My replication software may actually kill me. Or force me to drink. The struggle is real.

@KrisGruttemeyer Here's to InfoSphere CDC!

a personal favorite (not)!

Is everyone out for Easter or something?

or spring break.. roads were eeriely dead

Easter is just a very long weekend here. Nothing special.

I'm here just working on a project

I'm here, not many others are

Was up until 4am fighting our replication software

short day for me

@JNK 65 degrees today here!

@KrisGruttemeyer yeah its up there here today too

Gonna be a great day to get outside with the wife and kid

it's colder here today. we were in the 70s earlier this week, but we had a storm last night and it's only going to be 55 here. :-(

I took my boys outside yesterday to play for the first time in a long time

Maybe if you wouldn't lock them up all day, they could go outside

@billinkc Maybe if it wasn't the ice plant Hoth, we could

@KrisGruttemeyer It's a proven fact that kids and tauntauns smell worse inside than outside

@billinkc Well played and a very good point. At least I don't notice the smell when they are outside

I like the close reason for this question...something that might be good on DBA?

that's not a close reason, that's a historical lock that moderators can add to questions

Ah

Can we get the garbage-disposal tag for Database Administrators ?

There is a "garbage collector" in SQL Server :)

Apparently @PaulWhite wrote blog post. I want to read it, but I don't know if my poor brain can handle that today.

This one?

sqlperformance.com/2015/04/sql-indexes/…

He just means it's really long :)

@paul - maybe a little less neon-y than this

Boo xp_fixeddirves

@AaronBertrand Like.

Is anyone going to throw their hat in the ring? stackoverflow.com/election/6

Bwahahahaha maybe when I'm done gargling Drano and becoming certified in MySQL

Great article, @Paul!

No.

@ypercube Thanks!

I think we had a question or 2 in dbs.se about the difference between GROUP BY () and no GROUP BY.

I never concluded to what the "standard" behaviour should be.

And a (not so) crazy thought: Allowing a unique index on () would be fun.

... effectivly constraining the table/view to max 1 row.

Makes my head hurt every time.

I do like a query plan that creates a row from nothing though.

@PaulWhite Do you just stumble onto these things or does someone ping you and then you go digging through the internals to understand the why?

@billinkc Credits at the end. Both though in general.

Hadn't gotten that far

No one does, so don't feel bad :)

The only feeling I have is contempt

Call me no one from now on ;)

Nullpercube

There is no cube?

Now I'm the bad guy

@AaronBertrand I know nothing of this

Is whatever the joke was public?

Was not renewed as MVP

Posted a hateful rant about it:

blogs.msmvps.com/alunj/2015/04/01/turning-away-from-microoft

oh great

And is now saying it is an April Fool's joke

However, he wasn't renewed, and he absolutely is bitter about it, and about the fact that they told him 3/31 instead of a week or two before the renewal date.

well compuserve in first para seems to indicate it's not serious

You can draw your own conclusions.

ahhhh gotcha

Compuserve WAS a real benefit (but long before he was an MVP I think)

There also isn't an MVP compound in Florida, etc. etc.

It just comes off as whiny, sour grapes. Even if you realize it's supposed to be a joke.

When I suggested that if it is a joke, not all readers might recognize that, he said:

So, basically, GFY

<shrug> I can't fix that.

what a true shame he wasn't renewed

Yeah I'm teary

Yeah, I read his post and if it was a joke, he's a terrible commedian.

Personally I think he is trying to wave it away as an "obvious" joke, but that it was a reactionary sarcastic rant written in pissery.

Honestly, I think some folks keep their MVP status for waaaaay to long. It's fairly obvious Microsoft doesn't constantly re-evaluate sitting MVPs for continuing contribution.

@MikeFal well, I'd ask Paul about that one

@AaronBertrand Which Paul?

Paul White

Why's that?

For me, personally, I feel pressure every year to fill out my little spreadsheet and prove that my contributions make me still worthy. While I may get less scrutiny than a newbie, it's not zero scrutiny, that's for certain.

@MikeFal crisis averted, but Paul was at risk of not getting renewed. A bunch of us (led by Rob Farley) spoke up on his behalf and reversed the decision.

@AaronBertrand Damn, yeah. Paul is active, but I can understand it not appearing that way since he's in NZ.

The scrutiny I observe and perceive is kind of a mix. Some of the perennial renewals are a no-brainer. Others are absolute WTF head-scratchers.

Honestly, the reason I don't actively pursue the MVP thing is because awards and retention seems fairly arbitrary. Most who get it deserve it, but I've seen a fair number of those head scratchers over the past year.

But there are plenty of folks who do deserve it who seem to always get passed over. It's like you need to know the secret handshake to get selected.

Paul is still super active blogging right?

I mean it's not like he has weekly posts but page-wise he's up there

Pinal White

(I'm likely to be stabbed over that one)

@billinkc I'll stab you, but for entirely different reasons.

Despite being on the state and federal do not call list, I get calls from scammers on a daily basis. I think I've vented on this before.

@MikeFal I think part of that specific problem is that several of those people getting passed over would vocally complain about not getting selected. Repeatedly. This has probably worked against them rather than for them, because it really sends the wrong message about intent, motivation, etc.

Anyways, names.igopaygo.com/credit_card is a gem of site for creating CC numbers that meet the checksum requirements but aren't real

4111111111111111 <-- always works

@AaronBertrand Fair enough.

@AaronBertrand What's the expiration and security code though?

That site provides them so I can weave these long tales of my credit card debt and give them every imaginable detail about my life so they can really screw me over

@billinkc checksum is just to make sure it's a valid number. If you have more complicated validation where you actually check validity against a service, that's no longer just a checksum.

@AaronBertrand I definitely have heard that conversation of "I'm going to get my MVP". Those folks fail to understand that it's not really something you achieve. You can do stuff to help your case, but in the end it's a recognition of community involvement. And you should be involved in the community not to get an aware, but to help the community.

I thought there was a validation where the numbers went with the expiration or something

@MikeFal precisely. The bellyaching about getting passed over doesn't exactly paint that pretty picture.

@billinkc not possible. Both my USAA debit and credit cards, as well as my MasterCard and AmEx, have had the same number multiple times, with only the expiration date changing.

ah

CVV number can be validated by the issuer. It can't be validated having just the number and CVV.

I've had them explain to me that those are my account numbers by the way. They're public knowledge like a house number. It's only the CVV I needed to keep secure

(Well, that is true for every card I've ever dealt with, there may be some kooks out there who do generate those numbers in some sort of predictable way, but that would be mighty stupid.)

@billinkc while probably true, every time you enter your CVV on any web site, you've just made it less secure.

Same as birthdate, mother's maiden name, first pet, first school, first employer, SSN, etc.

My response was if you're so comfortable with that, what are the numbers on your CC

Here's my AmEx cash rewards card: 372535222062007

Try to do something with that.

Amex? What is this, the 80s?

I actually have three AmEx cards. The perks are much better than any other card.

Cash rewards, platinum, and Delta

Platinum gets me into most airport lounges, Delta gets me 2x or 3x miles on a lot of purchases

The Platinum concierge is incredible.

You must be thinking of Discover.

We just got an amex and the rewards are awesome

The fact that this exists as a tag makes me want to get a flamethrower

stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/apostrophe

SO's column-store-index tag has an inexplicable hyphen in there. Should be columnstore-index or just columnstore (like ours)

@AaronBertrand fixed - stackoverflow.com/tags/columnstore/synonyms

matches DBA

@billinkc i love my amex