Re: sql views for denomalizing

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 07:31:40 GMT, Jonathan Leffler <jleffler_at_earthlink.net> wrote:

[snip]

>This reminds me of an Asimov (or was it A C Clarke) short story where
>the people on the stranded space ship of the future discover that 2 + 2
>= 4 every time, and maybe they don't need the computers that aren't
>working to get themselve unstranded...
>
>There again, maybe that's slightly too big a tangential leap.

     I believe you are conflating two stories.

SPOILER ALERT! (uh-ooguh and all that) SPOILER ALERT!

     One is an Asimov story of the future where wars are fought by computer. Arithmetic is rediscovered.

     The other I do not know the author of (Clarke being a good guess), but it was where a spaceship's computer got fried. One of the crew had some expertise with abacuses and they ended up working out calculation relays -- similar to what was done during WWII -- to figure a rough course to get them back in communication.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko Received on Fri Aug 12 2005 - 19:52:29 CEST