(If you’d like to read my other T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective posts, click here.) In August 2010, Jason Brimhall (blog | Twitter) invited us to discuss preparing for vacations: “Write about what you have done to…
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re straight, white, male, and English-speaking. There’s also a high likelihood that you live in the United States. The technology industry seems to be thick with this…
I recently wrote about how I teach, in response to a T-SQL Tuesday post from 2010. This is a continuation of that theme, suggested by my own editor. Thanks, Pete. “Tricks to get your mojo…
To view posts about previous T-SQL Tuesday entries, please use this tag. The late, great, Robert Davis invited us on Independence Day 2010 to write about Gettin’ Schooled: We return to our days of youth…
According to my blog post schedule, this is the final post of the year. It’s nothing more than a coincidence, but making it through the worst year in living memory could also be considered a…
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of…
In 2018 I started a new user group called the Calgary Data User Group, and hosted one session called “The Ethics of Machine Learning.” It was well-attended and its format of a discussion group (as…
Last week I presented on three separate occasions during what is considered the biggest Microsoft Data Platform conference of the year, the PASS Summit: Full-day pre-conference session Speaker Idol panel discussion 75-minute general session On…
In my quest to respond to every T-SQL Tuesday since the dawn of the end of 2009, it was only a matter of time before Rob Farley’s name came up. I first met Rob at…
[Content Warning: this post contains references to subjects that may trigger a trauma response. Read with caution.]
This is not a technical post. I was going to write about how SQL Server stores the sql_variant data type this week, but something more important came up which involves almost 50% of the adult population worldwide, including me1As some of my readers know — especially if you read my article on SQL Server Central at the end of July 2020 — I am nonbinary, and it would be super convenient to hide behind that label when we have to talk about the behaviour of men. But I look like a man, I sound like a man, and I dress like a man. Unless I tell someone otherwise, the general perception is that I’m a man. For all intents and purposes in this discussion I’m including myself, and I’m calling out other men for their behaviour towards women..
It’s hard enough to be a woman online, to exist in the public eye as a woman, to be constantly judged — even rated — according to a manufactured ideal of sex appeal that has no basis in biology or science. Add into that mix a woman who is in a technical field, science, biology, or chemistry, heck, even the arts, and the judgement is increased exponentially. How do I know? Women tell me. Believe women.
Two years ago I wrote a post that got a lot of traction in the comments at the time. Last month there was renewed interest because one of the commenters noted that the official SQL…
For the longest time PASS was known as the Professional Association for SQL Server, and made all of its money from a single event each year, the PASS Summit. If you’ve ever attended a SQLSaturday, you’re…
After being selected to present my full day pre-conference session at the Summit, I am very pleased to announce that I will also be presenting my Database Administration Through the Ages talk that originated at…
A short post this week, to let you know that I’ll be presenting a brand new session to the Edmonton PASS user group (EDMPASS) next Thursday. It will be an online session, and you can…
In 2018, I entered Speaker Idol at the PASS Summit, and because I forgot to start my timer I was disqualified for running over the five-minute limit (say “five-minute limit” fast ten times in a…