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1. Quote of the Week

Invoice number is the key (key is not unique in this table). Although structure or key constraints doesn't enforce uniqueness of rows, the assumption is there will not be duplicate rows. --LinkedIn.com

2. To Laugh or Cry?

Relational Queries by Reference

3. Online Debunkings

What is Weak Subtype

5. And now for something completely different

Tim's Vermeer

Fascinating

@The PostWest

• ISIS Bad, Hamas OK: Only One Difference
• Efraim Karsh: It's Anti-Semitism, Stupid
• Pinch Me
• The West Prefers to Deplore Dead Jews To Letting Them Defend Themselves
• Israel and the Arabs in War: Two observations
• Just Sayin'
• Obama to Israel: Do As I Say, Not As We Do
• Cairo talks: Deja Vu
• Reality Check
• Gaza Blame: Upside Down and Backwards

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Conveying data fundamentals to practitioners, losing neither rigor, nor the audience is a difficult task. There are many experienced professionals with tool expertise, but poor foundation knowledge for which there is little regard. Even in academia education has been substituted by training, which is not the same thing.

One dilemma faced by an educator is the tension between the simplicity of examples effective for conveying general concepts or principles and the complexity of the reality to be represented in databases. The latter requires integration of many concepts and principles, as well as thorough business knowledge. This is part of the reason why I normally refrain from specific online modeling/design advice and limit myself to the general principles that must be adhered to in the process.

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My July Post @All Analytics

When, for analytical purposes, you combine data extracted from database tables whose real-world meaning you don't know, you're asking for trouble. The meaning, after all, isn't in the tables. Rather, the meaning is contained in the business rules on the basis of which the tables were designed and which are approximated in the database with integrity constraints. Interpreting results on the basis of just visual inspection of the tables therefore involves guesswork and is almost certain to be wrong.

Read it all. (And please comment there, not here)



 

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1. Quote of the Week

Q: In a nutshell, what does RDF based Linked Data facilitate?
A: The ability to find and describe stuff using attributes (relations, properties, features, fields, characteristics). --LinkedIn.com

2. To Laugh or Cry?

Data Model now offers Relationship Modeling

3. Online Debunking

Data Vaults - Why Or Why Not

4. Elsewhere

• Conceptual vs. logical modeling, part III
• Conceptual vs. Logical modeling, part IV   

 
5. And now for something completely different

In its decline, theWest is becoming impotent and increasingly irrelevant in world affairs e.g. Russia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, China, Libya, you name it. It is taking hypocritically its frustration on Israel and the Jews--its classic scapegoating during crises--reinforced by fear from internal Islam.

I am restarting my PostWest blog and will link regularly to posts in this section.


Critical comments that

• fail to show my facts to be false; or, if they are true, that my conclusions do not follow;
• are posted anonymously

will not be published and addressed.

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1. Quote of the Week

Don't confuse Data(base) Modeling with Business Modeling. All DBA are correct when they are talking about Database Modeling. If you want to ensure unique record on Business level, just add a unique composite index. (not as Key). But far to often, a unique record on business level is not ALWAYS unique (only most of the time) --LinkedIn.com

2. To Laugh or Cry?

Create database vs schema

3. Online Debunkings

• Big data means the reign of the relational database is over
• Conceptual Muddling and Database Kludges
• What do Data Scientists and Unicorns have in Common

4. Interesting Elsewhere

• Conceptual vs. logical modeling, part II
• Conceptual vs. Logical modeling (once again)

5. And now for something completely different

• S.F. housing prices bidding wars fiercer than ever
• Pinterest Threatens Long-Time San Francisco Tenants With Eviction
• San Francisco Protests at the Home & Office of David McCloskey
• San Francisco's guerrilla protest at Google buses swells
• Few applicants for blue-collar jobs in S.F.
• Shame of the City-Homeless in San Francisco
• A decade of homelessness - Thousands in S.F. remain in crisis
• AngelHack CEO's Attack On Homeless
• S.F. to offer George Lucas prime lot for his museum

 And if you like what they're doing to San Francisco, you'll love what they'll do to other cities:

Google Exec Rises Ire in Portland

 Symptoms of societal malaise.

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My June post @All Analytics

Combining data extracts from databases for analytical purposes without knowing what the source database tables mean -- what exactly in the real world they represent -- can produce wrong results.

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The common and entrenched misconception about normalization was recently visible yet again in a LinkedIn exchange.

R: Unless the need is for ACID compliant transactions, denormalization is generally not considered logically, physically or whatever-ally-–so essentially a thoroughly normalized mode is relevant for a write-infrequently consumption of data and data integrity can be guaranteed by design.