Quickly: James Terwilliger and Rafael J. Fernández-Moctezuma gave a fantastic talk about relational algebra operators (there are 9, arguably 8). They started with the set theory origins, dropped Codd’s name a few times and captivated the room. There was also mention of proof by intimidation, brandishing of duct tape, fabulous drinks mixed by Gabrielle Roth, and twenty-one people in attendance.
Before the talk, we had an impromptu “What is HOT?” (HOT stands for Heap-ONLY Tuple) from Jeff Davis. More details on that later. I think we need more 15-minute, what-is-this-new-feature-and-why-is-it-awesome talks.
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This sounds quite interesting — I’m teaching an intro to DB class right now for graduate students and I’d love to give them a video of it. If you have a video, could you e-mail me a link to it?
Sorry, we don’t have a video. I’ve been meaning to make podcasts. I’ll definitely do that for the next meeting.