For now, I'll leave this in the Department of Unintended Consequences, although Encroaching Corporatism might be a possibility... Turkey prices have gone up significantly over the past few years, and we have also ween a significant consolidation in the concentration of Big Turkey (the top 20 firms). This is still a competitive market---the graphic does…
Security Notes, Part 2
More security notes. The US military appears to be pushing for more offensive operations against hackers. I wonder what this will turn into in practice. Full-disk encryption is very hard to crack. To me, this is pretty obvious, given attempts by law enforcement officials to try to have people held in contempt of court if…
Selig on the draft
Read an interesting article from Let's Go Tribe, my one stop shop for all Indians news. The article suggests that Bud Selig, MLB Commissioner, wasn't so in favor of fixing bonuses because the owners were losing money on them. It sounds like what he actually wanted was something closer to cost certainty than MLB has…
Poor Adjacent?
Mickey Kaus tears a new one into the way the New York Times reports results of the Supplemental Poverty Measure. The idea of "Near Poor" is meaningless when 20% of them "own their homes mortgage-free" (emphasis in original). If you already own your own home and don't have any debts owed to others, two can…
Security Notes, Part 1
I've got a lot of security notes to catch back up on, so there will be a few iterations of this topic this week. There is an ability to open prison doors remotely. I think the likelihood of an exploit of this nature is rather low, however. Most importantly, get those SCADA systems (and the…
Another Blow To The Global Warming Cash Cow
Climategate II, Electric Boogaloo. ESR laughs. John Hinderaker picks out some of the juicier tidbits. Before that, Hinderaker was showing yet another example of how the wheels are falling off of this money-making scheme. Dr. Tim Ball argues that, regardless of whether the phenomenon of global warming is real, it cannot possibly be due to…
Design Problems
Here is an interesting post on design problems inherent in touchscreen-based technology (via Brent Ozar PLF's weekly list). There is something to be said for tactile interfaces: typing on an old IBM keyboard provides much better feedback than trying to type on a similarly-sized touchscreen keyboard (not to mention a much smaller touchscreen keyboard). The…
Various DBA Notes
Michael Swart has a good post regarding data reading and yield. Unless you have snapshot isolation on, yield has the potential to blow up pretty quickly. FatherJack reminds you always to make sure your jobs notify you in case of problem. Gail Shaw has a great series on advanced indexing: part 1, part 2, part…
Sundry Notes On Political Topics
I sincerely hope that Newt Gingrich is not the Republican candidate for President in 2012. Charles Rowley and Mickey Kaus provide a few of the more salient reasons why. A flawed balanced budget amendment went down. I would consider a BBA to be, at best, an indirect method toward getting back on the right track.…
The hero returns (?)
Despite my love for Cleveland sports teams (well, except the soccer team, which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist any more, because metric football is for girls and Europeans), I own exactly one Cleveland jersey -- #24 Grady Sizemore. I bought it at a game in 2004; it was either that or Victor Martinez, but I…
36 Chambers - The Legendary Journeys: Execution to the max! 