Jen McCown

It really was all good times at the user group meeting tonight.  Sean and I met up before the meeting for another meeting, on SQL Saturday. We're on the planning committee with 4 or 5 others.  SQL Saturday, for those who don't know, is a day of free SQL training put on by local user group chapters. Right now we're in the early stages, but I can tell you that it looks like it'll be in late January, and we'll probably hold it in Richardson (okay, maybe Irving).  Anyone who's interested in speaking, volunteering, or having their company sponsor the event, please contact one of us (I'm still jen@jennifermccown.com).

The SSUG meeting itself was great…it's actually been years since I've gotten to go.  Redgate sponsored the pizza again (thanks guys!) and we had a great talk from Geoff Hiten over bad SQL code (here's his blog, btw). The last NTSSUG president just moved to Houston, so tonight the board voted in Sri as the new prez & announced it.  Good stuff.  After the presentation was the raffle.  Oh, you didn't know we give away books and hardware and software every month?  Well maybe you'll be sure to attend in October…

Sean had made mockups of the new MidnightDBA BEGIN TRAN/COMMIT TRAN t-shirts we want to sell, and we both wore those. But one of the COOLEST things was that people actually recognized me, and talked to me and Sean about the site!  A lot of people really love it.  This was a really pleasant surprise, since we don't get a whole lot of comments or emails.  The comment forms Sean's about to implement may change that.

When all was said & done, Geoff and a recruiter from his company, Sri, Tim, Trevor, Sean and I went out for drinky and talky.  I think a lovely time was had by all.

I'm totally going again next month.  Nighty night all…

P.S. Oh and we filmed another DBAs@Midnight tonight.  NO MOVING SCHEMA…it'll be up this weekend.

I was just despairing, because I'm in a little bit of a writing slump. "I'm not doing anything exciting at work", I thought.  "Where on earth will I find inspiration for my next blog?"  Then, the gods opened a query window unto me, and there sheweth me an unholy violation of the immortal commandment:

Thou shalt not double-hit thy tables!

Here's the code I saw (the names have been changed to protect, well, me):

SELECT @ActorID = ActorID
FROM Producers
WHERE ProducerID = @ProducerID

 

SELECT @SceneID = SceneID
FROM Actors
WHERE ActorID = @ActorID

 

SELECT @Movie = Movie
FROM Producers
WHERE ProducerID = @ProducerID

Tell me, my people.  What on this particular planet precludes you from getting @Actor and @Movie values, oh, I dunno, in the same select??? 

SELECT @ActorID = ActorID,
@Movie = Movie
FROM Producers
WHERE ProducerID = @ProducerID

 

SELECT @SceneID = SceneID
FROM Actors
WHERE ActorID = @ActorID

 

Is it some sort of religious thing, you can't assign more than one variable in a select on Tuesdays?  I'll take a breath in a minute and assume it was an honest mistake…but right now I have to get a qualified team lead to bless a bowl of Diet Dr. Pepper, so I can conduct a stored procedure cleansing ritual.

There's a chapter or two in a Madeline L'Engle book that describes a race of aliens that have no concept of sight.  There was an extended conversation with one of the protagonists, where each side tried to explain perception on the other side of the sense gap. 

I've pondered for some time the different senses that nonhuman animals have, and what it would be like to have them.  Bees can see ultraviolet, whales and bats hear sonar, many ocean creatures can sense electrical fields, etc. 

I ran across an article a few minutes ago (thanks, Slashdot!) that completely wowed me…it begins, "I am beta testing a new sense." This article, "My New Sense Organ", discusses a device called Northpaw that gives the wearer the sense of perfect direction.  I won't go over what the article says, but it's well written and entirely fascinating. 

So now I'm completely geeking out over current ideas on senses, and postulation of future senses.  I go looking around online for more technology-driven new senses, and get a couple more articles easy. Sixth Sense Technology From MIT describes a setup that recognizes objects and provides you extra information. "One of my favorite features so far is the ability for the device to recognize that you are holding a book and almost instantly show you the average rating it received on Amazon.com, let you view user comments, etc."  Integrated internet, anyone? 

And "New Display Technology Makes Use of the Tactile Sense" is one I missed back in January. Scientists in Germany have been able to use these micro gel droplets to create visual images that are also tactile…sort of a feel-o-vision.

I'm not sure how odd it is that all this makes me think about how our databases see data.  Think about it…in the span of just my career, we've seen the addition of image, XML, and geospatial data storage and manipulation in relational databases.  How long until we'll be able to store tactile information, smell, intuition?  I'm looking back on the history of a race looking forward. A lot of things that we predict over the centuries come to fruition.  I think they saw cars coming about a zillion years ago.  But some things evolve subtly, and seem to leap up out of the blue.  The absolute coolest thing is how we often delight ourselves with new discoveries and unexpected directions.