That would depend on the time but if it is 8:08 pm that would be 20 for the time and one for the pm.

This all really basic. A few million rows assuming the rows aren't really long is no problem for a home pc to handle. Some hints.

You have to make sure you aren't doing full table scans on any big table. Indexes are your friend.

Sql hasn't changed much in say, the last ten years. Newer books aren't going to help more than older ones.

The less joins the better without taking other things into consideration.

Duplicating data in tables is a bad idea. Not necessarily for performance reasons, but because every time you change that data you will have to remember to change it in more than one place.

There are other databases out there other than mssql and mysql that may improve your performance more than what you can change with schemas and sql querys.

Finally, if it is fast enough just leave it. There is a big difference between queries that get hit once a minute and a thousand times a second.

Funcom. The Longest Journey was a single player game that was a lot of fun but overly wordy. Anarchy Online was an mmo and a disaster. So we shall see.

Less and less. I never saw a mention of ham radio operators during Katrina. The thing is they are dieing out and there are few of them left.

Eight beer taps. Is that all? The places I go in Portland usually have 12 or so and I don't even drink beer.

Second Life certainly has its failings. However its big plus is that you can create anything you like from basic shapes like cubes. This seems highly unlikely to be possible from online console games.