SQL Server T-SQL Schema Introspection

O'Reilly's "SQL Cookbook" by Anthony Molinaro is awesome, and chapter 5 "Metadata Queries" is very helpful.

A complete list of the metadata table columns for SQL Server are found at "SQL Server Schema Collections" at msdn.microsoft.com.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms254969(loband).aspx

Here is another location, purportably of the same info, but I found differences, so wise to consult both - "Schema Rowsets":

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms712921(VS.85).aspx

Gah! Sexy leaves me cold, Slutty every time!

Modern culture defines what "sexy" and "slutty" mean, and we have to deal with those definitions. I have no desire to put any label on anyone, so I will work backwards from what the definition of the words means to me.

Image by publik16 via Flickr

When modern culture says "sexy", what they seem to really mean is "objectified, ice-cold, obtuse, humorless, and creepily adolescent".
I prefer Women over Girls, maybe because I reject all those things. There is a whole realm of experience only available to people to have earned some maturity.
The sense of Fun and Self-Assurance are why I prefer "slutty".

A Quick Peck at Disneyland

How to turn a day at Disneyland into a gut-wrencher: being hilariously inexperienced and having romantic expectations thrust upon you.

Image via Wikipedia

More awkward than romantic. So it is a perfect match for me, because, as a human, I am more awkward than romantic. We, the girl and I, were the less sexually advanced friends of a pair that hooked up and got hot and heavy during a visit to Disneyland. So, whatever is the opposite of hot and heavy, that was us, the girl and I. I remember holding hands, and often needing to switch sides, because of clamminess and sweatiness of our palms. We suffered the agony of being with a pair deep kissing and heavy petting, while scared out of our minds, not entirely turned on by each other, and having no clue what to talk about, or even where to look. It ended as a quick peck at the gate of the park as we were leaving. She aimed for my lips, I aimed for her cheek, because I am a gentleman or a terrified little boy, whichever sounds better. I apologized, pulled back, and planted a quick dry one on her lips.

Image via Wikipedia

Aww, it is so innocent you could just puke.

My bucket list starts with: Sleep

Sleep I am pretty sure I will live past 11pm, so I gotta get some sleep.

Eat French Food I cannot contemplate dying without more French food touching my lips.

Eat Japanese Food Need raw fish!

View Duchamp's "Étant donnés" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art If art did not exist, Duchamp would have invented it.

Shower After all of this, I better shower. If I go past 48 hours, I get really musky stinky.

Whoa! Prius is good, but not the final answer for living Green!

Image via Wikipedia

The Prius is not the final word in living a fulfilled life, while consuming the fewest non-renewable resources.
Please, before you consider a Prius, try these options on for size, to see if they fit into your lifestyle: (1) Living without a car at all (2) Driving the smallest fuel efficient conventional gas car possible (3) reducing the amount you drive to the fewest miles per week possible. The Prius is a fine car, but we still don't know the full lifecycle costs of recycling/disposing of the car's electrical battery. And the Prius is a more complicated and expensive car. If the point is to live a fulfilled life, while consuming the fewest non-renewable resources, there are less high-tech ways to proceed.

Dumping someone like a FatFink: Two days before Valentine's Day, I am ashamed to say...

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Yeah, I once delivered the bad news two days before Valentine's Day. Not one of my classier moves.

For myself, I was usually dumped by having my phone messages ignored.

Animated Thumbtack Railroad Dollhouse & All-Around Surprise Book (Evening Edition) by Louis Phillips and Lynn Braswell

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This is a very silly children's book, hilarious to anyone who loves absurd humor.

Golden years in Tokyo, eating Sushi!

Very fine food. I really love seafood, and Japanese food in particular. I cannot say I will particularly enjoy the hustle and bustle of the big city, so I will probably spend my days inside my house (with paper walls) surrounded by a

Image via Wikipedia

zen garden.

My song about Space Mountain, my favorite place (apart from the arcade next door)

Who among us doesn't love space travel in a flume log, with silver and blue paint? Let's sing about mankind's favorite indoor roller-coaster, Space Mountain!

(verse 1) Feel the rumble in our seats,
70's cheese sci-fi sound effects "bloops" and "beeps",
I hear the the clacking of the anti-rollback device,
The warmth of the over-the-shoulder restraint feels very nice.
(chorus)
Space Hill, Space Mound, we're swerving again,
Roll me and Coast me, Space Mountain
(verse 2)
I drop my Goofy Gum Drops upon the tracks,
Millions of riders that barfed up their snacks,
I can't see my hand in front of my face,
If you hear preteens screaming, you must be in Space!
(shredding guitar, leading to bridge)
(chorus)
Space Hill, Space Mound, we're swerving again,
Roll me and Coast me, Space Mountain

Why historically based valuation can lead to taxpayer looting

Comment to Arnold Kling's Econlog "William Isaac is Wrong on Market Value Accounting":

[ Kling referrs to George Akerlof and Paul Romer paper "Looting", and links to this New York Times writeup ]

Kling:

> Historical-value accounting was an invitation to bankers to loot.

Grant:

> OK, why? You can obviously have any sort of value accounting scheme without the looting of taxpayers.

If I understand, it is because with historical-value accounting, players make absolutely no claim about future returns, and so the players can take on all kinds of business that no one can defend as being sustainable, as that business grows and grows and grows.

The usual analogy is jumping off of a 50 story building.  When you reach floor 20, you have 30 stories, historically, of fine results.  But nobody could defend your continued descent as sustainable.

The politically enabled players take on all kinds of business, for short-term gain, then walk away before the inevitable crash, for the taxpayers to pay far, far above the total sum of the payday of the players.

If the players have to defend a future value to the marketplace, they have _some_ responsibility to demonstrate sustainability, as they take on more and more and more business.

What leads to looting of taxpayers is: (1) not having to defend *any* reasonable story about future returns (2) politically enabled players taking a short term payday on a huge amount of unsustainable business (3) with the players knowing somebody else will pay for the ultimate massive shortfall, a shortfall much more massive than the monies actually looted.

[ Additional comment ]

> Right, but make banks defend this to investors, not regulators. So if we should make Mark to market a requirement for banks to disclose to investors looking to put in capital, but not for capital requirement ratios.

Mark-to-market requirements can have different objectives.  If one of the objectives is preventing the looting of taxpayers, then we are most definitely talking about capital requirement ratios.

Because, as we are currently experiencing, the buck stops with the taxpayer.  Investors in banks have no ultimate responsibility to pay for all bank shortfalls; the worst that can happen is the complete devaluation of their investment, which in this case is small compared to the loss.