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Roger MacNicol

@rogermacnicol.bsky.social
395 followers 87 following 107 posts

Once upon a time, in a land far ago, where Bowie and Jagger still dance in the streets, I knew a lot about databases. Sym42.

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Reposted by Roger MacNicol
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
fun fact: The Treaty of Tripoli, 1796, Signed by Prez John Adams, includes: "As the government of the United States of America is *not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion*, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of [Muslims].." Just saying.
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Two+ years ago I realized that if I lost my job I’d simply retire. I immediately deleted my LinkedIn account and thought good riddance. I interviewed at LinkedIn to work on their world graph many years ago. Nice work environment but I had no interest in their very intrusive project.
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I bought a textbook on Developmental Biology to get a handle on the link between genotype and phenotype in sexual development in mammalian embryos to better understand trans issues
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Nominal Madrid ?
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I saw the first ever Dr Who episode starring the Cybermen (8 Oct 1966). I was so scared I hid behind the sofa.
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Sadly Countess Lovelace rejected me because I never learnt Ada
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Sheer luxury! When I was a wee bairn in high school, I started on a PDP-8 with ALGOL 68 and FORTRAN 4 loaded from 8” floppies. Kids today have no idea ….
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
My final business trip to the Redwood Shores area: revisiting some familiar haunts one last time…
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
The view from one of the many rooftop bars along the Vistula River with amazing views of beautiful Krakow
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
#POUG2026 ‘s amazing Oracles who usher the speakers in
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Thanks!
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
WordPerfect 5.1 was the best word processor I’ve ever used - it just worked, every time, all the time
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Testing the Translator Go app - the translation isn’t perfect but it enables me to read a book in French adequately
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
People say “you could count that on the fingers of one hand” not realizing that is a 5 bit value meaning you can count to 31 on one hand and 1023 on two hands
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Lessons learned: when there’s torrential rain and you’re in an area where 2/3 of restaurant seating is outside, you NEED a reservation when there is rain blocking 2/3 of the seats
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Model of RB20 finished taking pride of place in the bookshelf - just the new rules made this year’s RB22 significantly different #lego #redbullracing
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Reposted by Roger MacNicol
Polish Oracle User Group @pougorg.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
@rogermacnicol.bsky.social + one last encore = storage fireworks! 🎆 "Intelligent storage, a 20 year retrospective" at #POUG2026. Oracle legend, legendary stories, legendary send-off. Don’t miss the final chapter. 💾🔥 Tickets: poug.org/edycja/poug2...
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Our local town meeting, because, sure, those two things are clearly related 🥴
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Have I mentioned how much I hate 6am flights? Leaving the hotel at 3:30am for a 4am check in for international flights. Bleah!
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
💃👙🙀
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
What Steph and I are most confused by is men who pay to follow OnlyFans or Fanvue accounts of fake women. They are probably chatting with a pimply incel is his mother’s basement 😂
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Instagram occasionally offers profiles of beautiful young women. Even three months ago I could tell easily which ones were AI. Now? I’ve been shown two recently that I honestly can’t tell if they are real women or AI because the blemishes and asymmetry of the face are so good. It’s scary.
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Given he was arrested heavily armed it clearly isn’t AI but as to whether it is yet another false flag operation by the GOP, I truly don’t know. The way he immediately leapt on it to justify his illegal and butt-ugly ballroom makes me suspicious 🤷🏼‍♂️
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Old Soviet joke: Brezhnev: The USSR has the world’s most perfect democracy. Reagan: What? On what basis? B: God said so! R: No! Where did he say that? B: Did you not read in Genesis, God created Eve then told Adam “Choose for yourself a wife” 😂
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Except the popes in Avignon sponsored incredible art and some of the most innovative choral music: harmonies that leant of false relations sending a shiver down your spine. When Mar-a-Lago sponsors innovative art as opposed to their fascist monstrosities of arches and ballrooms, I’ll agree with you.
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
The final episode of The Undeclared War about Russian espionage showed a screenful of what GCHQ thought was garbage to fool anti malware. It took me 1 second to say oh that base 64 encoding. Two minutes later the GCHQ expert says base 64 encoding 😂 instantly recognisable as how we print rowids.
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Only in America would you need to specify that the beer tastes like beer 🥴
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Ye jest, but with the way AI is mopping up all RAM supplies and Samsung phones can no longer buy memory from their own Samsung memory, those days may come again.
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
👨‍🦳😉 You can’t easily put the controls on the cup because of liquids so the temp adjustment is via Bluetooth. Steph gave it to me for Xmas because she’d seen me microwave the same mug of tea four times more than once 😂
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
Do you want some coffee? Just a minute, I’m upgrading the firmware in my coffee mug 😂 Yes this conversation happened yesterday ☕️
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
🙈
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
Seriously, who paints their Z4 in camo?
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
I think someone stole my number plate 😉
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
It’s odd, but we don’t typically use the term SARGable in Oracle - it’s an IBM term from the late 70’s. ‘Tis useful though.
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
? Ho does Daarth Tangerine affect UK prices?
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
It’s more scary with an ampersand sudo rm -rf /& I saw this once when someone tried to delete the Prime Information &SPOOL& dir and mistyped the escape character. It died silently halfway through /bin 😈
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
Have you seen the portable laptop monitor extenders? a.co/d/6vMSy5k
a.co
Amazon.com
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Because marzipan to me smells like cyanide so I’ve never been able to eat it
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
Good question - sadly, I can’t find a more recent one for sale
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
😉
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_...
en.wikipedia.org
Andrew Coulter Enright - Wikipedia
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
Not weighted, connecting rods I think
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
University of Puebla - amazing place which was started by a catholic bishop who believed in making information available to the public by donating his 5,000 books in 1646 including 9 incunabulae
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
The original Windows UI circa late 16th century. Keep multiple books open at different pages and rapidly flick between them when studying.
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
Yeah, we lose 70 mins daylight in Sep far more than any other month
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
I learnt today that tacos were invented by the Lebanese when they came to Puebla and wanted to reinvent Schwarma
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Those kinds of lazy, clickbait headlines annoy me and I refuse to click on them
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
<<groan>>
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Roger MacNicol @rogermacnicol.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
I’d love a param to ban inserts that don’t name the columns. As long as all inserts name them, you can reorder columns for performance but that’s lost with unnamed inserts. eg needed when you add a new frequently used column at the end of a wide table
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