The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

alegr · 2011-03-30 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Boris (assumption you're from Russia), it is dangerous to have Nuclear Power around period. Look at Chernobyl and Japan.

Boris is NOT from Russia. He doesn't seem to understand Russian.

2011-03-30 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
Boris Vladamir:
C-Octothorpe:
kastein:
Oh, and I find troll Boris far more amusing than troll Nagesh.

But troll Boris is lazy... He doesn't even have the fake accent down.

Now Nagesh, he's a real pro. He's got the accent and the labotomy/retardation going on!
News update: there is no need for accent when typing. Also, using Firefox any spelling errors are caught automatically. You should download, as you mispelled "lobotomy."
Out of curiosity, how do you spell "misspelled?"

But Boris, if you speak English (as opposed to American) you still manage to spell things wrong. Yankee's like to use 'z' when they '...ise' things Yankee's don't like u in vords like colour Yankee's simplify to '..ed' words which break roles for past tense: earnt vs earned, misspelt vs misspelled Yankees like to add extra syllables: Commentator - one who commentates? Surely, one who comments (and therefore perhaps commentor, not commentator, although most of the English-Speaking world refers to 'commentators' Methodology vs Method (and therefore methodological) One of my favourites: burglarize - I wonder whether the dictionary defines this as 'to burgle' ?

Basically most (though not all) has been an attempt to revolutionise the game of 'Scrabble'. Longer words have more chance of hitting double/triple letter/word scores. 'z' is worth a lot more than 's', too. Not sure where dropping the 'u' comes in (although 'u' probably wasn't common enough for them to be able to form some of their favourite words). In fact, they seem to take particular exception to 'u', favouring plow over plough...

2011-03-30 Reply Admin

alegr:
Nagesh:
Boris (assumption you're from Russia), it is dangerous to have Nuclear Power around period. Look at Chernobyl and Japan.
Boris is NOT from Russia. He doesn't seem to understand Russian.

I heard he's from Lithuania....

2011-03-30 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
...or the guy that services my SRT-8.

In other words, you couldn't afford a proper sports car.

Nagesh · 2011-03-30 Reply Admin

alegr:
Nagesh:
Boris (assumption you're from Russia), it is dangerous to have Nuclear Power around period. Look at Chernobyl and Japan.
Boris is NOT from Russia. He doesn't seem to understand Russian.

Oh, so he's not "asli" russian chap. Just "nakli" russian chapter case.

File him under section 420 of Indian Penal Code.

2011-03-30 Reply Admin

Dear Professional ; Especially for you - this cutting-edge news ! We will comply with all removal requests . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2416 , Title 3 , Section 301 . This is not multi-level marketing . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 47 days . Have you ever noticed people love convenience & more people than ever are surfing the web ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! We will help you deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep and SELL MORE ! The best thing about our system is that it is absolutely risk free for you ! But don't believe us ! Mrs Anderson of Oklahoma tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" . We are licensed to operate in all states . Do not delay - order today . Sign up a friend and you get half off . Thanks . (www.spammimic.com)

2011-03-30 Reply Admin

bar:
Dear Professional ; Especially for you - this cutting-edge news ! We will comply with all removal requests . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2416 , Title 3 , Section 301 . This is not multi-level marketing . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 47 days . Have you ever noticed people love convenience & more people than ever are surfing the web ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! We will help you deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep and SELL MORE ! The best thing about our system is that it is absolutely risk free for you ! But don't believe us ! Mrs Anderson of Oklahoma tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" . We are licensed to operate in all states . Do not delay - order today . Sign up a friend and you get half off . Thanks . (www.spammimic.com)

To explain: Askimet rejected my actual comment, thinking it was spam. But this message, which is intentionally mimiced to look like spam, it let through. OMFG! (See also: Subject of today's WTF.)

Now you know how to encode your comments when it rejects them.

2011-03-30 Reply Admin

bar:
bar:
Dear Professional ; Especially for you - this cutting-edge news ! We will comply with all removal requests . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2416 , Title 3 , Section 301 . This is not multi-level marketing . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 47 days . Have you ever noticed people love convenience & more people than ever are surfing the web ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! We will help you deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep and SELL MORE ! The best thing about our system is that it is absolutely risk free for you ! But don't believe us ! Mrs Anderson of Oklahoma tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" . We are licensed to operate in all states . Do not delay - order today . Sign up a friend and you get half off . Thanks . (www.spammimic.com)
To explain: Askimet rejected my actual comment, thinking it was spam. But this message, which is intentionally mimiced to look like spam, it let through. OMFG! (See also: Subject of today's WTF.)
Now you know how to encode your comments when it rejects them.

What was your actual comment?

2011-03-30 Reply Admin

SQFT sounds like square foot.

2011-03-30 Reply Admin

metric:
hoodaticus:
metric:
hoodaticus:
sotian:
TWTF not using Metric
Right, because multiplication by a constant is too difficult.
Oh wait, you do that in metric, too.

How many square feet is a square mile?

How many square meters is a square kilometer?

I think that settles it.
It settles nothing - you still multiply by a constant and then square it. The only difference is the constant.

If this is beyond your grasp, there is little hope for you.

Insults are usually a good sign that you don't have any good arguments left. All constants aren't equal. I'll demonstrate it for you:

One mile is 5280 feet (I had to look it up, but you might know it by heart). That number we square using a calculator to get 27 878 400 square feet.

One kilometer is 1000 meters. Square that in your head to get 1000 000 square meters.

That'd be 27,878,400 and 1,000,000 -- you forgot the commas. FTFY.

(ducks)

[What's "secundum" in metric?]

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

token_woman:
the script kiddie:
pet hate of mine, people getting units dimensionally wrong. especially when people quote energy usage in KW/h . That one, especially, makes me cry on the inside.
You mean KW/h as opposed to KWh? Does this mean I've found an ally in my annoyance at the notation "24/7"? We have customers paying over the odds for 24/7 support. I'd love to take them up on it and support them for roughly 3.4 hours a week. Wednesday afternoons, preferably - I do like a long weekend.

People assume kW/h because they hear someone say"kilowatt hour" and their only reference is m/h so they just think it's the same type of thing. They do the same thing with pound feet and Newton metres.

In this case, the "/" means "per" so 24/7 would mean 24 hours for every 7 days. Which would actually be ~3.4 hours, but every day, the units are different.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

fattomm:
metric:
One kilometer is 1000 meters. Square that in your head to get 1000 000 square meters.
That'd be 27,878,400 and 1,000,000 -- you forgot the commas. FTFY.

Several European countries use commas as decimal points and periods as thousands separators. (It's fun reading lengths such as "0,65 mm" on data sheets, throws you for a second.) So some professional groups such as IEEE recommend using periods as decimal points and spaces as (optional) thousands separators. It's not perfect, and it breaks scanf() as well as the other options, but it disambiguates it somewhat for a human reader.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Probably the "FT" part of "SQFT". Although, if the person who wrote this works for NASA, it's certainly questionable :)

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
India is hardly third-world. Stop live in the past. This is 2011.

Not 2258. There are three or four Indians for every American, and still we can only outsource the low-level stuff to you.

You've had the better part of a decade to get your creative folks to outcompete us at the higher levels, so that by now we could start importing low-level work from you and get out of this economic slump. Instead, you chose to build nuclear weapons and, with Pakistan, become the world's biggest chance of a nuclear war.

Get with the program.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

MB:
C-Octothorpe:
...or the guy that services my SRT-8.

In other words, you couldn't afford a proper sports car.

Bah? Reading comprehensing isn't your strong suit, is it? I was making fun of the wanker with the retarded kids who brags about owning one of these monstrosities, not saying that I have one.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Mike D.:
Nagesh:
India is hardly third-world. Stop live in the past. This is 2011.
Not 2258. There are three or four Indians for every American, and still we can only outsource the low-level stuff to you.
You've had the better part of a decade to get your creative folks to outcompete us at the higher levels, so that by now we could start importing low-level work from you and get out of this economic slump. Instead, you chose to build nuclear weapons and, with Pakistan, become the world's biggest chance of a nuclear war.

Get with the program.

<long rant> Sorry Mickey, no matter how much they yankees want to pretend, the worlds brains simply aren't coming from the US. Many more (famous) Indian mathematicians than American (in fact very few prominent Math or IT folk at all)... Of course, you'll argue that Math != IT, and perhaps that's true, but it seems the greatest motivation to developing Computers has always been Math - Whether to automate complex weaving patterns, or solve tough ciphers...It's only since these massive breakthroguhs were made that people have decided Computers could be more useful (for playing Doom, or starting flamewars on TDWTF)

I guess in IT America might like to claim Bill Gates - never heard him bagged here, or Stevie J (I'm sure I've heard angst aimed at him too - and he's more renowned for design than technology anyway). Linus Torvalds anyone? Noo...not American!!

Leaving aside for a moment claims through that the greeks had what could be considered mechanical computers Let's even leave out theories through the renaissance when calculators first appeared. Joseph Marie Jacquard's loom wasn't a computer (hew was French not American) Charles Babbage, then? Not American - Pommy, I think. Herman Hollerith. Aha, an American - this must be the dawn of the computer. von Neumann? No not him either... Alan Turing's contribution? Insignificant. He's not American (Not to mention the other Brits and Poles and heavens knows what other nationalities that worked at Bletchley Park) So...John Atansoff and co, more Americans From here, I'll admit there's a few yankees involved - although even many of them have surprisingly non-American sounding names (Stibitz, Konrad Zuse, Claude Shannon etc)

Granted, Americans have a very mixed heritage and many of these foreign names do belong to people who would consider themselves very much American, but a claim that the US is somehow more intelligent or better at IT than the rest of the world is a little laughable.

Let's even have a look at our cryptographic systems: Zimmerman? Jew, Surely Rivest? Sounds Germanic. Shamir? Jewish? Adleman? Could be from almost anywhere. (and there's always been claims that RSA had been developed in secret at Bletchley Park, but because of the secrecy of the work there, could never be admitted until after RSA was public anyway) Diffie, Hellman, Merkle? None of them sound very American either - well maybe I'm clutching at strawas a little - although this technology, too claimed to have been created in the UK sometime around or shortly after WWII </long rant>

<short version> Yanks are obsessed with how clever they are, but most of the cleverness seems to be going into the country rather than coming out. Without a whole host of Brits, Indians, Germans (loads of other Europeans that I've included as German to show my ignorance) the computer simply wouldn't exist.

The US has managed to sell the world some of the worst software on the planet. India hasn't sold me any. Part of me feels it might be time to try something new instead of sticking with something I know to be broken. </short version>

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

lol, yeah

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Want to try converting that into elephants (or would that be square elephants?)?

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Letins:
bar:
bar:
Dear Professional ; Especially for you - this cutting-edge news ! We will comply with all removal requests . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2416 , Title 3 , Section 301 . This is not multi-level marketing . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 47 days . Have you ever noticed people love convenience & more people than ever are surfing the web ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! We will help you deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep and SELL MORE ! The best thing about our system is that it is absolutely risk free for you ! But don't believe us ! Mrs Anderson of Oklahoma tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" . We are licensed to operate in all states . Do not delay - order today . Sign up a friend and you get half off . Thanks . (www.spammimic.com)
To explain: Askimet rejected my actual comment, thinking it was spam. But this message, which is intentionally mimiced to look like spam, it let through. OMFG! (See also: Subject of today's WTF.)
Now you know how to encode your comments when it rejects them.

What was your actual comment?

You can decode it at spammimic.com. Though actually that wasn't my original comment, but it's more to the point.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Obviously the column is a varchar so that the units can be written alongside the numeric value. Otherwise how can you store a length of 10m next to an area 10 sqft?

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

JamesQMurphy:
I don't know what's worse... the fact that it's called total length in SQFT (square feet), or that it's using VARCHAR(50).

Congratulations on understanding today's WTF. Your reading comprehension is unsurpassed. Thanks for letting us witness your genius.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

SQFT - SQuare FooTconventio

hoodaticus · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Grast:
hoodaticus:
Boris Vladamir:
C-Octothorpe:
kastein:
Oh, and I find troll Boris far more amusing than troll Nagesh.

But troll Boris is lazy... He doesn't even have the fake accent down.

Now Nagesh, he's a real pro. He's got the accent and the labotomy/retardation going on!
News update: there is no need for accent when typing. Also, using Firefox any spelling errors are caught automatically. You should download, as you mispelled "lobotomy."
Out of curiosity, how do you spell "misspelled?"

But Boris, if you speak English (as opposed to American) you still manage to spell things wrong. Yankee's like to use 'z' when they '...ise' things Yankee's don't like u in vords like colour Yankee's simplify to '..ed' words which break roles for past tense: earnt vs earned, misspelt vs misspelled Yankees like to add extra syllables: Commentator - one who commentates? Surely, one who comments (and therefore perhaps commentor, not commentator, although most of the English-Speaking world refers to 'commentators' Methodology vs Method (and therefore methodological) One of my favourites: burglarize - I wonder whether the dictionary defines this as 'to burgle' ?

Basically most (though not all) has been an attempt to revolutionise the game of 'Scrabble'. Longer words have more chance of hitting double/triple letter/word scores. 'z' is worth a lot more than 's', too. Not sure where dropping the 'u' comes in (although 'u' probably wasn't common enough for them to be able to form some of their favourite words). In fact, they seem to take particular exception to 'u', favouring plow over plough...

Yankees like to add extra syllables? Answer for Aluminium then!

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Boris, it is dangerous to have Nuclear Power around period. Look at Chernobyl and Japan.

I see how you can think this concerning that you have no concept of infrastructure or safety precautions. One look at Indian road verifies this. However, well-organised countries are quite capable of building this abundance of power without harming others.

However, if you read my comment you see that I am not referring to power plant. (I assume, because you mention Chernobyl). I read of American demonstration of power in demolition of Japanese population centers, breaking their will to fight. This is why importance to develop own weapons to prevent United States on forcing the balance of scales in their favor. This is only thing preventing U.S. from ruling with iron fist.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Wake up on the wrong side of the pond this morning?

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Oh god.

My previous job. When I started, I found myself confronted with a database where EVERYTHING was a string field. Places where a date needed to be stored? THREE string fields. One for month, one for day, and one for year. And in one case he screwed up and had the days going into the month field and vice-versa. The names of the companies were the unique identifier for the table. So if the company name had to be changed, you had to change it in multiple tables. The web site that interfaced with the database wasn't much better.

Fortunately, I talked them into letting me scrap the whole thing and build them a whole new system from scratch.

RichP · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

WthyrBendragon:
(snip) You still have the problem that this numeric value is being stored as a VARCHAR. What's the value of "A"+32?
(snip)

No problem. C programmers know that "A"+32 = "a".

hoodaticus · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Mark:
The names of the companies were the unique identifier for the table. So if the company name had to be changed, you had to change it in multiple tables.

Why is this a bad thing? Cascading updates anyone?

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
Mark:
The names of the companies were the unique identifier for the table. So if the company name had to be changed, you had to change it in multiple tables.
Why is this a bad thing? Cascading updates anyone?

Performance blows goats anyone? And how would you like to rebuild your index everytime you change a company name...

Oh shit, you were trolling weren't you...

hoodaticus · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
hoodaticus:
Mark:
The names of the companies were the unique identifier for the table. So if the company name had to be changed, you had to change it in multiple tables.
Why is this a bad thing? Cascading updates anyone?

Performance blows goats anyone? And how would you like to rebuild your index everytime you change a company name...

Oh shit, you were trolling weren't you...

Not really. My comment was born from the fact that I've recently been wondering if I use GUID keys too much instead of natural keys. But you're right - a company name is not a natural key.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

RichP:
What makes you so sure that "Total_Length_SQFT" entries are not in meters (or m^2)?

Obviously they insert the unit into the database too. That's why it isn't INT(). I'm sure.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
C-Octothorpe:
hoodaticus:
Mark:
The names of the companies were the unique identifier for the table. So if the company name had to be changed, you had to change it in multiple tables.
Why is this a bad thing? Cascading updates anyone?

Performance blows goats anyone? And how would you like to rebuild your index everytime you change a company name...

Oh shit, you were trolling weren't you...
Not really. My comment was born from the fact that I've recently been wondering if I use GUID keys too much instead of natural keys. But you're right - a company name is not a natural key.

As far as natural keys go, IMO even if the field is a perfect candidate for a natural key, I still prefer to use a surrogate key (int or GUID) and stick a unique constraint on the 'natural' key, which will index it and allow you to select effeciently, but you also have the performance gain of using the ints to join related tables (which, from what I have read, ints tend to perform a little better than GUIDs).

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

John:
no matter how much they yankees want to pretend, the worlds brains simply aren't coming from the US. Many more (famous) Indian mathematicians than American

Well, I haven't been keeping score like you have, but I'd expect a 3:1 to 4:1 ratio. But to be fair, if we excluded Indian brains trained at US facilities, what would the ratio be? Universities haven't been increasing their admission class (not classroom) sizes for the past couple years due to budget problems, so every Indian in a class means a US student not in a class. Also, in the interest of fairness, you'd have to discount the US students who go to Indian universities as well. So where does the ratio land? I'd expect 3 < E(Indian/US) < 4 and 4 < E(Chinese/US) < 6. I feel confident that 1.5 < E(US/Japanese) < 2.5, though. (For those who haven't had stats class: E() is the "expectation" function of a random variable, generally the mean.)

John:
Of course, you'll argue that Math != IT, and perhaps that's true,

Of course it's true, or those jobs would be interchangeable.

John:
but it seems the greatest motivation to developing Computers has always been Math

Supported by the historical record, not at issue, stipulated, and let's get on with this...

John:
I guess in IT America might like to claim Bill Gates

No, we wouldn't. He's a great entrepreneur, a lousy programmer, and I doubt his math skills are much above average. Same with Steve Jobs.

John:
Linus Torvalds anyone? Noo...not American!!

Yes, but like Einstein, for some reason he came to the US instead of staying in his native country. Maybe that's just globalization at work?

What about Kerninghan and Ritchie? Knuth? Cobb? In my particular field (communications), there are a lot of folks who came here from some other country and stayed, too. Why is that? Maybe it's less a function of where you were born than where you end up?

If you don't mind, I'll skip the rest of that particular straw man argument. (Why do you insist on answering the questions you supposedly ask me, and doing a bad job of it as well?)

John:
Granted, Americans have a very mixed heritage and many of these foreign names do belong to people who would consider themselves very much American, but a claim that the US is somehow more intelligent or better at IT than the rest of the world is a little laughable.

Couple of points here: 1) Almost everyone in the US has foreign lineage or naming; it's a consequence of our history and our status as a melting pot. 2) In the past century, we've been a huge brain sink, as you've noticed. However, I've been expecting that process to reverse the past decade or so with the rise of outsourcing and globalization. Either it's a really slow process or it's not happening, and I have no idea why.

John:
Let's even have a look at our cryptographic systems:

That's not a fair test, really. American crypto researchers couldn't publish for decades due to the marking of crypto as "munitions". So there could be Americans who worked out some of these things first, but their publications, if any, would likely be classified to this day. (It's really hard to get things declassified, even after 50 years.)

John:
Yanks are obsessed with how clever they are, but most of the cleverness seems to be going into the country rather than coming out.

Wow, we agree on that much at least, but unanswered is the question: Why is it like that?

P.S. Personally, I'd be thrilled if the other countries of the world started brain sinking off of us as well. That was the whole point of my taunt, not some juvenile superiority assertion.

Without a whole host of Brits, Indians, Germans (loads of other Europeans that I've included as German to show my ignorance) the computer simply wouldn't exist.

John:
The US has managed to sell the world some of the worst software on the planet.

1. And for some reason the world bought it. Even bent over backwards to standardize it (ISO 29300, anyone?). I don't know why this trend isn't slowing.

We also gave the world Stallman. Good luck with that.
I thought SAP was German. Last I heard, its software was of the same quality level as Windows. And what you're really seeing there is the free market optimizing for mediocrity, since the demand side won't pay more for higher quality.

John:
India hasn't sold me any. Part of me feels it might be time to try something new instead of sticking with something I know to be broken.

Let us know how that works out. Alex might get an article out of it, too.

hoodaticus · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
hoodaticus:
C-Octothorpe:
hoodaticus:
Mark:
The names of the companies were the unique identifier for the table. So if the company name had to be changed, you had to change it in multiple tables.
Why is this a bad thing? Cascading updates anyone?

Performance blows goats anyone? And how would you like to rebuild your index everytime you change a company name...

Oh shit, you were trolling weren't you...
Not really. My comment was born from the fact that I've recently been wondering if I use GUID keys too much instead of natural keys. But you're right - a company name is not a natural key.

As far as natural keys go, IMO even if the field is a perfect candidate for a natural key, I still prefer to use a surrogate key (int or GUID) and stick a unique constraint on the 'natural' key, which will index it and allow you to select effeciently, but you also have the performance gain of using the ints to join related tables (which, from what I have read, ints tend to perform a little better than GUIDs).

Yeah, the ints perform better (at least when creating an index), but in my environment, I have a constant threat that multiple databases with the same schema will be merged.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
C-Octothorpe:
hoodaticus:
C-Octothorpe:
hoodaticus:
Mark:
The names of the companies were the unique identifier for the table. So if the company name had to be changed, you had to change it in multiple tables.
Why is this a bad thing? Cascading updates anyone?

Performance blows goats anyone? And how would you like to rebuild your index everytime you change a company name...

Oh shit, you were trolling weren't you...
Not really. My comment was born from the fact that I've recently been wondering if I use GUID keys too much instead of natural keys. But you're right - a company name is not a natural key.

As far as natural keys go, IMO even if the field is a perfect candidate for a natural key, I still prefer to use a surrogate key (int or GUID) and stick a unique constraint on the 'natural' key, which will index it and allow you to select effeciently, but you also have the performance gain of using the ints to join related tables (which, from what I have read, ints tend to perform a little better than GUIDs).
Yeah, the ints perform better (at least when creating an index), but in my environment, I have a constant threat that multiple databases with the same schema will be merged.

Yeah, I was going to mention that, but I figured that was something you already knew...

too_many_usernames · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Oh, come on, folks! The table obviously holds the total length of some quiet forest trail...

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

No - if it's an area you need a blob - nvarchar is one dimensional

hoodaticus · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
hoodaticus:
C-Octothorpe:
hoodaticus:
C-Octothorpe:
hoodaticus:
Mark:
The names of the companies were the unique identifier for the table. So if the company name had to be changed, you had to change it in multiple tables.
Why is this a bad thing? Cascading updates anyone?

Performance blows goats anyone? And how would you like to rebuild your index everytime you change a company name...

Oh shit, you were trolling weren't you...
Not really. My comment was born from the fact that I've recently been wondering if I use GUID keys too much instead of natural keys. But you're right - a company name is not a natural key.

As far as natural keys go, IMO even if the field is a perfect candidate for a natural key, I still prefer to use a surrogate key (int or GUID) and stick a unique constraint on the 'natural' key, which will index it and allow you to select effeciently, but you also have the performance gain of using the ints to join related tables (which, from what I have read, ints tend to perform a little better than GUIDs).
Yeah, the ints perform better (at least when creating an index), but in my environment, I have a constant threat that multiple databases with the same schema will be merged.

Yeah, I was going to mention that, but I figured that was something you already knew...

From all the comments you've made, I've gotten the impression that we think just alike.

Nagesh · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Mike D.:
Nagesh:
India is hardly third-world. Stop live in the past. This is 2011.
Not 2258. There are three or four Indians for every American, and still we can only outsource the low-level stuff to you.
You've had the better part of a decade to get your creative folks to outcompete us at the higher levels, so that by now we could start importing low-level work from you and get out of this economic slump. Instead, you chose to build nuclear weapons and, with Pakistan, become the world's biggest chance of a nuclear war.

Get with the program.

We built our own nukes, but remeber we never fire any single nuke. We are truly peace loving nation. Sun Tsu and Chanakya both said "TO maintain peace, one must always be armed well". Only one country in world has fired nukes on human population.

hoodaticus · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Mike D.:
Nagesh:
India is hardly third-world. Stop live in the past. This is 2011.
Not 2258. There are three or four Indians for every American, and still we can only outsource the low-level stuff to you.
You've had the better part of a decade to get your creative folks to outcompete us at the higher levels, so that by now we could start importing low-level work from you and get out of this economic slump. Instead, you chose to build nuclear weapons and, with Pakistan, become the world's biggest chance of a nuclear war.

Get with the program.

We built our own nukes, but remeber we never fire any single nuke. We are truly peace loving nation. Sun Tsu and Chanakya both said "TO maintain peace, one must always be armed well". Only one country in world has fired nukes on human population.

The Japanese nation had it coming. Few countries have been more deserving of nuclear bombardment, namely, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia, and Hitler's Germany.

Pakistan is asking for it too, and India would definitely win any nuclear war with them.

boog · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
The Japanese nation had it coming. Few countries have been more deserving of nuclear bombardment, namely, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia, and Hitler's Germany.

I'm not so sure innocent people are ever deserving of nuclear bombardment, but I get your point.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

bar:
You can decode it at spammimic.com. Though actually that wasn't my original comment, but it's more to the point.

I love it. Pretty sweet.

Nagesh · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

boog:
hoodaticus:
The Japanese nation had it coming. Few countries have been more deserving of nuclear bombardment, namely, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia, and Hitler's Germany.
I'm not so sure innocent people are ever deserving of nuclear bombardment, but I get your point.

Nuclear bombing a country never helps advance one's cause. Better to bomb it with potato seedlings instead.

hoodaticus · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

boog:
hoodaticus:
The Japanese nation had it coming. Few countries have been more deserving of nuclear bombardment, namely, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia, and Hitler's Germany.
I'm not so sure innocent people are ever deserving of nuclear bombardment, but I get your point.

If you ever find an innocent person, let me know, so I won't nuke them.

hoodaticus · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
boog:
hoodaticus:
The Japanese nation had it coming. Few countries have been more deserving of nuclear bombardment, namely, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia, and Hitler's Germany.
I'm not so sure innocent people are ever deserving of nuclear bombardment, but I get your point.
Nuclear bombing a country never helps advance one's cause.

It sure ended WWII pretty fast.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Note the NVARCHAR. I'm willing to bet the values were along the lines of '10x13' or '100 by 200'.

boog · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
boog:
hoodaticus:
The Japanese nation had it coming. Few countries have been more deserving of nuclear bombardment, namely, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia, and Hitler's Germany.
I'm not so sure innocent people are ever deserving of nuclear bombardment, but I get your point.
If you ever find an innocent person, let me know, so I won't nuke them.

Do women and children count? No wait, that's irrelevant, since none were killed/affected by nuclear attacks/fallout in Japan. Right?

Still, I will note that you didn't argue my point: innocent people do not deserve nuclear bombardment. Regardless of whether it is the dish being served.

boog · 2011-03-31 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
Nagesh:
boog:
hoodaticus:
The Japanese nation had it coming. Few countries have been more deserving of nuclear bombardment, namely, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia, and Hitler's Germany.
I'm not so sure innocent people are ever deserving of nuclear bombardment, but I get your point.
Nuclear bombing a country never helps advance one's cause.
It sure ended WWII pretty fast.

And how! The rest of the world saw the U.S. and went "holy shit, those guys are pissed!". Probably a good indicator that everyone sorta needed to wrap things up for a while.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Mike D.:
Nagesh:
India is hardly third-world. Stop live in the past. This is 2011.
Not 2258. There are three or four Indians for every American, and still we can only outsource the low-level stuff to you.
You've had the better part of a decade to get your creative folks to outcompete us at the higher levels, so that by now we could start importing low-level work from you and get out of this economic slump. Instead, you chose to build nuclear weapons and, with Pakistan, become the world's biggest chance of a nuclear war.

Get with the program.

We built our own nukes, but remeber we never fire any single nuke. We are truly peace loving nation. Sun Tsu and Chanakya both said "TO maintain peace, one must always be armed well". Only one country in world has fired nukes on human population.

Well, compared to us. Not saying much, though.

2011-03-31 Reply Admin

token_woman:
the script kiddie:
pet hate of mine, people getting units dimensionally wrong. especially when people quote energy usage in KW/h . That one, especially, makes me cry on the inside.

You mean KW/h as opposed to KWh? Does this mean I've found an ally in my annoyance at the notation "24/7"? We have customers paying over the odds for 24/7 support. I'd love to take them up on it and support them for roughly 3.4 hours a week. Wednesday afternoons, preferably - I do like a long weekend.

What part of "24/7" specifies a week, if you are already using the 7 for a division? Surely you should support for 3.4 hours period. Once that time is up, they have pay again, or something...

Fundamental Misunderstanding

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