There’s a place the people go to present the unprofessional. To perform the profane. To outline the offensive. To have a bit of fun, in fact.

A few years back, some of us got to talking about all the things we wish we could present at a proper conference, but that just wouldn’t fly. You know, rants, anything with swears, the funny stuff, things that are rather risqué. And then we thought, let’s do that. And let’s do it for charity!

Our SQL High Tea party – coming up in Charlotte late on Wednesday, October 16 – is that place, that thing, and that charity. This year we’ve got a great sponsor (thanks Pluralsight!!!), great venue, fantastic speakers, and you’ll never hear a thing about it after we’re done.  People get up and say what they want, be it funny, or crude, or ridiculous…and it’s all done under NDA.

Get your tickets now for SQL High Tea – the classiest event in Charlotte this October – and bring along your top hat and monocle.

Thanks to our sponsor!

Pluralsight is a global leader in high-quality online training for hardcore developers and IT professionals. Pluralsight provides flexible and cost-effective subscription plans for individuals and businesses starting from as little as $29 a month. See what you can learn at pluralsight.com.

Two years ago, we were talking about how cool it would be to get a bunch of unpublished authors to write about what they thought was important about databases. You know, tribal knowledge. So we sent out a call for abstracts and got the ball rolling on one of the coolest things we’ve ever been a part of: TribalSQL.

Thanks to the authors, a slew of volunteer peer editors and technical editors, and not least of all Red Gate software, we’ve got a community-created, professionally-polished tome coming out in very short order!

Check out www.TribalSQL.com for information about the book, the authors, the backstory, and the wonderful charity that this project benefits, Computers 4 Africa. And of course, watch the Red Gate Book Store for the impending release…

Thank you, Red Gate! Thank you to the editors and the new authors. Thanks VERY much to all the folks who contributed to this project!

The man who really pulled it all together (after we pulled it all together)

Red Gate editor Tony Davis, who is rabidly (I presume) supportive of the Chelsea Football club and has a “penchant for real ales“.

(Thanks for all the emails, Tony. Show me a real ale and I’ll buy you one. Maybe three.)

The volunteer editors…

• Brent Ozar, a SQL consultant whose “true skills are knitting and water polo.”
• Frank Moore, er, for whom I’m finding it difficult to find a link…
• Meredith Ryan, the chapter chair person for the Women In Technology Virtual Chapter of PASS
• Neil Hambly, who has the noble objective “genrally cajoule Sql server to OBEY and FULFILL my every command”
• Sean McCown, a chef-turned-DBA who might seem somewhat familiar to you
• Thomas Stringer, a Microsoft PFE with a SQLife

And definitely the authors and peer editors!

Each and every one a wonder and a gem, and also very kind to animals and children.  Also hardworking: getting through three-plus rounds of edits over two years is no small feat:

• Ben Seaman
• Bob Pusateri (author)
• Chuck Lathrope (author)
• Colleen Morrow (author)
• Craig Purnell
• Dave Ballantyne (author)
• David Tate
• Dev Nambi (author)
• Diana Dee (author)
• Ed Watson
• James Zimmerman
• Jason Thomas
• Jason Yousef
• John Barnett (author)
• John Morehouse
• Joseph D Antoni
• Justin Dearing
• Kevin Feasel (author)
• Mark S. Rasmussen (author)
• Matt Velic
• Melody Zacharias
• Nicholas Cain
• Robert Volk
• Scott Murray
• Shaun Stuart
• Stephan Lawson
• Stephanie Locke  (author)
  
• Steve Stedman
• Tara Kizer (author)
• Thomas Rushton
• Wil Sisney (author)

And one more…

Thanks to Melanie Townsend over at Red Gate, for coordinating the TribalSQL site, graphics, authors, and associated miscellany!

This is a cross-post from Jen’s blog…like we do, for important things.

@YourAnonNews: It’s official #CISPA is back. A law that violates your basic right to privacy. Sign & share this petition to stop it: bit.ly/VSuCiz

Lots of illegal things happen, everywhere, every day. People smuggle guns, drugs, and other people in cars and on their persons, to buildings and houses. Even so, authorities aren’t allowed to search an individual, their car, or their home without cause. There are strict limits on invasion of privacy for a reason. The biggest problem with CISPA (and similar bills) is the weakness of the requirements.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but: modern government is happy to pass the kind of bill that allows men with badges into your home on a whim, patdowns and strip searches at checkpoints on the streets. Only, the laws are already long-established for that kind of privacy, so they’ll get all they can online.

I’m an average person. I don’t pay super close attention to politics, to bills, to laws. I’m sure there are nuances and arguments to be made. And after all those nuances and arguments are done with, it will still come back to those basic rights, being taken away because it’s the Internet is still a brand new venue.

What You Must Do

Start paying attention again.

Watch President Obama’s State of the Union tonight at 9pm ET, see what he has to say.

Read up when they reintroduce CISPA tomorrow.

In the meantime, feel free to bone up on what this is all about:

• Wikipedia: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act
• Mashable: CISPA Cybersecurity Bill Is Coming Back Wednesday
• RT: Obama to ‘bypass Congress’ on CISPA with cybersecurity executive order (this one is pretty vague, which is why I’ll be watching the SotU tonight)
• Anonymous: CISPA is Back
• BoingBoing: CISPA is SOPA 2.0: petition to stop it (From April 2012)
• EFF: Rogers’ “Cybersecurity” Bill Is Broad Enough to Use Against WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay (March 2012)

Happy, ever-vigilant days,
Jen McCown
http://www.MidnightDBA.com/Jen

This is a repost from Jen’s blog.

We’re drawing to the end of our third season of DBAs@Midnight (our weekly webshow by DBAs, for DBAs), and to the middle of the summer. What on earth shall we do for the next few months? We considered taking a break from all things SQL*, then thought…naaaah. So far we’ve lined up, three SQL Saturdays, the PASS Summit, and a January SQL Cruise!

August-October – SQL Saturdays

We’ll  be tooling on down to sultry Red Stick** for the August 4 SQLSaturday #150 – Baton Rouge 2012. I’ll present Beginning T-SQL and T-SQL Brush-up:The Best Things You Forgot You Knew, and Sean has Beginning Powershell for DBAs 1.0 and The Backup Tune-up (this was stunningly popular at SQLRally this year).

And we’ll head up to OKC for the August 25 – SQLSaturday #125 – Oklahoma City 2012 (schedule not yet announced).

On October 12, the day before SQLSaturday #163 – Dallas – BI Edition 2012, Sean has a precon slated! Check out the details for his “Become an Enterprise DBA” precon at EventBrite, and register!

November 6-9 – PASS Summit 2012

We’ll be rocking the PASS Summit again this year in our usual fashion. Sean has two sessions: the excellent Blazing Fast Backups, and our very popular Mouth Wide Shut: Coherent Interviewing.

January 2013 – SQLCruise!

January 26 through February 2, 2013 we will go on our first ever SQL Cruise!!  We’ll float down from Miami through the Eastern Caribbean, drinks in hand, learning away, doing all the cruise-y things that cruisers do…I CAN’T WAIT! Oh yeah, and Sean and the other trainers will be teaching awesome stuff, too.

Register before September 1 for the earlybird discount, and hurry!

Big big days ahead of us, good times…