Author: Rory

In the comments to a classic Daily WTF there’s some talk of the author of the particular coding cock-up having no understanding of database normalisation. Some people are attributing this to him having missed his database classes in college.

The thing is, I never took a database class in college. Doing a higher diploma doesn’t exactly expose you to a lot of optional material, and databases just didn’t seem to be considered important. The most we got was half a lecture on database normalisation and a single A4 sheet of notes, most of which was a single example.

Crucially, this actually seemed to cover the entire subject of normalisation. So what do you do in a database class? Joins can be taught in a lecture or two (being generous); stored procedures in less time than that. What significant aspects of databases did I miss when I spent half an hour learning about them?

The laptop that I ordered on Friday arrived today. Not too shabby. That means Apple won the delivery race even though I gave Amazon a headstart of several days.

First impressions: All that I expected. It was fully charged when I got it, setup was trivial, the screen has a near-180° viewing angle so my whole family could watch in awe. I had a bit of trouble getting it to talk to my network but that was my fault. It found the wireless network immediately during setup, but I got a few settings wrong. That’s because my network has all of the automagic things like DHCP turned off. Thankfully the computer was able to tell me presicely what part of the network setup had gone wrong, right from the Safari error page.

While I was pondering my network troubles I decided to check out the bluetooth. I switched on bluetooth on my phone, ran through the setup process which was (you guessed it) easy, and was asked whether I wanted to synchronise my phone’s contacts with the laptop’s address book. I was also able to browse the pictures and ringtones on the phone, something I never managed with the dodgy infrared dongle I got for my PC.

That’s as much playing as I managed to do before I had to leave for work. In the interests of actually getting some work done, I left Lappy G4 at home. More playing this evening. Probably more praise-singing tomorrow.

I haven’t posted anything on the topic of creationism in a while, and I don’t intend to mention it again for some time, because frankly nothing has changed. One group of people is willfully ignorant. A second group of people is enlightened. The first group has significant political power. The second group is trying to stop the world from being flushed down the toilet by the first group. That’s creationism in a nutshell. It’s also many other social and political issues in a nutshell.

Anywho, with that out of the way, the point of this post is really just to join in with the "Intelligent Design" Google bomb. If you’re on the side of truth and justice you’ll join in too.

There is a comment in our project, in a file that handles drag-and-drop behaviour, that reads as follows:

// The code below this line handles drag and drop for the TreeView email-list. It's nasty and scary
// and hopefully finished, so no-one will have to look at it again.

I am currently editing the code below that line.

The Greystones Arts Festival was on this weekend. There were street theatre and performance acts in the park and at the harbour pretty much all day long from Saturday to Monday. This was the first year I really took advantage of the free shows. It seems I’ve been missing out. Some of the acts were very entertaining, and all of them were better than sitting at home playing video games.

I find it quite an odd experience watching the juggling and similar shows. Since the general public (Joe Anybody and Mrs Anybody and their kids) have no way of knowing what tricks are difficult or dangerous, and since the visually appealing tricks don’t necessarily overlap much with the difficult ones, the performers have no motivation to try to perform anything technically challenging. I can watch a whole show thinking "I can do that" and yet I wouldn’t have the first clue how to draw or hold a crowd, or how to interact with them when they were there. I just find it a bit odd that the skill that the performer is supposedly demonstrating is very much secondary to their ability to captivate an audience.

The fireworks show to end the festival was as always effectively the same as last year’s. I still go every year, if only because I can be guaranteeed they’ll use a particular piece of music I like that I don’t know the name of. At least no-one tried to steal my car this year.

I’m not certain of this, but I suspect that the festival is meant to symbolise the end of the summer. The weather doesn’t seem to agree with that assessment right now.

I think we all know the real reason for making a human-looking "female" robot. If you were in any doubt, there’s a good quote from the article:

Repliee Q1 can interact with people. It can respond to people touching it. It’s very satisfying

I wonder if it’s able to use verbal contractions.

The news of a straight to video Family Guy movie snuck up on me a bit. In fact it has already been made, and is due for release in September. I’m guessing that’s a region one release since Amazon.co.uk doesn’t seem to be carrying it, while its bigger American brother has it for pre-order. Impatient fans might be interested to hear that it’s already available by more illicit means. Let’s hope there are some interesting extras on the DVD to sweeten the deal a little for the conscientious.

For anyone not keeping up with the American broadcasts, they’re up to ten episodes in season four.

From Overheard in New York:

Girl

I’m an atheist.

Guy

What’s an atheist?

Girl

It means I don’t believe in God.

Guy

They have a word for that?

On a related note, the 18^th Carnival of the Godless was published today.

I went to see Wedding Crashers yesterday and I feel the only appropriate response to it is, in the words of Sean William Scott in Old School, "Yes! That is awesome!" Obviously there are those poor souls who are missing that crucial piece of their sense of humour that would allow them to enjoy Frat Pack movies, but for everyone else this is one of the best. Better than Elf, Zoolander, and Anchorman, and at least as good as Old School.

Having used the Frat Pack name to refer to these guys, I want to ask how widespread that name has become. Is it something that I picked up off a lone Empire reviewer trying to coin a new phrase or is it widely used to refer to these guys? And, given that I did pick it up of an Empire reviewer (lone or otherwise), why did he include Jack Black in the list? For the record, everyone I’ve spoken to about this has said they never heard the name before but the members are Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrel, and Vince Vaughan. Snoop Dogg has more claim to being a member than Jack Black does.