So says Donnie Garvich
Rants
Wanna hear me go off?
If we can’t fix pollution, we should make it worse!
1Today I came across an article on CNN where Kofi Annan presented a proposal to the U.N. Climate Change Conference that indicates a possible solution to global warming is to create more polution in the air, thereby creating a sort of “shade” around the planet which would filter the sun’s rays.
I’ve seen the idea referred to as the “global haze proposal.”
To be sure the article doesn’t escape (CNN has a habit of moving their articles after a while) I’ll include the full, quoted text here:
SQL Management Studio… How NOT to save in Unicode format
165 years ago
A project I work on requires that we developers edit stored procedures and store the resulting script in a text file that we put in our source control tool. In our case, we use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio to do the aforementioned editing and we use CA’s Harvest Change Manager as the corporate mandated code repository and source control tool.
Now if you were using another tool, Notepad or Query Analalyzer, for instance, you probably wouldn’t have the problem I’m going to outline. As a matter of fact, the problem I’m going to outline is probably pretty rare. But it exists and I found a solution, so I’m going to write about it.
As it turns out, whenever you “Save As” in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio the default encoding for the file is Unicode – Codepage 1200. Yes, this is a new approach to saving your beloved stored procedures and no, it wasn’t done that way in the past. Further, I can’t find any notification that the “standard default” was going to be changing.
Anyway, Harvest doesn’t like Unicode files. So when you go to add the file to your Harvest project it won’t let you. Oh, the humanity! ANSI for everyone!
Now I may be in the minority here, but I originally failed to notice that on the “Save File As” dialog there is a small arrow on the right side of the [Save] button. Once I noticed it, I clicked it… Then I clicked “Save with encoding…” Now I’m happy again! Kind of…
The good thing is that this will let you save your file in whatever encoding you want. The caveat is that it will let you save your file in whatever encoding you want.
So how is the default set? I’ll leave that for another article… Mostly because I don’t know yet.
Update (04.11.2008): Thanks to Chris May for the following step by step instructions on how to overcome this issue (edited for formatting, the original version is comment #8):
I have found some information about this.
Though it is possible at the time a script is saved to change the encoding to ascii it is tedious. Here is the process.
- Choose File\Save
- Choose the name and folder to save the file then look really closely at the right edge of the “Save” button for a tiny arrow
- Click that tiny Arrow and choose “Save with Encoding”
- From the Drop list select the encoding you want (the default encoding is “Unicode – Codepage 1200″, which means “UTF-16″). I have been using “US-ASCII – Codepage 20127″
- Hit OK and Save. Your files should now work just fine with Perforce, CVS, etc.
Additionally, Chris has voiced his feedback to the SQL team, I encourage everyone to go have a look and hopefully we can get a solution sooner rather than later… although the outlook is bleak.
Reconstructing Viruses… Haven’t you guys seen movies?
0So not too long ago I came across this article on the New York Times’ site. It started off as an interesting read and eventually evolved into what I would consider borderline panic that the world was about to end. OK, so I knew the world wasn’t going to end, but still… Go read the article. I’ll wait here with my opinions on hold until you’re done.
…
So now that you’ve read it you’ll agree that: A) Anyone with enough nerdness to reconstruct a virus extracted from DNA has seen many, if not all, science fiction movies and; B) They didn’t learn a thing from these movies.
So how, on Earth, does someone consider it progressive science to reintroduce viruses, possibly some which culled the population to nearly nothing, into society? With our immune system dependencies on medicine do we really think it’s a good idea to just start introducing old viruses all willy nilly?
I mean… Aren’t there enough new viruses for you guys to work on?
MMORPG… The evil video game genre?
0Recently I came across a blogger’s post of a painting meant to depict, from the blogger’s comments, a World of Warcraft player in 30 years. The original post was really nothing more than a link to a painting and some very brief, seemingly tongue in cheek commentary.
The most interesting thing about the post, however, is that once it hit Digg comments began to flood in. The comments, mostly anonymous, formed up to draw a distinct line between people who played World of Warcraft and people who didn’t. After reading through these comments you almost felt as if you had been involved in a debate between two opposing factions.
Now obviously, the artist who created this painting wanted it to stir emotions and intended for discussion to be prompted surrounding their work. However, it strikes me as odd that there have been such lines drawn around World of Warcraft and, more broadly, around the MMORPG genre of games.
Why is it that this genre is seen as the ultimate evil of gaming?
Why is it that with all of the game formats available to be criticized, all carrying their own group of addicts, the MMORPG is seen as the one genre which is the monster?
More importantly, why do so many people who are obviously not involved with the games in any way feel such a strong desire to “save” those who enjoy playing them? I mean, obviously the people who are playing the games aren’t somehow being forced to play them. By their very definition, a game is meant to be a fun event… a hobby… a break from the daily grind. So why is it that people, going about their business enjoying theire hobby, have become such a target for “saving” that those not involved in their hobby feel the need to use the strongest possible motivating factor available to them to attempt to stop these gamers from playing their games?
I figured I would offer a little editorial content here on Finalint to try and provide a little perspective on this issue. Namely my perspective…