yet the big labels appear to be trying to channel it into a particular mold, freezing out the indies with everything from media levies to terror campaigns. Is it in anyone's best interest to curb independent thought on a broad scale?
Perhaps. Geez what a meme. Scared now, pulling the blanket over my head.
Was there really a "Sahara" at that point? Seems I remember reading that most of the desert was made by a certain species overloading the ecosystem in a spreading fashion -- Humans? Goats? Goats were called "The Desert Maker" for a very long time.
And I filter out anything from the .cx domain, thank you very much.
Have done so -- which is one of the reasons I am not sure either way. I did a lot of reading and a lot of thinking about it in the intervening years, just to see if I could figure out if I was missing some vital brain capacity. Mind you, I'm sure my brain is working perfectly now. BRB, I have to finish some of this VBA code as soon as I finish this Slashdot session so I can go back to leveling my VG Sorcerer...
Earth/Air/Fire/Water was once a coherent chemical model, but we couldn't do much with this chemical model until we refined it to the point Tom Lehrer could sing about it. I do believe that metaphysics tends to move toward mainstream physics as the scientific process evolves -- geometry and trigonometry weren't "just maths" in Pythagorus' day, they were serious mumbo-jumbo occultism. Same thing with Bacon's Novum Organum -- which just happened to describe the scientific method in detail (hypothesis, experiment, independent corroboration were detailed) when it was pretty much marketed as a treatise of mystic philosophy at the time. I think we're still at the "four elements" level in our understanding of the NDE/OOB experince, myself.
Aided by an undercurrent of social desire expressed in the media, strong memes (memes with a high-index transport motive such as humour or adventure) develop, and the mystery is eventually filtered out and what you're left with (if there's any real content left) is a provable, independently repeatable science. And once you get the principle down and have something to measure, we can usually develop an amplifier for it.
I figure about the time we fully understand about death, we'll have working transporters and I'll be able to be decanted into a new android body, maybe one where the knees work better. Powered by Mr.Fusion, no doubt.
After all, we have to -- the Memes insist on it (/joke).
No, I'm not sure. How could I be? Yes there was massive trauma, but the entire experience was rather coherent and, as it turned out, consistent with considerable of the material I read on the subject since (many years since -- at 10 I read about cars and baseball, not metaphysics). I'm just not entirely certain that the trauma could explain such a consistent view of the proceedings -- I would have thought that if it were assembled from fragmented, aphashic disassociations caused by blunt trauma it would have looked more like a broken-mirror sort of thing. But it wasn't, it was like being in a flowing, gentle, painless 3D movie made up on the spot. None of my prior imaginings were anything like it, it was totally new. When the experience was over, I was fully conscious and aware, in my body -- just totally aphasic, with my attempts at speech turning into fragmented and inappropriate phraseology. I remember trying to say "I'm okay Dad" and having it come out "Teacup on the door is fraying" or some such. The only thing I could say coherently until after the surgery was to the doctor, "Can I go to sleep now?" I was adrenaline-awake until that point. So, despite the fun I'd have at myself by saying it was true OOB or simply an elegant synthesis put together by my meat server under stress, I don't know, and may never know the truth. But an honest self-appraisal puts it very firmly in the "undecided" basket, not one way or the other. I am sure, however, that we don't know everything about the subject of death yet, or the persistence that software image we call "consciousness" yet. It did provide me with a strong set of questions, though, but I've bored you all enough.
Well, I did. 11 years old, skull fracture from little league game (I was pitching, before the hard hat rule (which I was told I instigated)). No pre-knowledge or exposure to such states, or even the concept of mortality -- never a church goer. Genuine OOB perception, howling winds, players gathered around my supine body, sound of my dad calling me back (he was the team's manager). Followed by aphasia, surgery, long recovery.
Nothing has ever been really spookey since. Meh, it's life. Do the next thing.
Actually, that turns out not to be the case. You can back Excel with a database, just use ODBC or suchlike. And connecting to files is dirt simple.
Here's a little exercise for you -- find a comp with Excel on it. Open an new Excel spreadsheet. Create a macro, and within it open a file -- a CSV file would be best. Close the macro. Next, enter ALT-F11. Voila, VBA application IDE and code framework. In the code you'll see all the VBA to open and process a file. Edit to fit, massage data into different forms, do subs, whatever. It's a programming language, and there's a fair bit of functionality in it (and a place to enter comments, you lazy sods!).
It's this convenience that causes a lot of spreadsheet creep into large financial organisations -- often they have to move quickly, get something developed in a hurry. Getting it written in a decent language or platform would require many hoops to be jumped through, but if you're "just writing a few macros" the dev effort goes into a different budget, and an "Excel expert" is easier to justify than a "programmer". I know it's semantic BS, but then that's how a lot of development money is allocated these days.
Interestingly enough, the development of the Data General mini was written into a book, "The Soul of a New Machine" which was one of the first attempts to capture the group dynamics of a high-technology R&D effort in the world of computers. Good read.
Providing that's possible, of course...
Erk. I just imagined Kruschev wrapped in an Australian flag. I think I'll go have my hypothalectomy now...
I think the Vax/VMS ASMP multiprocessor machines (not to mention CI-based clustering configs) predated the Parallel Sysplex, didn't it? I think I can remember being annoyed about that back then...
It Beats Me (General)
I've Been Moved (IBM Internal)
Itty Bitty Machines (CDC)
IBM, UBM, we all BM for IBM (David Gerrold, "When Harley Was One")
You're right, but in the 60's it was System 360. Then they went to System 370 in the 70's, and the 3090 in the 90's (go figure).
Mainframes are stable not entirely because of their architecture, but because of the cast-iron operations environments you find them in. You spend a few million on a comp, the folks paying the bills will insist that it's looked after. Lots of x86 based servers end up kicked under someone's desk, which I find a bit annoying -- people equate their cheapness with their value to an organisation, and mistreat them. You get a mainframe, it's false floor and air conditioning all the way, baby.
Have a look at what Abba did with their fame and fortune -- they had a sensible investment plan, and ended up fabulously wealthy. Possibly the most successful (in terms of wealth generated) indie band ever (check it out -- they managed the whole publishing effort themselves, along sound business principles). They certainly didn't fit the wreck-the-hotel image, they just made good popular music that had broad appeal, and they were sensible about how they ran their business.
Your President has a lot more power than people suspect. Did you know, for example, that he has complete jurisdiction over inland waterways? That is, if he required all industrial users of inland waterways to take their water downstream from their effluent discharge, it would have the force of Federal law?
(Disclaimer: IANAL, I just read this in a book written by an Annapolis graduate.)
Be interesting to see what real moderation is like.
Sorry, pre-coffee -- can I try that link again? Or you can just cut and paste it www.myspace.com/baron_g because I don't want to stuff it up twice.
One way to move up is to simply find a good reviewer and give a copy to them. Artists get good free marketing (if they're appealing) and the music critic gets free music. Seems to work. There are good indie reviewers out there, ref. http://www.myspace.com/baron_g/ in the prog-rock/electronica space as one example.
Do you know why they called it the Pentium? They added 100 to 486 and kept coming up with 585.911323457
An old friend, an ex-Navy sparky (aircraft carrier radio engineer) told me that 60Hz made calculations a bit easier due to something about a 360 degree phase baseline. That may have something to do with the original choice of 60Hz. No clue as to why Australia/England chose 50Hz, possibly they preferred different calcs.
So, when I moved from the US to Australia (50Hz) I ended up with two notches in my hearing due to computer room fans, rather than one.
Eh, what's that you say sonny? Course manouvers?
(ref Army-McCarthy hearings)
(a) You do not have my permission to protect me from myself;
(b) I will not support a public solution to your private problem.
The moment you control content, any content, it ain't free speech anymore.
R.Buckminster Fuller developed an interesting teardrop-shaped car back in the square-fender days -- think it used a Ford Model A engine -- that had wheels that could pivot 90 deg. or better to allow parallel parking with a couple inches clearance. Got up to speeds of 100mph fairly easily. It was called the "Dymaxion Car" and a good place to start is here http://www.washedashore.com/projects/dymax/