The problem with relational databases, as in life, is that relationships can be complicated. One to one, many to one, one to many…There are many different ways to structure data and the relationship between data. Most of the time, this structure reflects a version if reality pretty well…The problem comes Read more…
What degree of confidence can you have in any information? Information can go wrong at just about any moment, and incorrect information has a really long half life… It is amazing how long incorrect information can survive. It can last for centuries especially if it gets tied into beliefs in Read more…
Writing this on May 4th, I feel compelled to say that Rise of the Meta is not the title of an episode the Star Wars series as far as I know. There are many industries that are purely information based. In some ways these are meta industries. Industries that are Read more…
The information related to income tax collection is kind of fascinating. It is so precise and formal on one hand, and amazingly arbitrary on other hand. Yet somehow, it is all presented like there is some grand design behind it all. In many respects, the tax code is an example Read more…
Maybe it is because you can’t know every thing in advance of when you need to know it, but it feels like most of our systems are workarounds. At almost all levels, systems seem just a little inadequate for the job. Maybe the Peter Principle applies to information systems as Read more…
While I am pretty confident that the old saying that two wrongs don’t make a right is correct, but I am also pretty sure that two rights can definitely make a wrong. I guess this all goes back to the one data truth issue, but there is more than one Read more…
Some say we are still at the beginning of the digital era, but the reality is that we are really at the end of this era, if it can really be called an era. The idea of becoming digital is more an act of a translation than transformation. It is Read more…
Forms, forms and more forms. Truly, they are a form of delusion. The answer to everything seems to be to create a form that captures the needed information. Forms are a great place to hide text and clauses that people probably won’t read. You can probably get them to sign Read more…
There really is a lot of loss in the conversion from analog to digital, and I am not someone that is particularly attached to vinyl records. Digital always forces you into choices. There can still be a lot of choices in a digital world, but it still requires you to Read more…
The demands of the information age have created an ever increasing level of detail. Some people really enjoy the details. Other people hate it. The level of detail needed to manage everything has increased exponentially. Unfortunately, this ever increasing level of detail does need to be managed. Databases give you Read more…