Re: relational reasoning -- why two tables and not one?

paul c wrote:
> ...
> Besides spreading it, it's also human to fall for mysticism. Western
> citizens mostly accept the term "freedom of information act" literally
> when the typical application involves secret databases and with-holding,
> not freedom. The list of such terms is nearly endless and much of
> society is inured to the distortions. ...

Regarding information suppression, before the 1970's, voter lists were posted on lamp-posts and civic property-owner rolls were public. Now they are secret, making it very hard to identify the landlord of the obnoxious property next door. Ironically, the suppression is often out-sourced to private companies, which have no public accountability. Occasionally somebody is arrested for obtaining a million credit card numbers from a private bank's cardholder database. From recent news, it seems police forces put great effort into arresting people based on photos they have stored on their computers, usually they are said to involve paedophilia, once in a while they involve bomb-making techniques but the public can't know for sure since the images 'must' be suppressed. There is less publicity about how many perpetrators of the acts pictured are arrested, so I assume that means fewer. Justice administration has become heavily computerized seemingly at the same rate as the time to trial has increased to four or five years, even for crimes as serious as murder. No large property development can function anymore without private police. About twenty years ago the leader of the militant postal clerks union justified higher wages based on skill but when questioned the only one he could come up with was the ability to make change. I laughed at the time, but I don't laugh now while waiting for the counter-person to check and double-check the register's display. It seems to me that the proper, dare I say humanistic, application of computers is progressing at an even slower rate than the advance of db theory! Received on Fri Oct 16 2009 - 01:55:50 CEST