A couple of weeks ago I was making my way through the office. As I came towards the end of the large, open-plan room I became aware that there was someone following behind me so, on passing through the door I held it briefly for the person behind me {there was no where else they could be going}, turned left and through the next door – and again held it and this time looked behind me to see if the person was still going the same way as I. The lady behind gave me the strangest look.

The strange look was reasonable – the door I’d just held for her was the one into the gentleman’s bathroom. *sigh*

Sometimes I wish …  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/full/489170a.html

I’m spending a lot more time in Central London at the moment due to current work commitments. A few weeks ago I was having a quiet stroll through the streets and had what I can only describe as an odd moment:

I looked around and found I was being converged upon by 5 or 6 people walking slowly and aimlessly towards me – all from different angles, all only vaguely aware of their surroundings, all looking like they were making straight for me. I instantly thought of one of the scenes from “Shaun of the Dead” {A cracking film, go hire it tonight}.

I’m very much enjoying the current Olympics, the achievements and drama by so many competitors from all over the world in different events,  and the coverage provided by the BBC  - when they can keep narrative and vision together and they are not asking tired competitors who have just done their all daft questions like “how do you feel now” {I’d love some of them to reply ”Knackered, just sod off OK!”}

However, a concern I have had for weeks seems to be panning out. For athletics I think we will see running. And more running. With running thrown in. Running, running, running. with a light scattering of everything else if there is UK interest. What vexes me is that most of this “running” is not even actual running!

Have you ever felt that the optimizer was persecuting you by picking plans at random ? Perhaps you’re not paranoid, perhaps it’s part of Oracle Corp’s. master plan to take over the world. If you look closely at the list of hidden parameters you’ll find that some details of this cunning plan have leaked. In 10.1.0.2 Oracle created a new parameter _optimizer_random_plan with the description “optimizer seed value for random plans”. Who knows what terrible effects we may see when the default value of this parameter changes.

This post is just a bit of fun. I was just doing some email and I decided to see how the tennis (Wimbledon) was going. I fired up the BBC web site and clicked on the live match – and I’m watching Smurfs play tennis! (NB I added the Federer/Murray picture after I originally put this post up)

Just a quick Friday Philosophy {the day job is very demanding at the moment, thus the silence on the Blog front}

I’m presenting in Leeds at the start of July on UKOUG AIM SIG on “The First Few Things You Need To Know About Exadata”. As part of the final preparation of the agenda it’s been raised that we should have a beer after the event and put it on the agenda.

Now, when I ran the Management and Infrastructure SIG, there was always a last item of “retire to a pub for a drink or two”. It is a common feature of technical UKOUG SIGs and a great opportunity to chat to the speakers more.

You probably all recognise this situation:

Dave needs something doing that he can’t do himself – let’s say it is creating an API for the file management package. It isn’t your job to do but it is something you can do. Dave is blocked until the API is created.

So, being a nice person, you tell Dave you will see what you can do for him over the next couple of days.

So why is it that what Dave hears is “Dave, I love you more than life itself, I am dedicated to this task and I WILL complete it before the end of tomorrow. My other tasks, emergency production issues and the untimely demise of my cat are all secondary to this endeavour.”.

You see, 24 hours later, Dave is at your desk “When will this be done?! I’m blocked until I get this!!!”. If he’s the guy I had recently his next step is to slap his fist into his palm as he utters, almost shouts “I NEED this!”.

I’m just doing some last minute preparation for the Norwegian User Group Spring Seminar. This is quite a large conference with 5 concurrent streams and a very good line-up of presenters. You can see the agenda here.

What is also a little unusual about this conference is that it is mostly on a boat, or rather a ship. When I was first asked if I would put forward a talk or two I declined – as I am very prone to being sea-sick. Truls Bergersen, who helps organize the event, got in touch with me a few weeks later and said “we are doing a day on land first, do you want to present then?”. Sure! That would be great! So I am, I’ll be doing my talk on Index Organized Tables once more {and then I think I’ll put it to bed for a couple of years}.

This is a really old idea – but it’s the first time I’ve seen it illustrated.

(The obvious flaw in the concept appears  in comment 22.)