Random Thoughts Or Comments, when you don't know where else to post Options

[barry-clari]

Hello floot. Can I still operate you? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I hope so: I'll need some support!

I'm not playing the piccolo... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I apologise in advance....

pointy stick... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

[nicki_flute]

Hello floot. Can I still operate you? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I hope so: I'll need some support!

I'm not playing the piccolo... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I apologise in advance....

pointy stick... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Has that been in hiding or have you been lax?

[Pixie*Porsche]

Need to do my theory and want to go play piano again ...

[Pixie*Porsche]

I had a dream last night about having a violin lesson ...

[Misti]

Will that be next after the saxophone? (I'm not mis-remembering am I, it was you who lately succumbed to a sax?)

I dreamt last night I was being murdered. So glad that the process of dying always wakes you up, it was one dream I was quite happy to get out of!

Edit: (Dying in a dream, that is! Obviously I have no idea what actually happens in the process of dying!)

[Tenor Viol]

Bit late, but it's been niggling for 2 weeks now. Couple of Saturdays ago my main choir ran a 'come and sing' day. The work was the Mozart requiem and it was very successful.

I tend to act as platform manager for events like this (I can project my voice and be heard) and as an ex-chairman of the choir, I tend to do 'meet and greet' of guests and the audience etc.

Whilst we were assembling before the concert a lady approached me that as far as I know I have never met. She said, "Oh, you're xxx aren't you?" To which I said "Yes." Then she said: "Didn't you used to be the moderator of xxxforumxxx?".

The answer to that would be yes, but not for about 6 years (private forum with moderator teams).

I have no idea who the lady is. My name she would have got easily from anyone at the event, but how she linked my name to having modded a forum for a while back in the early 2000s beats me. Why go to the length of telling me this but not saying anything else? Odd.

There, it's been bothering me.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

Confused Tenor Viol

EDIT: Unless of course one of you has sussed me out! (IMG:http://www.emoticonsfree.org/wp-content/uploads/happy0167.gif)

[Maizie]

Gah! I am authoring a stupid report. I've looked at it many ways, a colleague has looked at it many ways...and it comes down to the fact that I have to create 30 separate data tables and join them together.
The system in question has no way to join them all at once, so I have to join 1 to 2, then 1+2 to 3, then 123 to 4, etc. So I end up with 29 joins (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)
Each join makes the report slower and slooower and slooooooooower and sloooooooooooower to run.
Each time I do a join, I run the report to check I've done the join correctly - otherwise I'll get to the end, it won't work, and I'll have to work through 29 joins to find the dodgy one (two, three...) Unfortunately, it's now taking me about 30 seconds to do the join, followed by 15 minutes to run the report to check it.

Still, they're paying me to do it I suppose (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[Tenor Viol]

Gah! I am authoring a stupid report. I've looked at it many ways, a colleague has looked at it many ways...and it comes down to the fact that I have to create 30 separate data tables and join them together.
The system in question has no way to join them all at once, so I have to join 1 to 2, then 1+2 to 3, then 123 to 4, etc. So I end up with 29 joins (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)
Each join makes the report slower and slooower and slooooooooower and sloooooooooooower to run.
Each time I do a join, I run the report to check I've done the join correctly - otherwise I'll get to the end, it won't work, and I'll have to work through 29 joins to find the dodgy one (two, three...) Unfortunately, it's now taking me about 30 seconds to do the join, followed by 15 minutes to run the report to check it.

Still, they're paying me to do it I suppose (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

What on earth are you using as your RDMS?

You need a decent database that permits multiple indexes and allows up to 256 joins... and several million quid to buy the machine..... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) Apart from that it's easy (I wrote a quick query last week whilst someone was at my desk - only 4 tables to join, but about 15 billion rows of data - ran in about 15 seconds.....)

[Maizie]

What on earth are you using as your RDMS?

Most of our data sits in Oracle, and then gets extracted to SAS datasets. Each of which are easy to play with. And usually we deal with everything this way.
Unfortunately the one crucial bit of data this report relies on is not stored in the Oracle database - I have to go to the reporting database associated with the front end...it has to be done with Cognos Reporting Studio, and it's made a huge amount more complicated than necessary because of the way the front end (clinical trial) has been designed. Usually our trials are built with data extraction in mind; this one was co-built with another organisation, who regard getting the data out as our problem, not something that should rule the initial design (fair enough - but you do want the data out, don't you?), and who now want ludicrous metrics reports on fourteen million different aspects of this, that and the other. Which nobody else cares about, so no system is set up to do, and I just have to do it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tenor Viol]

What on earth are you using as your RDMS?

Most of our data sits in Oracle, and then gets extracted to SAS datasets. Each of which are easy to play with. And usually we deal with everything this way.
Unfortunately the one crucial bit of data this report relies on is not stored in the Oracle database - I have to go to the reporting database associated with the front end...it has to be done with Cognos Reporting Studio, and it's made a huge amount more complicated than necessary because of the way the front end (clinical trial) has been designed. Usually our trials are built with data extraction in mind; this one was co-built with another organisation, who regard getting the data out as our problem, not something that should rule the initial design (fair enough - but you do want the data out, don't you?), and who now want ludicrous metrics reports on fourteen million different aspects of this, that and the other. Which nobody else cares about, so no system is set up to do, and I just have to do it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

OK - I get the picture (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I recognise most of those tribulations!

[tetrachord]

I was just typing something in Google and the screen flipped upside down! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) It pretty much turned the right way up again instanly but it's left me a bit unnerved. Is this something to wory about? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

[Violin Hero]

I was just typing something in Google and the screen flipped upside down! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) It pretty much turned the right way up again instanly but it's left me a bit unnerved. Is this something to wory about? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

No, nothing to be bothered about unless it happens again.

[tetrachord]

Thanks - that's a great relief! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Thought there may have been a virus or something...

[Violin Hero]

My director came in to have a chat with us this afternoon. He sat in colleagues seat and when the phone rang he kind of panicked like a trainee or new starter might when learning the ropes. He had to ask us what the procedure for password resets was! We all found it very amusing.

The reason he was checking was to check everything was in order as we have auditors coming in a couple of weeks. He was happy apart from a couple of little things that I am tasked with remedying tommorow.

[corenfa]

I was just typing something in Google and the screen flipped upside down! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) It pretty much turned the right way up again instanly but it's left me a bit unnerved. Is this something to wory about? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

Sometimes Google does silly things like this that trigger when a certain key combination is pressed.

For example, try going to http://google.co.uk and type in "do a barrel roll" then press the search button (has to be done from the main page)