hand.

Hand them a gun.

Time to clean the keyboard... :P

Take someone who is suicidal and crying out for help and to talk with their friends, and you block them from talking to anyone!

Why not just had them a gun?

As long as a database engine has stored procedures and a decent client binding library, I can make it go. I've worked with MySQL, SAP/Sybase ASE, DB/2 LUW, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and SQL Server extensively over the years. There comes a point where you just know enough about the quircks and foibles of each of the databases to get around their particular issues and "just make it go."

People who bitch about the minor syntactic differences between the vendors clearly haven't really ported an application, because the differences in behaviour go far beyond syntactic sugar. Despite the ANSI standards, you can't just install the schema on a competitor's database and expect it to run an application properly without a lot of rework and restructuring.

Sure your basic table structures may remain compatible, but that's about it.

Every vendor has at least a few features that encourage "lock-in" by being incompatible with all their competitor's products.

I do have a rule about which databases I work with, though: if it doesn't have stored procedures, I won't use it. The performance benefits of complex stored procedures vs. logic in the client is just too dramatic to ignore and gloss over. Not to mention the fact that coding the logic in the client application is extremely verbose compared to any stored procedure syntax I've ever encountered.

Unless someone resurrects the "Space Orb" controller, I can't see any version of Descent as being much fun. It was my old Space Orb that made the game at all *playable*.

Ever hear of "developer editions"?

Nothing is "wrong" with it -- I just don't want to end up being a die-hard "next generation XP user" who is stuck on an obsolete version of the OS. If I can get on the newest edition for free, why not? At least that way the updates will keep coming for more than another year or two -- and most of my hardware is kept running for a decade before it gets replaced.

It was the cheapest i7 option out there, and gave me portability for when I want it. It's not like I'm running servers -- I just need to be able to check script syntax by *creating* the database instances. Performance is a non-issue.

Besides, if a single user can swamp a database even on a laptop, then the database isn't worth developing for. Don't forget -- even laptop hardware is nearly 1000 times as powerful as "servers" were when these products first came out.

If it's free, I'll upgrade my laptop from Win 7 to Win 10. But if it's a subscription model as rumoured, I'll stick with 7.

I'll also have to look into whether it supports the database software I bought the Windows laptop to run. Upgrading is a non-starter if Oracle, Sybase/SAP ASE, and DB/2 LUW won't run on it.

There's an entire branch of research into the subject of language, culture, and perspective. You might want to do some reading before crowing that you discovered something "new".

*LMAO* And we're to believe that a cursing, borderline illiterate who can't put together a proper sentence has a say in corporate policy!

Thanks for the laugh, AC. I needed a giggle.

Only for cheques. Interac eTransfers and payments are instantaneous.

I've been reading about biometric scanners for over a decade now, starting with the fingerprint reader bar that was on old IBM Thinkpads.

Every single attempt at cheap biometric security has been demonstrated to be insecure or unreliable. When I got my Lenovo laptop, the first thing I uninstalled was their camera-using face scanner software, because I'd read about how easy it was to hack with a photo of the person to be identified.

Sure, there are real biometric devices out there such as government iris scanners and such, but those are not cheap enough for mass deployment. Until such high reliability security devices are available to the consumer at a sane price, I'm going to stick with good old fashioned passwords.

Besides, getting into the machine is only the first step. All that would gain you access to is some personal photographs and documents. Everything else would require access to the keystore and the key passwords for accessing remote servers, so I'm still relatively comfortable that someone hacking my password isn't that great a risk.

I'm also perfectly comfortable with "da goobernmint" scanning my system (with a warrant), because all my "secure" data resides elsewhere, and they won't find so much as a PDF of a bank account statement on the box itself.

I get my DSL (5Mbit) and IPTV (SaskTel MaxTV) for $62 a month. Spending $30-40 just for video streaming seems a rather high price to me -- especially as they've already said they're unlikely to be able to carry all the major US networks. (Of course my package is focused on the Canadian networks, but it also gets "the big 4" from the US.)

At $40/month, that would leave only $20/month to pay for a 10Mbit or better internet connection for streaming the video (my 5Mbit link is data only -- the *actual* link is 25Mbit, but 20Mbit is reserved for video.)

I can't believe the price gouging that goes on throughout most of North America.

That's pretty messed up when the government itself is concerned about government spying...

There was a time when non-mechanical keyboards were durable, but having had Microsoft, Logitech, and no-name brands die on me in 6-9 months of purchase for the past five years, I finally ponied up for a cheap mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Black switches a little over a year ago. There is no way I will ever go back to a non-mechanical keyboard. As it has survived the lifespan of the previous two keyboards already, I figure I've already saved $30 on it's $90 purchase price compared to the $60 each for the other two keyboards it replaced.

Yes, they are noisier than some other keyboards. But the durability and the feel of the keyboard are well worth that "price".