FeuerThoughts

My good friend, Marcelle Kratochvil, is the Oracle ACE Director for (as she put it to me) "all data/any data." She's been working with Oracle since V4 and specializes in Oracle Multimedia. She has been a beta tester for this product since Oracle8i and runs a SIG on multimedia and unstructured data. Check out her blog at: http://eternal-donut.blogspot.com.au.
Marcelle is a great speaker and able to communicate clearly how to work with complex data in Oracle. I first met and worked with Marcelle when she flew up from Australia to speak at my first Oracle PL/SQL Programming conference in November 2005). And now she's written her first book!Managing Multimedia and Unstructured Data in the Oracle Database has just been released by PackT and covers everything a person will need to know to get them working in multimedia. And Marcelle should know; as CTO of Piction, she works with customers all around the world including major museums and universities. She performs database administration on multi-terabyte Unix and Windows environments as well as doing serious development work with PL/SQL. She has designed and built a multimedia search engine, e-commerce system, security system, reporting engine, shipping system and her own XML parser and language specifically to handle the workflow needs of managing multimedia.
The book, according to Marcelle, provides an introduction to multimedia, how to search on it, how to manage it and how integrate it into your current environment. With lots of PL/SQL examples and schema setup scripts, Marcelle promises that this book will get you loading and using unstructured data in no time at all.
Best of all (to me), Marcelle is a strong advocate of PL/SQL and recommends it for anyone to use for building web based applications and for working with multimedia. My kind of Oracle technologist. J
To encourage us to check out her book, Marcelle is offering a chance to win a copy. All you have to do is choose from the most relevant section below, and send your answer to the question to Marcelle at marcelle@xor.com.au. Marcelle tells me that "The best, most creative and accurate answer will win a copy of the book." You must submit your answer by 31 May, 2013.
1. Open Category (open to everyone): Name three key advantages for storing multimedia in a database.

2. Museum/Gallery/Print Media (open to anyone in these industries): What is the biggest issue you face when digitizing and managing any multimedia in your organization?

3. Oracle (open to any Oracle employee):  Name five Oracle products that are tightly integrated with Securefiles and Oracle Multimedia.

 4. Oracle ACE Program (open to any Oracle ACE or ACE Director):  Which Oracle development tool or product is best designed for working with unstructured data (including multimedia)?

Back in mid-March, I wrote:

A week ago, I played a game of Scabble with Veva and scored 32 points by placing the word "SEEN" on the board. Now, every letter in "SEEN" is worth 1 point, making it very difficult to get to 32 points. But I attached "SEEN" to a word on the board (of course!) and I got my 32 points by using a total of 8 letters, two of which were worth 3 points and the other 6 were worth 1 point each.

[Note: I must note a correction. I actually wrote earlier that I had scored 36 points, but I now realize that was an exaggeration, an honest mistake. Honest! It was only 32 points. I would be mortally embarrassed, but please know that when my wife and I play Scrabble, we don't keep score.]

I thought I'd see if anyone could figure out how to do it. It clearly wasn't a very compelling challenge, since no one answered. OK, so now I will reveal the secret!


On my previous turn, I had put down a seven letter word as follows:

That was a whole lot of points, right there, of course. But you expect that with a seven letter word.

On my next turn, however, I put down "SEEN" and now I expect you can figure out how I did it....

Haven't shaved for two weeks. Decided to give my skin a break, and I also wondered: what do I really look like? Shaving my head is, I have come to accept, the "main vain" thing I do in my life (well, that and painting flamboyan flowers on my toenails).

How much gray and white is there? Answer: Lots.

How much is left on top? Answer: Not very much.

Back in April 2010, I started up the PL/SQL Challenge (www.plsqlchallenge.com) to provide quizzes on PL/SQL, SQL, logic and Oracle Application Express.

Hundreds of people take these quizzes each day. Since that time, over 670,000 answers have been submitted by thousands of Oracle technologists.

But you can't please everyone. I received this outraged message yesterday regarding the PL/SQL Challenge.:

This was the utmost bad joke on me. Would you be so kind to make clear your statement? My experience on the site was out of the limits of the common sense. No question but a popup nightmare required. Kindly please do something. This site is BAD, BAD, BAD. The worst I have ever seen in overall behavior!

I try not to take such criticism personally, though this did seem a bit harsh.

Well, I asked for clarification. I suggested that maybe the problem lies somewhere in his computer or network.

:-)

Let's see what he says, if he replies.

I like Scrabble, for many reasons.

I like words. I like to write. I like to read.

But one of the things I like best about Scrabble is how it is so much like life.

Every time I play a game of Scrabble, something totally amazing about the pattern of play in that game will strike me:

"Check it out! Ten turns and not a single letter E was used!"

"Whoa, that's amazing. Every word that contains an A also contains the letter I!"

and so on.

So why do I say Scrabble is like life? Because both Scrabble and life are filled with patterns that seem to be very amazing and profound, but in fact are meaningless, nothing more than coincidences to which our brain happens to be attuned.

OK, time for the Scrabble Puzzle:

A week ago, I played a game of Scabble with Veva and scored 36 points by placing the word "SEEN" on the board.

Now, every letter in "SEEN" is worth 1 point, making it very difficult to get to 36 points. But I attached "SEEN" to a word on the board (of course!) and I got my 36 points by using a total of 8 letters, two of which were worth 3 points and the other 5 were worth 1 point each.

Still not a whole lot of points to work from.

So how was I able to get to 36 points? I will post the answer next week.

Programmers are highly skilled logicians, masquerading as worker bees.

Programmers are craftsmen and craftswomen, masquerading as highly skilled logicians.

Programers are artists, masquerading as craftsmen and craftswomen.

Programmers are worker bees, masquerading as artists.

Very few programmers are artists.

For the past several years, I have given my Coding Therapy talk to Oracle technologists, offering insights through:

• Dream therapy
• Shock therapy
• Game therapy
• Couples therapy

It is, of course, entirely tongue-in-cheek, but also (I hope) helpful to programmers, in giving them a different perspective on some of the challenges they face in their work.

These talks have usually been very well-received, which inspired then-Quest Software to bring me out to Hollywood (well, Aliso Viejo, anyway) to shoot a series of videos in which I impersonate a therapist and provide coding therapy to a programmer in need.

Here I am, deep in my therapist role:



Very convincing, right?

But then Dell bought Quest Software and I worried: would they still release the videos?

Of course, they would, and they did, starting today!

The therapy sessions will be released on Facebook over the next month. Check out the first one here.

And if you share this video on Facebook, you will be entered automatically in a raffle to win a thoroughly delightful Toad t-shirt.

This past Sunday, the Chicago Tribune featured a lengthy article (access restricted, so I reproduce some of the article below) about the success of McDonald's Dollar Menu.

Recently McDonald's had seen a slide in sales after many years of steady growth. "Critics" (unnamed) seem to feel that the problem is not enough "new products" in 2012.

As a result, there has been an "acceleration of testing" of new products - and MickyD's is about to get seriously experimental.

For the 10th anniversary celebration of its Dollar Menu, McDonald's is going to take a leap into the Great Unknown and add the Hot 'n Spicy McChicken to that menu!

Why did it do this? McDonald's found "a desire for experimentation" among its customers that was "not limited to specific age, gender, socioeconomic status or ethnicity." "There's a growing interest in food with bolder flavor," Neil Golden, chief marketing officer of McDonald's USA, said. "We wanted to make sure we made it easily available to all of our customers. You'll see bolder flavors in a lot of other things we're doing as well."

Oh, this is just too delicious! Let's translate all of that into something eaiser to, ahem, digest:

McDonald's customers - most of them, apparently - are really bored with the usual McDonald's selections. What they'd like, apparently, is food with some more flavor.

Another way to interpret this change in McDonald's customer base might be more simply expressed as: more and more Latinos are eating at McDonald's (or maybe it would be more accurate to say: McDonald's wants more Latinos to eat at its "restaurants").

You can't deny the demographics. The burgeoning Latino population in the U.S. threatens to make the GOP an irrelevancy (at least when all the very old, very wealthy, very white incumbents "move on" to a far better life - for everyone else). But those same Latinos also eat. And, let's face facts, "they" like spicy food.


From McDonald's doubles down on Dollar Menu

Leading up to the initial sales decline in October, critics say, McDonald's did not have enough new products in 2012. With a number of new items in the wings for 2013, such as a McWrap sandwich, and other items in test, such as chicken wings, the current Dollar Menu focus likely gives the chain some breathing room.

"You have to have some compelling products in the pipeline to get people to the restaurants," Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottovy said, adding that there need to be some higher-margin impulse items that can easily be added on to meals otherwise based on the Dollar Menu. "You have to have a compelling lineup of those types of products as well."

Golden said there's been "an acceleration of testing" of new products in recent months for the entire menu, and also for dollar-priced items. McDonald's started with the Dollar Menu because it appeals particularly to its most loyal customers, who he said "love the McDouble and the McChicken" but were simultaneously wondering, "Is there something that would make me want to come more often?"
In December, McDonald's moved its limited-time grilled onion cheddar burger to the Dollar Menu and credited the burger's popularity with better-than expected sales. The product will remain in stores until early June.

This month, as part of a Dollar Menu 10th anniversary celebration, the chain will promote a Hot 'n Spicy McChicken sandwich as a limited-time offer for $1. also tested a burger called the McCruncher for the Dollar Menu; it features white cheddar, crunchy onions and a chipotle ranch sauce.

McDonald's chose the spicy sandwich because the chain found "a desire for experimentation" among its customers that was "not limited to specific age, gender, socioeconomic status or ethnicity."
"There's a growing interest in food with bolder flavor," Golden said. "We wanted to make sure we made it easily available to all of our customers. You'll see bolder flavors in a lot of other things we're doing as well."

Industry experts have backed McDonald's strategy. "By focusing on the dollar menu, it is helping them drive traffic back into the restaurants," analyst Hottovy said of McDonald's fourth-quarter same-store sales, which just beat his expectation of flat performance.

I don't follow sports much, but I enjoy looking through the sports section of the newspaper now and then. There's usually something outrageous or outrageously entertaining in there somewhere.

This past Sunday, the Chicago Tribune had (of course) another article addressing the question "When will Derrick Rose return to the Bulls?"

Shortly after signing a 5-year extension to his contract worth (no, this is not a typo) $95 million, he tore his ACL - requiring surgery and extensive rehab.

Now he has been cleared to play full court practice and "everyone" wonders: when will he play again?

Anyway, the article in the Tribune sported the title:

GM Forman: No rift with Rose's camp

and went on to say:

Bulls general manager Gar Forman reiterated Saturday there is no communication rift between Derrick Rose's camp and the organization regarding the return date for the All-Star guard from his left knee injury.
"We talk all the time -- high-level communication," Forman told the Tribune on Saturday before scouting the DePaul-Pittsburgh game at Allstate Arena.

I love this! Derrick Rose has a camp! And when the General Manager of the team that is paying this guy $20M a year to (right now) sit on his butt wants to talk, well, you know it's gonna be a high-level communication!

Oh, yeah. High level. Right up there. In the camp. Now the only question is how "high level" can the GM go? Who in Rose's camp has the awesome responsibility to communicate with the GM>

Is it the Media Spokesman? The Social Media Manager? The Wife? The Agent? The personal trainer? The personal physician?

Or - wait, could it be....Derrick Rose himself?

I wish I had a camp. 

I have just returned from a week in Prague (first time visiting there during the winter) and then Brno (first time visiting ever, second largest city in the Czech Republic).

It was nice to see Prague covered in snow - that gave me a reason to take pictures of many of the sights I'd photographed earlier - now they looked completely different, with new shadows, geometries and patterns.

You can check out my latest Prague photos here, while the Brno shots (mostly taken at night, after my course was over, when I walked up to Spilberk Castle) can be seen here.