The Failed One Laptop Per Child Project

I wrote about OLPC back in 2010 (and before that, somewhere back on a post I didnt port over here from SSC). It was a vision worth pursuing. It failed though, for many reasons, perhaps not the least of the killer branding around the “$100 laptop” which turned out to be unachievable. Here’s a good […]

Zero Width Characters

Another bit of miscellany, this one shows how you can use zero width characters to tag/fingerprint data. Reminds me of the Canary Trap (if you’re a Clancy fan).

Paper Model of Hubble Telescope

Not even close to being about SQL, I ran across the plans for a paper model of the Hubble Telescope while doing some follow up reading on the Hale Telescope (because I just read a book about it). I haven’t attempted the model, but wanted to note it here in case I want to come back […]

Getting Schooled by Brent

Earlier this year Brent Ozar invited me to attend some of his online classes for free. Free is good! Training is good! I signed up with a few thoughts in mind: I had not taken a class recently (I like to self learn, perhaps to a fault) I was curious to see how Brent did […]

SQL Solver

A few months back I ran across this article for checking semantic equivalencies of queries. That’s interesting, from the perspective of someone that has once or twice rewritten a query to be faster and then discovered it was subtly different. I don’t think we have the equivalent. We can compare query plans hashes, but often […]

Notes From SQLSaturday Houston 2018

Various and possibly amazing notes: Because I waited too long the best flight I could get was into George Bush instead of Hobby, which meant driving around (literally, on the beltway) Houston and it left at a not-so-fun 7 am on Friday. I got a car from Dollar. Got the cheapest one they had, wasn’t […]

South Florida Vacation Notes

I extended my trip to SQLSaturday South Florida for a couple days vacation. If I’m going to drive 3-1/2 hours may as well make the most of it. Stayed at the Sheraton Suites Plantation for two nights, fairly close to Nova. Nice hotel, parking was a bit of a mess due to a lot of […]