snooggums

I have more space to hang and it is easier to get to the one I want than if they were stacked in a drawer. This includes tshirts, which make up most of my hanging shirts.

Plus my lack of folding skills means a drawer full of shirts would be a lumpy mess in short order.

This makes more sense. But even then they would surely transfer data from the old system over.

All you gotta do is snap your fingers!

Moving data from system to system is a massive undertaking. It probably needs to be restructured, and decisions made during the process will be found to be imperfect and adjustments will need to be made along the way.

Then you have to change all the connections to other systems and recreate the existing reports and by the way the changed structure impacts all of that and you need to revisit why you have all this stuff snd why don’t we just leave it alone after all.

There is a reason that legacy systems stick around. I’m sure they have legacy mainframes with financial data. At my state office we have a financial mainframe we have been wanting to get rid of for over a decade and while we have peeled off what processes we can there is still a ton left to do. Nothing about it is easy compared to creating something new from scratch, in fact transitioning to a new system to replace an old system is probably ten times as much work. Not to mention you still have to use and maintain the old system the entire time!

His post (if we believe it) demonstrates he must have access to both pieces of information.

At best he is referring to an older mainframe he is aware of not being sql while being completely oblivious of all the government systems that are in sql.

Which isn’t giving him any credit, because in that case he is atill running his mouth based on being ignorant about other government systems.

I submitted data to a government database yesterday that I know for a fact is sql because we have had an ongoing years long relationship that involves improving that system and aligning our state level sql database. The government absolutely uses sql frequently, even if they still have older mainframes with some other database architecture.

That all makes sense, except if someone’s SSN changes (which happens under certain circumstances), doesn’t that invalidate their primary key or require a much more complicated operation of issuing a new record and relinking all the existing relationships?

Yes, in the case of duplicate SSN assignments for two people (rare) l you would need to change their records to align with the new SSN while not changing the records that go the the person who keeps the SSN. We do it with state identifiers and it is a gigantic pain in the ass.

If two numbers are assigned to the same person merging them to one of the two is far easier.

The upside is that when I add something I start on the right to make space!

The thing is, there are a large number of different reasons to store an SSN as a long int or a string depending on how it is used with the rest of the data. For a phone number, there can be a valid reason to store the area code separately to speed up data queries that narrow down by area code instead of all in one field and peeling it apart. There are also reasons to have additional, seemingly redundant, columns that can be used for optimizing searches or simplifying how queries are written.

A common one is that using 1 and 0 instead of Y an N is often faster for massively large dataset optimization, but isn’t as easily human readable.

There are complex reasons for choosing different approaches in a database, and the most important thing is generally consistency within the database. His point is meaningless without context beyond consistency, and the different government systems will have had different priorities, not to mention trying to update all of the databases to make them consistent is a MASSIVE fucking undertaking. And the systems can stay the way they are as long as they have APIs or other methods of transferring data that ARE normalized and consistent.

I have personally been working with reporting data to federal systems for 15 years as a semi knowledgeable technical person. This is what I do for a job. What he is saying is pointlessly small trivia used to justify tearing things down instead of improving them.

Musk canceled the support for the long running Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) which is an initiative to promote better database standards and normalization for the states to address this kind of thing.

It does not fucking matter if he is technically correct about one tiny detail because he is only using to to destroy, not to improve efficiency.

This is not what he is actively doing though. He isn’t trying to improve databases.

He is tearing down entire departments and agencies and using shit like this to justify it.

But it isn’t inaccessible for a lot of people, who either pay for it or bypass the filter.

Not everyone owns every video game. Should we ban discussion on video games?

It is common for long lived databases with a rotating cast of devs to use different formats in different tables as well! One might have it as a string, one might have it as a number, and the other might have it with hyphens in the same database.

Hell, I work in a state agency and one of our older databases has a dozen tables with databases.

• One has the whole thing as a long int: 222333444
• One has the whole thing as a string: 2223334444 (which of course can’t be directly compared to the one that is a long int…)
• One has separate fields for area code and the rest with a hyphen: 222 and 333-4444
• One has the whole thing with parenthesis, a space, and a hyphen as a string: (222) 333-4444

The main reason for the discrepancy is not looking at what was used before or not understanding that they can always change the formatting when displayed so they don’t need to include the parenthesis or hyphens in the database itself.

Blazing Saddles - Best comedy

Alien - Best horror

Predator - Best action movie

What makes them the greatest is I have watched them dozens of times and enjoy them every single time. There are movies that don’t come to mind that have more technical execution or better acting, but each one of these just nails what it was going for in a way that makes every single scene engaging and satisfying.

Special mention: Hardcore Henry - Greatest video game adaptation

That is a good system!

I do the opposite and put the ones I wear the most on the left to get to them easier instead of stressing myself about whether an entire outfit matches. So the ones that only match one or two pants/shorts end up on the right, ignored.

The initial statement I believe is down to a combination of the above and also the lack of domain knowledge around social security. The primary key on the social security table would be a composite key of both the SSN and a date of birth—duplicates are expected of just parts of the key.

Since SSNs are never reused, what would be the purpose of using the SSN and birth date together as part of the primary key? I guess it is the one thing that isn’t supposed to ever change (barring a clerical error) so I could see that as a good second piece of information, just not sure what it would be adding.

Note: if duplicate SSNs are accidentally issued my understanding is that they issue a new one to one of the people and I don’t know how to find the start of the thread on twitter since I only use it when I accidentally click on a link to it.

https://www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html

Q20: Are Social Security numbers reused after a person dies?

A: No. We do not reassign a Social Security number (SSN) after the number holder’s death. Even though we have issued over 453 million SSNs so far, and we assign about 5 and one-half million new numbers a year, the current numbering system will provide us with enough new numbers for several generations into the future with no changes in the numbering system.

If he doesn’t think the government uses sql after having his goons break into multiple government servers he is an idiot.

If he is lying to cover his ass for fucking up so many things (the more likely explanation) then saying “he never used sql” is basically a dig at how technically inept he really is despite bragging about being a tech bro.

You sounded like you didn’t want any rules whatsoever

Where did I say that?

Not wanting blanket rules for all communities doesn’t mean not wanting any rules.

Racism, bigotry, and polygamy.

Paywalled content is still useful for some users who either bypass the paywall or are already paying for it, so a blanket rule that bans it would be limiting what could be discussed.

What does paywalls have to do with trolls and AI garbage? That some communities allow it (and others don’t)? I’m fine with some communities having that trash, because I can easily ignore it.

What you want is centralized rules that apply to all of lemmy but somehow voluntarily?

It isn’t that people like paywalled content, it is that people don’t like blanket rules for a decentralized system like the fediverse.

I have a lot of nice shirts.

I also have trouble picking one and end up going with a few favorites.

Musk is wrong about literally everything. Must be nice to have enough money to make up for being a fucking moron.