See the post on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/provisionalidea.bsky.social/post/3lhujtm2qkc2i
According to many comments, the US government DOES use SQL, and Musk is not understanding much what’s going on.
You must log in or register to comment.
Maybe Musk needs to learn about data normalization and natural keys.
I’m curious what the actual data looks like. I’ve spent quite a bit of time auditing large data systems.
I would expect these databases to be largely denormalized with very wide tables, I would expect them to favour natural keys like a SSNs, and built around per department use cases.
I would not expect them to be highly normalized because then when you need something from another department you need them to ensure consistency.
These systems probably have like 50 years of legacy code or more in them too.
I’m curious what the actual data looks like.
I’m sure it will be available for purchase shortly.
Is retard a bait/dog whistle word?
Used by the guy who did two Nazi salutes at the inauguration? It absolutely is
When Elon was in his early teens, that word was a common pejorative.
If you look at Elon and interpret his behavior as if he was 13, it all makes a lot more sense.
So his emotional growth was literally, uh… well… you know…
Held back by his environment.
deleted by creator
DROP TABLE Musk
See the post on BlueSky
No thanks, that alone says you’re not going to get an honest unbiased discussion. Also when your evidence is “according to many comments” from a app filled with people that hate Musk with all their being as if it’s their entire identity, it’s not good evidence.
Being a developer who has done work for many governments in my country, you cannot just say “the government DOES use SQL” because they have many, many, MANY different systems that have all been built in different technologies over different decades by different people with different design philosophies and preferences. Will there be ones that use SQL? Absolutely. Will there be ones that don’t? Absolutely.
Elon’s shock and fury about the database key sounds like he got a report from an out-of-breath 20 year old DOGE kid who thinks they’re hot shit and discovered some massive flaw.
Elon also seems like the kind of person that believes a database schema is all that’s needed to govern a population.
He’s mad because it isn’t blockchain
Goddammit, now you’re giving him ideas.
He already wants to replace everything in the US with Blockchain and Crypto scam shit doesn’t he?
Did you want to trust a central authority for your Social Security? It’ll get censored! /s
2027 Bingo Card: US adopts BTC as reserve currency, replaces USD, both crash.
It’s not impossible. There are a lot of crypto grifters who have been prepping to scam the American government.
BTC? No way, that’s way too sane. It’s going to be DOGE.
Nah it’ll be Trump Coin. Gotta own the grift from the top down
Pretty sure that was already something they announced that they’d do.
I wouldn’t be giving him any ideas unless I founded a company and he bought his way in
Database schema = “Not fraudulant”, what’s so hard about that? Login credentials don’t even need to be encrypted if you say no fraud before you log in, and cross your fingers. It’s basic programming knowledge, come on man. Also throw some salt over shoulder and slaughter a goat for good measure just in case.
Login? Why would I do that? Aren’t the credentials in the code? I just hit the go button.
In plain text I assume right? You’re not crazy…
If they weren’t in plain text how could we check to make sure it’s still there?
Login credentials don’t even need to be encrypted if you say no fraud before you log in, and cross your fingers
Don’t forget to unset the evil bit as well!
You just describe half of my career. 😅
You joke, but one of the programs at my work we use legit doesn’t need credentials, just a username. That one’s a head scratcher to me.
Would that almost be OK if it were like 40 characters long? Like, you can view any photo on Google Photos if you have the right alphanumeric string
Would still be saved insecurely in password managers and other issues though
He is the embodiment of big-money trolling in politics, right?
Musk doesn’t understand database design (or the existence of
PRIMARY KEY ()), surprise.Maybe it’s all just one big .xlsm file?
Holy mother of visual basic
*visual basic for applications
being corrected by a nsfw acc was not on my lemmy bingo list lol
I like boobs and I came in contact with way too many horrible languages ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh god, like Hungarian?
More like php, VBA or Scala. I know, many like Scala, but… Nah.
I could see it all being a big vendor specific XML file with XSLT for the application layer
Using pivot tables.
Nah, that’s too fancy. It’s all held together by some arcane Visual Basic macro someone wrote 25 years ago right before going to retirement and no one has dared to touch it ever since.
Qbasic, if that.
Biden is a blue dog and never cared about infrastructure. Trump cant spell the word. Obama did, but for overpriced drones and oil. Bush only did for oil and deregulated to make things worse. Clinton cut thing Bush Sr cut things. Reagan fucked everything up with “trickle down”
Meaning the last president that did major infrastructure spending is at best Carter, Ford or Nixon.
I laughed but really I know when the last good database and systems people left government to be replaced by contractors. It was Bush’s first term. Since then everything has been just putting a new front end on the back end government programmers created in the 1990’s.
Glad you laughed, wasnt entirely serious
I don’t think we can be. We’d be paralyzed if we tried to be wholly serious.
with vlookups across multiple sheets to get around row limitations, that’s just common sense in MyExcelDB
😅
That’s weird, I thought I used SQL databases from government agencies regularly. Guess I was mistaken.
The US government basically ONLY uses SQL…
removed by mod
If you and Elon disagree about something, just assume he’s wrong about it. If you both agree on something, THEN you might be mistaken.
If it’s tech he doesn’t know shit about it, I learned that years ago during the Twitter acquisition days
He sounds like a CEO who “knows enough to fuck shit up, not enough to know how to fix it, but thinks they do” AKA the worst executive known to IT
Remember when he said he knows more about engineering than anyone else on the planet?
How about the submarine he was going to build to save kids in a cave that obviously would have drowned long before he could have even really started work? But it’s okay, he could just accuse the guy who actually saved their lives of being a pedo
And if it isn’t tech he knows even less about it.
Indeed. I’m starting to think I can’t trust what that Musk guy says.
Hey you’re looking for a new truck aren’t ya? Well do we have a deal for you!
This guy Elons
That’s phrased brilliantly, and capturey my own perception of Musk
this really needs more circulation because too goddamn many people still believe his PR
I hope the screenshot dude is also going to stop this unquestioning belief in the things people say or claim without evidence.
Those first two paragraphs look like a tendency to prefer hero-worship to critical thought; that seems to be a fairly widespread problem in humans from long before this latest batch of demagogues.
There’s also a hint of “I’m not an ‘expert’ in it so I can’t (be bothered) to understand anything about it” also a very depressingly common attitude.
We all have to rely on somebody to be an expert in fields outside our own. Years ago, if Elon said “Falcon 9 launch yesterday failed due to xyz”, I assumed he had the actual experts giving him notes. The Xhitter debacle showed how much he doesn’t listen to those people.
I just dont get why you have to assume that though?
Maybe I’m a pessimist, but I’ve met and worked with enough humans that I think the best assumtion is that they’re all full of shit until they prove otherwise.
It’s fine to rely on experts for some things, but if those experts aren’t subject to independent scrutiny or directly independent of the claim or sunjecy under test, or can’t give clear testable /replicable evidence, I’d just not put much weight on their testimony as a source of evidence.
I don’t believe you
Cool! I wish there were, and hope there will be, more like you.
It’s kind of funny, but we all do this to some extent. I used to think most people on Reddit were super smart. If someone says stuff with authority, then it’s easy to believe what they’re saying and assume they know what they’re talking about.
But then every once in a while, I’d come across a topic that I know deeply about - and the comment would just be blatantly wrong, but still have tons of up votes. It really made me start second guessing all the other comments I had read and thought were smart, but it’s an easy trap to fall into.
I guess what I’m really saying, is that you all are a bunch of morons, probably.
Confirmed, am moron.
You say that with confidence so I’m going to trust you on that 100%.
i agree but would like to add that it’s generally good practice to stay away from rockets
Even red ones?
ESPECIALLY red ones.
They go faster.
Yeah. If you ever fly a rocket, you want to fly low and slow to be safe.
Thank you. I was trying to find this earlier today.
That man will be doing to same thing to important shit right now.
If SSN based fraud is the program then let’s establish an actual federal identification number. Even the Social Services bureau tried to get everyone to not use it as the end all source of truth. They only created it for social security benefits, literally only that purpose.
He definitely doesn’t know what deduplicated means…
Elon is basically what a dumb kid thinks smart people sound like
Replace “dumb kid” with half dozen of my boomer relatives, and you’re spot-on.
and the dumb kids, unfortunately. I did a spot with some non-US teenagers, in a class recently. The topic was “name a person you admire and why”. Guess whose filthy name came up…
