Archive for September, 2010
And now for something completely different
The always excellent Cricinfo is in the process of bringing to an end it’s All Time XI series of articles by selecting an All Time World XI from the world teams previously selected. You can read all about it here . You can also choose your own – if you are at all interested in Cricket as well as the Oracle database give it a go. Anyway here’s mine:
Gordon Greenidge
Greenidge – especially in conjunction with Desmond Haynes could and did destroy world class attacks seemingly at will. Much is said about the pace attack of the West Indies at the time, the fact is that without Greenidge and Haynes this wouldn’t have been enough. Allied to this the fact that he went to school just up the road from where I now live means he was a shoe in for me.
Sir Jack Hobbs
61,000 first class runs, 199 first class centuries, a test century at 46. I never saw him play as he was dead before I was born and I regret this – something that is not typically true of cricketers from before my time (though this is also true for Bradman).
Sachin Tendulkar
The Little Master, the man whom an entire sub-continent including bitter enemies measures greatness by, the man who has spent a year and a half of his life playing one-day international cricket and the greatest living test Batsman so far as I’m concerned.
Sir Donald Bradman
I’m tempted to write nothing about the Don. Even the genius of Tendulkar is eclipsed by the boy from Bowral. He won’t be out of anyone’s all time XI.
Sir Viv Richards
If all is going well, Greenidge has taken apart the opposition attack at the top of the Order, Hobbs and Tendulkar have well deserved hundreds and Bradman is set fair to bat to the end of the only innings this side will need. What’s needed next is fire and brimstone to obliterate all hope of an honourable draw. Viv Richards will provide that, you know that he will, with arrogance, bravery and impossible talent.
Adam Gilchrist
Probably the only choice that caused me real concern, Gilchrist was not as talented or technical a keeper as others on the short list – I’d have chosen Alan Knott if that were the criteria – but as with Viv you knew that you could rely on Adam to finish off a bowling attack of whatever quality. Plus you never know a T20 series might be required in which case he could take Hobb’s place at the top of the order with nary a backward glance.
Curtly Ambrose
So, we’ve 750 on the board and 2.5 days left to go. Time to rub the noses of the opposition into the dust. England knew well the pain Ambrose could and repeatedly did inflict on them, especially in the Caribbean, but his place is sealed by the taking of seven Australian wickets for 1 run (yes 1 run) at the WACA. Curtly don’t need to speak to no man – his talent does.
Malcolm Marshall
Malcolm ought to be here today, though what he’d think of the state of West Indian cricket I hesitate to think. Smaller than Ambrose – but who wasn’t – he was intelligent, express and absolutely lethal. He destroyed my heroes growing up and I’m enriched by the experience of seeing him do so.
Dennis Lillee
In the eighties pretty much all sides were pleased to see off the West Indian pace attack – I’m not so sure that seeing Lillee step up first change would be quite so satisfying. The most technically complete, one of the fastest of all time and quite frankly one of the scariest figures ever to charge in Lillee would open the bowling in any other side. A shoe in.
Fred Trueman
If a player could be selected just on attitude Fred Trueman would be that man. Arrogant, rude and opinionated. Unfortunately his arrogance was justified, his opinions were mostly right and his rudeness often hilarious. And the little matter of 300 wickets at 21. I’m not sure I’d like to manage him, I’m damn sure I want him on my side and not the opposition.
Shane Warne
At last the quicks are over – surely we can at least grab some relief against the spinner. Well not this one. He spun the ball ridiculously, he barracked the opposition mercilessly, he bowled out of his skin seemingly at will. Oh and he very nearly took the 2005 Ashes back home single handed. The second name on the team sheet after Bradman.
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Salary Survey Weirdness
Well now here’s an odd thing. In an otherwise frankly insulting article supposedly about visa fraud our old friend Don Burleson refers to Oracle Corporations salary survey for Oracle professionals which apparently shows US DBAs earning $97k on average whilst DBA staff in the rest of the world were close to about half of that salary. In a global economy this seems more than a little unlikely. However there are some pretty good reasons to take the salary survey with more than a little salt. As any graduate of a mathematical discipline (including computer science and the like) ought to know drawing statistical conclusions from survey data is notoriously difficult since the sample sizes tend to be small and the population non random. In this case as well it’s a cause for some concern that the source of the survey is a company looking to promote its own training.
In this case Oracle don’t publish the raw survey data – which is a shame – and they quote different figures for the responses to the survey which isn’t encouraging. On the front page we see
The survey was open to all Oracle Certified Associates (OCA), Professionals (OCPs), Masters (OCMs) and Experts (OCEs) worldwide as well as those not currently certified. This salary survey features data compiled from 2,655 respondents in more than 60 countries.
Whereas on the salary by region page we see
We had respondents from over 95 countries worldwide
This immediately suggests to us that the sample size could be quite small for a number of nations (on average taking the smaller number that’s 44 respondents per country, taking the figure of 95 its 27). It is of course likely that the figures for the US, UK, India, Germany,Japan etc may be quite large with other countries poorly represented. because Oracle don’t publish the data set we don’t know.
In addition there are some quite interesting breakdowns on the Oracle Website. In EMEA for example just 31% of respondents work for companies that employ more than 5,000 people, in the US that figure is over 50%. It’s not unreasonable to suppose that candidates who work at larger organisations with more employees, more databases and more money likely earn larger salaries than those who work at smaller ones.
Similarly there’s an oddity in the EMEA figures regarding experience where we are expected to believe that on starting out (0-2 years) an administrator can expect a salary of $43k, but after that first job move, obtaining certifications and showing their aptitude (3-4 years) the salary average drops to just $34k.
These sorts of oddities make me rather suspicious of the pretty graphs on the Oracle education site, but probably the killer for me is the fact that (like other governments around the world) the US Govt maintains statistics on employment. You can find these at http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#15-0000 where we have a nice category for Database Administrators and an estimated mean salary of $75k. The breakdown of these figures is almost certainly publicly available.