« PHP | Main | Web Site Design »
November 25, 2002
Holidays
It's been many months since my last update; I know you're all shocked :P. A great deal of time and energy was spent in redesigning and restructuring the UH Hilo web site. I am relatively pleased with the outcome. I'm slowly enhancing more and more of it with PHP and MySQL.
I've also had an "opportunity" to help out with some 8.x PL/SQL programming (which is Oracle). I must say that despite one or two features, Oracle seems to suck compared to MySQL. Granted, this is coming from the perspective of a very small web design+DBA office, but I was just appalled at some of the features missing in Oracle. I'm beginning to think much of Oracle's power is in the brand name--to borrow a passe adage: "No one was ever fired for buying Oracle." I really feel like I should be wrong on this issue (and maybe Oracle 9i is better), but I just can't shake the feeling that it's really not all that great (for what I do).
I will concede one thing though--MySQL desperately needs to get it's act in gear and add sub-selects and stored procedure support. But hey, for a FREE robust relational database system, I'm willing to cut them a little slack. :)
Anyway, it's on to the holiday season, which according to the malls and advertisers seemed to have started somewhere in mid-July. How anyone can withstand the inanities and barrage of sappy and forced "feel-good" nature of society is beyond me. This is just compounded by the holiday season. I guess that's why people like Ron Popeil can make such an absurd impact on Americans.
This inevitably leads to the realization that endless years of badgering by the capitalistic engine running (ruining!) our country has brainwashed society to such a flock of mindless sheep that we can accept the Orwellian 1984 auspices of the Department of Homeland Security. Sure, there are some who try to open the flock's eyes to a sprinkle of the truth, but either they don't go far enough or we've become too selfish and/or purposefully ignorant to really go anywhere beyond apathy. 9-11 was a temporary reprieve from our complacency and opened our eyes to the fact that some people passionately think we suck, but as the nation "heals", things have just gotten worse. We have turned even more to escapism; the problem is some people just don't know how to do escapism right.
Fortunately, there are a few people who do know how to awaken society from its ills or at least who put things into perspective. May their quest be successful--and soon! Humanity is circling the toilet bowl that the political correctness movement has so graciously flushed for us.
May you enjoy the holidays if that's your cup of tea. I know I'll be spending that time thinking for myself and making my own decisions on how I should run my life. I'll have to take advantage of that freedom while I still have it.
Posted at November 25, 2002 03:32 PM |
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)