just FYI so that you non-aussies start hearing it wrong in your heads: Hervey bay is pronounced "Harvie" like "Barbie" but with a 'v'.

The article also mentions things that have been present in other databases for a while (Compiled rather than interpreted SQL has been an option in Oracle databases since 2003 and Oracle) Both Oracle and SAP and I imagine a number of other vendors have had in-memory components available for a while an example of a good implementation given by Oracle on a developer day that I went to was an airline that wanted to separate their booking function from their checkin/flight verification function. what they did was load the next 48hrs of flight data into memory and pointed their check in process to that, allowing the majority of people who are just searching to see if their flight is on time to have very fast read access that would not impact on people booking flights for more than 48hrs in the future. Every tool needs to be evaluated to identify how it can be used to solve a particular problem. there is no "fastest database", there is only "fastest database for this purpose under these circumstances". disclaimer: I don't want to start an Oracle Vs other RDBMS tool flame war, just I am an Oracle developer so that's what I know best.

If the Author does this like you suggest, I would buy a copy of his book just to congratulate him on principle. I can only speak for myself so here's my anecdote: I prefer physical books over electronic copies however, before I buy a book I always read a portion from somewhere near the beginning to get an idea of whether the authors style appeals to me. If I can't find a physical copy and amazon's preview doesn't apply to that book I would happily and without guilt download a pirated copy, and if the writing style appealed to me, I would then purchase a physical copy. I've also lost count of the number of albums that I've ended up buying after stumbling across an artist I haven't yet heard of on youtube.

so stick a btree index on the transaction timestamp column? and then sit back and let the database engine do what it is good at. SQL (at least that executed against an oracle database) is actually very close to the metal so to speak.

SQL is not so much a language as a standard, that is supported and extended by each database vendor. what do you mean by not terribly expressive? It is an extremely explicit way of defining and manipulating sets of data. I Use Oracle and I can say that it is an extremely powerful way of manipulating sets of data. when a statement is executed on an Oracle database, the optimiser chooses how the JOIN will work with the information it has at statement execution, whether that be a merge join or a hash join or something else, so I don't know what you mean by your first sentance. Generally people who hate on SQL are OO programmers who are unable to wrap their heads around relational database set processing. Further, saying "We don't program in Cobol anymore, so why the hell are we still using SQL?" is perhaps equivalent to saying "We don't run around bashing eachother with swords and shields anymore, why the hell are we still planting food in the ground?"

150 years ago your post may have gone something like: "Why are these heavier-than-air 'Air planes' flying for such short times? Are these propellers so early in development that they really can't get them to be stable and safe for more than 12 seconds? Sounds a lot like the automobile: it works but it's not yet useful."

yes, the safety valve designed to prevent this failed: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/photogalleries/100504-gulf-mexico-oil-spill-containment-science-environment-nation-pictures/?now=2010-05-04-00:01#gulf-oil-spill-containment-device-blowout-protector-preventer_19879_600x450.jpg

As much as I agree with you, you don't seem to understand that the group that registered the domain committed fraud. also in Aus, to have a .com.au domain, you need to either have a registered business/trading name related to the domain, or have the domain be your actual name. as far as I can tell, neither of these were the case and so it is fraud.

Eve online - you can fly any type of ship you want, you can put different modules on certain types of ships to make them go from tank to heavy dps or compromise between the two - or even repair other ships. then there are specialised utility ships, extremely good at one particular thing if need be.

110km is correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_brisbane

you do realise of course, that unlike the north pole, the south is actually made up of land covered in ice and not just a pile of floating water?

srjc.admin@gmail.com bite me lawyers - I'm not even in the same country.

"stephenson's van-Eck phreaking"? I'm certain that it's van-Eck's van-Eck phreaking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking

"Let us pray that Obama can wipe public references to deities into oblivion." Oh the irony.....

this tool you refer to: it's called a hex editor.