The Optical SETI project has efforts in a number of places. The article refers to the Link Observatory but there is also an effort in Boston at the Harvard Observatory. Here is a link which also points to some Whitepapers:
I would be remiss if I did not put in a plug for Edward Tufte's amazing series of books about Informaiton Design. These are not mathematical treatise but rather his views and theories about how to display multiple dimensions of complex information on two dimensions (computer screens, paper, etc.). It is more Do's and Dont's, Rules of Thumb and general advice than hard rules but it an amazing and enlightening journey through examples and discussions. He also is an amazing lecturer and does a tour every year to many magor cities.
His books are: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Envisioning Information
Visual Explanations
If you ever put together a powerpoint slide deck or design a web page then you should acquant yourself with Mr. Tufte!
The fact is that there are a lot of RDBMS Solutions out there that are a lot less costly than Oracle and offer the real power of an RDBMS. Solutions like SQL Server are far less expensive.
What are the magical features that make RDBMS so powerful? Well things like Stored Procedures to control the input and output of data, Views to control access, powerful Optimizers to make queries more efficiently, Replication to protect critical information from hardware failure, and Transactions to keep atomic operations together. Without these featues we are back to the old days of dBase and storing data in files. It offers no way to plan or tune those operations and no way to protect the data from being used improperly.
While mySQL is fine for simple data storage and retrieval needs it gets out of it's league real fast when you start thinking about a mission critical application running in a high volume environment.
Is there a role for mySQL? Yes! Smaller, simpler sites that don't need to deal with complex transactions or large volumes of access. Is there a role for commercial grade RDBMS? YES! I'll bet you have bought at least one item on the internet through an Oracle or SQL Server DB and you would have been mighty upset if it had failed, or double billed you, or didn't ship you the product.
We have learned a lot from all those years of MainFrame and Client/Server development. Protect you data, keep it safe, use it wisely. You can access it with all kinds of tools from Web Sites to Fat Clients, but never compromise on the integrity of that precious resource!
$30,000 will seem like small potatoes if you orders DB was trashed and there is no fail-over.
Slashdot Mirror
The Optical SETI project has efforts in a number of places. The article refers to the Link Observatory but there is also an effort in Boston at the Harvard Observatory. Here is a link which also points to some Whitepapers:
Beam me over ScottyEnjoy!
PS. Keep Watching the Skys!
I would be remiss if I did not put in a plug for Edward Tufte's amazing series of books about Informaiton Design. These are not mathematical treatise but rather his views and theories about how to display multiple dimensions of complex information on two dimensions (computer screens, paper, etc.). It is more Do's and Dont's, Rules of Thumb and general advice than hard rules but it an amazing and enlightening journey through examples and discussions. He also is an amazing lecturer and does a tour every year to many magor cities.
His books are:
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Envisioning Information
Visual Explanations
If you ever put together a powerpoint slide deck or design a web page then you should acquant yourself with Mr. Tufte!
The fact is that there are a lot of RDBMS Solutions out there that are a lot less costly than Oracle and offer the real power of an RDBMS. Solutions like SQL Server are far less expensive.
What are the magical features that make RDBMS so powerful? Well things like Stored Procedures to control the input and output of data, Views to control access, powerful Optimizers to make queries more efficiently, Replication to protect critical information from hardware failure, and Transactions to keep atomic operations together. Without these featues we are back to the old days of dBase and storing data in files. It offers no way to plan or tune those operations and no way to protect the data from being used improperly.
While mySQL is fine for simple data storage and retrieval needs it gets out of it's league real fast when you start thinking about a mission critical application running in a high volume environment.
Is there a role for mySQL? Yes! Smaller, simpler sites that don't need to deal with complex transactions or large volumes of access. Is there a role for commercial grade RDBMS? YES! I'll bet you have bought at least one item on the internet through an Oracle or SQL Server DB and you would have been mighty upset if it had failed, or double billed you, or didn't ship you the product.
We have learned a lot from all those years of MainFrame and Client/Server development. Protect you data, keep it safe, use it wisely. You can access it with all kinds of tools from Web Sites to Fat Clients, but never compromise on the integrity of that precious resource!
$30,000 will seem like small potatoes if you orders DB was trashed and there is no fail-over.