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To all my readers and colleagues, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Xmas and a healthy, prosperous and Happy New Year!!!!

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1. Quote of the Week

Relational is/was a way for humans to understand how computers could organise data. From a day back when disks were expensive. --LinkedIn.com

2. To Laugh or Cry?

How Google Will Use Firebase to Supercharge Its Cloud Computing

Another reinvention of a (square) weheel.


3. Online debunkings

Calendar supertype

4. Interesting elsewhere

On Persistence and Data Management

An oldie but goodie; check out my comment.


5. And now for something completely different

Fascinating:

John Cleese on the Black Knight and Douglas Adams' High Heels

About The PostWest:

White House exempts Syria airstrikes from tight standards on civilian deaths

Remember all the fuss about Israel not doing enough to prevent civilian deaths? The hypocrisy!

• Iranian Supreme Leader calls for Israel's 'annihilation'

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by Erwin Smout

[FP: Two weeks ago I posted a debunking of an article blaming some SQL sins. Erwin has some additional comments.]

1. Multisets

From the original article:

It is beyond any doubt that set is the basis of mass data computation. Although SQL has the concept of set, it is limited to describing simple result set, and it does not take the set as a basic data type to enlarge its application scope.

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Housekeeping: I have added a link to Nijssen's paper The Entity-Relationship Model Considered Harmful to FUNDAMENTALS on the HOME page. UPDATE 2: The paper is fine if read with a PDF viewer other than
Adobe Reader XI (11.0.09).


1. Quotes of the Week

Platfora’s mission is to empower customers to transform their businesses into fact-based enterprises. Platfora's Big Data Analytics Platform masks the complexity of Hadoop, making it easy for customers to understand all the facts in their business... --Platfora.com

Q: I don't know what the different between detect inference in database and prevent it, any help?
A: Why would you want to prevent inferences that a DMBS makes? That's where the power of it is. --LinkedIn.com

2. To Laugh or Cry?

Graphs: A Better Database Abstraction

3. Online debunkings

• Should the move from a fixed schema truly be to “no schema”
• The fine line between “informality” and “loss of intellectual rigor

4. Interesting elsewhere

You Too May Be A Victim Of Developaralysis

H/t Will Sisson.

5. And now for something completely different 

• Must watch: State Legislatures and ALEC

• Fascinating: Ebru Art,Sand Art

• About The PostWest

If they do this:

Fatah official calls for blood to 'purify' Jerusalem of Jews

PA airs 'anti-Semitic' film as tensions mount in Jerusalem

Four killed in terror attack at Jerusalem synagogue

then obviously we should do this:

Croatia likely to recognize Palestine as a state MidEast

Sweden To Recognize State Of Palestine

Spanish Parliament Calls on Rajoy to Recognize Palestine

UK lawmakers vote to recognize Palestine as a state

and this

EU threatens 'further action' to protect two-state solution

EU considering 'sanctions' against Israel over settlements

Makes perfect sense. So what else is new?

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See:

• Data Sublanguage Parts 1-2

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My November blog post @All Analytics:


I have shown in previous posts that reliance on sheer visual inspection of database tables for data analysis is a risky proposition, with high probability of misinterpretation. All the more so when databases are complex, with wide and/or long tables. The analyst needs to know table interpretations -- their real-world meaning derived from the business rules with which the database must be consistent. The problem is that they are left out of the tables because DBMSs do not understand them, nor are they usually documented in the database (as they well should be), because database professionals underestimate their importance.

Read it all. (Please comment there, not here)