The Heap™ – Consultancy ©®

A: Random is barely random at all?

12:03 AM

Wonder who the splitter was ...

10 hours later…

ypercubeᵀᴹ

9:40 AM

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells I like this answer better ;)

216

The Birthday Paradox, or why PRNGs produce duplicates more often than you might think. There are a couple of issues at play in the OP's problem. One is the birthday paradox as mentioned above and the second is the nature of what you are generating, which does not inherently guarantee that a giv...

I guess you are on the hospital already.

Get well, soon!

bummi

10:34 AM

@PaulWhite would it be useful to flag this question for migration to this site?superuser.com/q/1043557/172747

@bummi Sure. It's probably not the greatest question ever asked, but it would be on-topic here. The asker already has an account here.

bummi

Thank you

11:03 AM

@bummi Huh. He already asked it here as well sigh. I'll merge them if the SU copy comes over.

11:24 AM

Thank you Sir,sure will not do that asking the same question multi times — Vijay Ganji 1 hour ago

People amaze me sometimes.

bummi

11:41 AM

@PaulWhite Sorry for having missed this ... usually I check for those :(?

@bummi That's OK. I checked the user had an account here, but didn't check the recent questions either!

@bummi It's been migrated now, so I can take care of it here.

1 hour later…

A: aggregate column of nvarchar2 and obtain result in nvarchar2 too

1:00 PM

As the documentation describes: The return data type is RAW if the measure column is RAW; otherwise the return value is VARCHAR2. So unless you pass the column as RAW, the result will be VARCHAR2, and that is not good enough, because that means data loss during conversion. LISTAGG works ...

I'm no Oracle expert, but that looks like a good answer. Much more detailed than his usual as well, I think I am right in saying.

1 hour later…

2:28 PM

@ypercubeᵀᴹ Just about to leave. The operation is tomorrow morning. Thank you.

Well folks, I'm about to get my chest cut open by a surgeon who's name I can't remember.
Banzai....

Marian

2:57 PM

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells best of luck.

3:21 PM

Any mods about?

Duplicate questions on the front page, right after one another

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells All the best. I'll still be here to annoy you when you wake up after ;)

@PaulWhite He's a good DBA, from what I've seen on here

dezso

3:54 PM

@Phil another good Oracle DBA named Balázs was constantly pissed off by this Balázs answering too fast :)

Tom V

4:49 PM

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells good luck

3 hours later…

7:51 PM

Well, here I am at St Thomas's. The operation is tomorrow afternoon. They didn't have space in the ward so they've moved me to a hostel for tonight.

Currently there are no large incisions in my corpus delectii, but they want me to take a shower with some antiseptic gunk and shave my chest, arms and legs.

@Marian, @Phil, @TomV, @ypercubeᵀᴹ - thank you.

Have now arranged internet by tethering my phone.

James Lupolt

Best of luck @COTW

Thank you.

8:09 PM

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells It behooves you to shave carefully and get well soon. Good luck and kia kaha.

@PaulWhite Thanks. My friend (from NZ) asked the Canadian nurse if she was American. I introduced him as my Australian friend and said they're a bit thick across the Tasman.

Ha ha ha!

@PaulWhite I'm reminded of the first time I had an angioplasty in a posh hospital in Auckland (I still had health insurance then). They sent a rather attractive Filipina nurse called Josephine in to shave my goolies. I remember thinking: 'could be worse'

These days they tell my to shave my own. I'm most disappointed.

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells I can imagine! Seems the NHS has more limitations than I thought :)

@PaulWhite Not quite the silver service, I'm afraid :(

8:15 PM

Also, bit odd you're in a hostel instead of a ward for such serious work.

New mobile chat is much better but still not perfect

They haven't started cutting me open yet. The ward was full, so I'm here for overspill.

I'm using my laptop via tethering.

Yes I read that. Just seems odd on the face of it. Hostel, self preparation, and tethering!

As you say, not quite silver service

Functional though, St. Thomas is supposed to be a world leader in this racket.

As long as the surgery goes well, that's the main thing I guess. Perhaps the recovery room will have dancers.

I might be stoned enough to see them.

8:20 PM

True!

I think Wellington General still give people a piece of leather to bite on instead of anaesthetic, so it could be worse indeed

Craig Campbell on Edinburgh and Beyond 2007

►

@PaulWhite Craig Campbell on the NHS.

One can only live in hope.

Also, they've been instructed not to feed me after midnight ...

1 hour later…

9:41 PM

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells I nearly live in Hope. It's the next village down.... goo.gl/maps/TnXqdFcYgPR2

@Phil I could think of much worse places to live.

Here, maybe? goo.gl/maps/ZXficu5QvcJ2

There's quite a lot to be said for having a little pad somewhere nice and working contracts about 6 months of the year. I could aspire to that life style.

That's my plan in 4 or 5 years time. Other irons in the fire at the moment. Work the winter, enjoy the summer

Got a mate that's a tree surgeon that does similar. Works for 8 months of the year, has 4 off

There we have it. Google Censoring the street view of the Pratt's Bottom roundabout.

9:52 PM

Looks for Scunthorpe road signs

Maybe I'll have to drive out there and take a picture of it myself.

10:18 PM

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells What time's your op? Local pub landlord here had a triple bypass at the tail end of last year. Said the recovery wasn't too bad. Just uncomfortable because of the broken ribs etc

@TomV you need a proper avatar!

@Phil Monday afternoon. My mother had a bypass a few years ago so she told me about her experiences too.

I have a team of folks looking after me here, from NZ, the UK and Indonesia - I've never felt so cared about in living memory.

I hope they've bought you kittens, flowers & a big bottle of lucozade. Lucozade is key to any recovery in England!

No kittens, I'm afraid. The didn't get me flowers, but did buy me a pair of slippers and some pyjamas in case the hospital gowns get too breezy.

Which they do on me as one size does not quite fit all when it comes to me.

Far too many elderly patients of cardiac wards have been subjected to the sight of my arse thanks to under-spec hospital gowns.