That is why i'm sad that they're trying to phase out the hardware/fixed menu button in favor of letting apps put it wherever they want. I like knowing that if i want to see what options are available i know exactly where to press.

It's called thermal depolymerization and you can do it to just about anything organic. So unlike what some other posters are saying, you don't have to devote huge agricultural areas to producing stock just for this process, you can use preexisting waste for the job. There was a company running prototype plant in Carthage, Missouri. They situated themselves right next to a turkey processing plant with the hope they could "process about 200 tons of turkey waste into 500 barrels (79 m3) of oil per day". The plant ran for a number of years, and was supposedly able to produce oil for about 10% less than the price of crude ("supposedly" as in the oil was definitely produced, the question was exactly how much it cost them and how much of a profit they were making.) However they suffered from a number of lawsuits and eventually had to declare bankruptcy.

It seems like they jumped into the game a little too early, or just weren't able to find enough venture capital to perfect the system. Certainly as the price of oil continues to rise and the technology improves this is a process that could certainly be brought back. And note that since they're using organic waste the process is carbon neutral.

I think you're pretty massively missing the point? It's not RDBs that are the problem, it's Oracle specifically. Try developing complex software using a SQL back end that supports both MS SQL and Oracle. Getting everything working on Oracle takes longer. And when there are problems it takes longer to debug on Oracle. Just getting Oracle installed properly was a huge pain in the ass compared to MS SQL.

_Oracle_ is making it harder than it has to be. If i had the choice i'd simplify just by dropping support for Oracle and only work with MS SQL, but that's not my choice to make.

No, that's only a problem if someone also creates a cure for the common cold at the same time. You can cure one or the other, but not both, not unless you want a zombie apocalypse.

Uh, if it was something i could ignore then i wouldn't be cringing, i would be just shrugging and ignoring the problem. As long as some of our (big) customers insist on using Oracle we have to work with Oracle to support them. And they're not going to accept "we didn't implement/debug that feature in Oracle because working with Oracle is a pain" very well.

Now can they please work on some dramatic usability improvements so i don't have to cringe every time an Oracle support question comes up at work?

It was actually a gesture of sympathy to Whitney Houston's dependents. Since copyright lasts forever now, long after the death of the artist, they raised the price of the music so her estate will receive larger royalty checks for awhile.

... i kid of course. We all know Sony and the other RIAA members never _actually_ pay out royalties to artists.

It might even have been intentional, did they specify what the bug was? In an online game i play (which is _not_ one by Zynga btw) there is a slot-machine type game you can play once a day to get extra prizes. There was a "bug" that you could exit the game screen and reenter it and get a new selection of items. This didn't let you choose what you won, it just let you choose which prizes you had a chance of winning. And there were a _lot_ of complaints from the players when they finally got around to fixing that "bug."

Brought to you be the people who think maybe the geeks are getting out of the basement a little TOO often.

I expect with a company the size of Wikipedia, particularly one with Wikipedia's web presence, switching your hosting around isn't really something you can do on the turn of a dime.

On the other side of the coin though (er, so to speak) i wonder if this is really the best tactic. I mean, i couldn't wish for the fallout to land on a more deserving company, but will this affect Wikipedia's bargaining position for similar situations in the future? Threatening to punish people for actions you don't like is just fine (well, assuming you stick to legal methods of course) but if they recant and you follow through on your threats regardless, would the next company you deal with have any reason to recant?