I’ve slipped this post in as there have been a number of discussions recently on how execution plans have changed while nothing else appears to have changed in the database. How can an execution plan suddenly change when no one has made any changes to the database ?
 
By no changes, it means that there have been no alterations to any segments, no new indexes have been added, no changes associated  bind peeking (indeed, there may not even be any bind variables), no parameters changes, no new patches or upgrades, no new outlines or profiles, no new system stats and perhaps most prevalent of all, no changes to any CBO statistics.
 
The DBA hasn’t touched a thing and yet suddenly, for no apparent reason, execution plans suddenly change and (say) an inappropriate index is suddenly used and causes performance degradation.
 
How can this be possible ?
 
There are…

Stephen: It’s 5am, after our first full day in Japan. We’re left feeling a bit like Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation at this point, with our body clocks thrown completely out of whack. Sleeping until 2.30pm was probably not our wisest ideas – but the 18 hour journey was pretty gruelling – even for me, who is fairly well accustomed to long haul by now.

We are staying in the famous Shibuya area, and stepping out of the train station to the mass of excited chatter, neon lights, and noise after being on a plane for so long was both a welcome, and overwhelming experience. Despite some serious exhaustion, we wandered out braving the rain and humidity to marvel and take pictures of everything we saw. Now the penchant that Asian tourists seem to have for taking photos of every single minute detail when they travel abroad doesn’t seem…

Earlier today, we woke up to the terrible realisation that the UK had narrowly voted to leave the European Union. This was an outcome that I ultimately expected, but facing the stark reality of the situation has still left me feeling numb, and in shock. Opening my eyes to see ‘Nigel Farage declares independence day’ and ‘British Pound drops to a 31 year low’ on my phone’s lock screen is something I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget; reminiscent of a dystopian nightmare rather than reality.

To make things worse, the dogged, often proud ignorance of those smugly celebrating victory in the immediate aftermath has been staggering. As I write this, I am overlooking the City of Barcelona, and being here only renders the sadness even more palpable, and even harder to believe.

However, this is not a drill. This is the real deal. Like it or not…

I’ve not posted much recently, but I’ve been busy making stuff in the background.

My pal Lee left a bunch of his pedals with me to try out, and in amongst them was a kit to build an octave-up fuzz. I decided to put it together (and discovered how handy a multi-meter is at the same time).

When I realised how straight forward it is, I decided to have a bash at building my own signal splitter pedal as well, to take one input and give three separate outputs at the same volume.

I didn’t want to just leave the enclosures bare aluminium, so started to look into ways of painting them. After reading endless advice online, I decided to just get some spray paint suitable for metal, and use a varnish over the top. I didn’t bother sanding the cases down, as many people suggest – so we will…