November 2, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Eric Russell 13013 (11/2/2010)
Ron Porter (11/2/2010)
Tobar (11/2/2010)
Ron Porter (11/2/2010)
... most Emergency Measures Organizations recommend keeping about 3 days of waterA germaine aside to water reserves - if for whatever reason water is no longer flowing to your house don't forget you have anywhere from 50 -100 gallons of water in your water heater.
People in apartments or with demand heaters will have much less. People with flush toilets will have a couple of gallons assuming they manage to not flush the one time that flushing actually works.
Well, screw the city folk with their fancy tankless water heaters and low flow toilets. 😛
In the even of a total collapse of civilization, drinkable water and canned beans will be worth more for barter than gold coins.
😀 Good, because my underground cistern holds over 5000 litres. I can't help you out with the beans, though; I'm stockpiling black pepper. There was a time when people risked their lives and fortunes to haul it 1/4 way around the world and I never heard of anybody doing that for beans!
November 2, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Jeff Moden (11/1/2010)
What I'm even more concerned about is lost learning due to the fact that certain programs and formats are no longer available. Imagine, for instance, if someday in the future that MS no longer supports the .DOC format. Only those lucky enough to have a legacy copy of Word will be able to recover the information. Oh, but wait... will the legacy copy actually work on that future operating system? Think about it... even most printer aren't actually capable of printing a simple text file using the DOS copy command anymore. Instead, "DOS" prints through Windows and without the necessary drivers, you can't even print a text file without some form of Windows interaction anymore.
And that is why I will be drug into the Kindle world kicking and screaming. While it is obvious that there are advantages to digital media that cannot be overlooked, in general, my books will not be "outdated technology". Whereas who knows whether your Kindle book will work in 10 years? (Don't get me started about the fact that in some cases the powers that be can control the contents of a Kindle). Digital has its uses, but IMO it will never completely supercede the value of paper in some circumstances.
Besides, if you are out in the country for hours, you don't need to recharge a book's batteries....
November 2, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Jeff Moden (11/1/2010)
What I'm even more concerned about is lost learning due to the fact that certain programs and formats are no longer available. Imagine, for instance, if someday in the future that MS no longer supports the .DOC format. Only those lucky enough to have a legacy copy of Word will be able to recover the information. Oh, but wait... will the legacy copy actually work on that future operating system? Think about it... even most printer aren't actually capable of printing a simple text file using the DOS copy command anymore. Instead, "DOS" prints through Windows and without the necessary drivers, you can't even print a text file without some form of Windows interaction anymore.
There are 3rd party .doc and .docx file viewers and editers, however, I could more easily imagine a scenario where 15 years down the road we have trouble recovering data from old Red Gate or Idera database backup files, especially if they're encrypted and the people responsible for holding the keys are long gone.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
November 2, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Ron Porter (11/2/2010)
Eric Russell 13013 (11/2/2010)
Ron Porter (11/2/2010)
Tobar (11/2/2010)
Ron Porter (11/2/2010)
... most Emergency Measures Organizations recommend keeping about 3 days of waterA germaine aside to water reserves - if for whatever reason water is no longer flowing to your house don't forget you have anywhere from 50 -100 gallons of water in your water heater.
People in apartments or with demand heaters will have much less. People with flush toilets will have a couple of gallons assuming they manage to not flush the one time that flushing actually works.
Well, screw the city folk with their fancy tankless water heaters and low flow toilets. 😛
In the even of a total collapse of civilization, drinkable water and canned beans will be worth more for barter than gold coins.
😀 Good, because my underground cistern holds over 5000 litres.
Cool. Send me your address! 😉
<><
Livin' down on the cube farm. Left, left, then a right.
November 2, 2010 at 1:07 pm
roger.plowman (11/2/2010)
Face it, in the days before the internet systems were far less complex, it was *possible* to know just about everything there was to know about a system.Today? Not so much.
Take SQL server. Thousands of developers over tens of years. No documentation worth having. (What ever happened to the art of clarity in documentation?) Of *course* you're going to need the net, with all its deeming masses squirreling away tidbits of knowledge gleaned through serendipity. It isn't a matter of *our* laziness, it's the vendors cutting corners and trying to beat everyone else to market with the latest whiz-bang.
Simplicity is *hard*. Elegance is *extremely* hard. So the vendors slather the new goodness on top of the old, till you have the monstrosities we have today.
*Undocumented* monstrosities, I might add...because clarity is also hard and takes time.
Given that, I'll take the net. I'd rather have a system that was well thought out and does most of the grunt work for me, but failing that (and given vendor realities) I'll take what I can get.
This brought to mind...
A few months ago, I submitted a "connect" item for a technical clarification in BOL. MS denied it - they'd leave it up to the 3rd party books to provide that deeper technical knowledge, and what they had was good enough. BTW... it would just be adding one character to a few places.
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
November 2, 2010 at 1:09 pm
blandry (11/2/2010)
So, when you want to know a veteran techie, just ask "Whats a BBS?" I wonder how many SQL Central devotees can answer that question!
This is aging me, but I can. I used to "surf" them on a 300-baud acoustic-coupled modem.
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
November 2, 2010 at 2:47 pm
The net is the great equalizer it is the reason very few code sets impress me because most are modified Microsoft or now Oracle code. I have also met very few impressive people who type C# code faster than a secretary type a letter so I know I need better books. what part of it is yours because all I see is modified Microsoft code?
😉
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie
November 2, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Gift Peddie (11/2/2010)
The net is the great equalizer it is the reason very few code sets impress me because most are modified Microsoft or now Oracle code. I have also met very few impressive people who type C# code faster than a secretary type a letter so I know I need better books. what part of it is yours because all I see is modified Microsoft code?😉
See my current sig. 😉 Just because they can copy it doesn't mean they know how to use it well.
Never stop learning, even if it hurts. Ego bruises are practically mandatory as you learn unless you've never risked enough to make a mistake.
For better assistance in answering your questions[/url] | Forum Netiquette
For index/tuning help, follow these directions.[/url] |Tally Tables[/url]
Twitter: @AnyWayDBA
November 2, 2010 at 3:21 pm
WayneS (11/2/2010)
blandry (11/2/2010)
So, when you want to know a veteran techie, just ask "Whats a BBS?" I wonder how many SQL Central devotees can answer that question!This is aging me, but I can. I used to "surf" them on a 300-baud acoustic-coupled modem.
+ 1 😉
November 2, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Just a week ago I too had one of those experiences of being unable to access the Net. I had an ISP failure and two air cards that would not work. Each air card was a different carrier. One air-card the drivers had stopped working. The second air-card could not connect or find service in the area. I was flying blind and it was aggravating.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
November 2, 2010 at 4:25 pm
CirquedeSQLeil (11/2/2010)
Just a week ago I too had one of those experiences of being unable to access the Net. I had an ISP failure and two air cards that would not work. Each air card was a different carrier. One air-card the drivers had stopped working. The second air-card could not connect or find service in the area. I was flying blind and it was aggravating.
Back in the early '90s when I was programming in MS-DOS, I had a 3.5" diskette with all my essential tools on it: Norton Commander, Hex editer, drivers, virus scanner, a stripped down version of Borland C++.
Today I have a thumbdrive on my keychain with SQL Server books online, serveral pdf versions of reference books, portable applications, hundreds of sql scripts and archived articles. I still frequently fall back to using it. Not only is it necessary when I'm in a hotel room or in the lower levels of a granite federal building with no internet connection, but it also helps to have all my stuff oraganized in one place. I even used my Hex editer a while back to recover data from deleted records in a .mdf file.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
November 2, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Eric Russell 13013 (11/2/2010)
CirquedeSQLeil (11/2/2010)
Just a week ago I too had one of those experiences of being unable to access the Net. I had an ISP failure and two air cards that would not work. Each air card was a different carrier. One air-card the drivers had stopped working. The second air-card could not connect or find service in the area. I was flying blind and it was aggravating.Back in the early '90s when I was programming in MS-DOS, I had a 3.5" diskette with all my essential tools on it: Norton Commander, Hex editer, drivers, virus scanner, a stripped down version of Borland C++.
Today I have a thumbdrive on my keychain with SQL Server books online, serveral pdf versions of reference books, portable applications, hundreds of sql scripts and archived articles. I still frequently fall back to using it. Not only is it necessary when I'm in a hotel room or in the lower levels of a granite federal building with no internet connection, but it also helps to have all my stuff oraganized in one place. I even used my Hex editer a while back to recover data from deleted records in a .mdf file.
I have thumbdrive(s) with the same essential tools - except the hex editor. I'm thinking I should throw my hex editor onto a thumbdrive as well.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
November 3, 2010 at 8:48 am
GSquared (11/2/2010)
... Internet isn't very useful if you can't read. ...
You obviously don't visit the more profitable segments of the internet. :Whistling:
November 3, 2010 at 10:40 am
First let me thank the author for the article and the contributors for the comments. All together it has been a good intellectual exercise allowing us to share opinions.
Dynamite is good and bad or maybe isn't good or bad but useful or not. My point is that as almost everything the good and bad of technology depend on how we use it.
November 4, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Loved this analogy...
Ron Porter (11/2/2010)
I think that the Internet is just one more step along the 'just in time' path...There are risks associated with not keeping our own gardens and livestock and we lose a specific kind of self-sufficiency, but overall our food delivery system provides a massive net benefit to both society and the individual...
On the one hand I would argue that the local grocery store is not offering up as good of meat as what you can raise at home and so while the quantity of options have increased, the quality of options have decreased - there's more to choose from but a lot of it's garbage (just like the internet). Thankfully there are little boutiques (like SSC) where quality is still the norm.
Man this topic is getting a lot of hits... struck a chord.
Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 45 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply