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1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, does not cause heart disease.
2. Carbohydrates do, because of their effect on the hormone insulin. The more easily-digestible and refined the carbohydrates and the more fructose they contain, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.
3. Sugars—sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup specifically—are particularly harmful. The glucose in these sugars raises insulin levels; the fructose they contain overloads the liver.
4. Refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are also the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, and the other common chronic diseases of modern times.
5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating and not sedentary behavior.
6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter any more than it causes a child to grow taller.
7. Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry.
8. We get fat because of an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism. More fat is stored in the fat tissue than is mobilized and used for fuel. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this imbalance.
9. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated, we stockpile calories as fat. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and burn it for fuel.
10. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.
11. The fewer carbohydrates we eat, the leaner we will be.

• Get a copy of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. It’s a classic, and gives you the fundamentals you need.
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• Subscribe to Copyblogger and Men With Pens. Heed their writing guidance.
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• When in doubt, look it up.

Writing is a skill that can be taught, refined, and improved. And the written word is still a powerful tool. Learn to wield it well.

My iPhone always seems to jump to voicemail before I answer it. I need to increase the call forward delay. By increasing the delay before the call is transferred to voicemail, I have a better chance of grabbing it. As expected, the caller will hear an increased number of rings before being transferred. Works to decrease also. Google voicemail picks up at 25 seconds.

This requires a little friendly hacking. Call your iphone now from a different line to judge how long it takes to hit voicemail. 

1. dial the following: *#61# 
2. Press the Call button 
3. Write down your voicemail number. It's the number after "Forwards to" 

4. From the keypad dial the following: *61*1VOICEMAILNUMBER*11*30# inserting your voicemail number where VOICEMAILNUMBER is. It should be 11 numbers. 

(For example, if your voicemail number is 16787641111 then your command would be:*61*16787641111*11*30#) 

30 is the length of time in the command above. 20 is the default. 30 is the max. 

5. Press the Call button to send your command

6. You should see the following: 

Setting Activation Succeeded 
Voice Call Forwarding 
When Unanswered 

7. Congrats. You are set! Call your iphone again to see that it now takes longer to hit voicemail. 

If you screw up your phone, don't blame me. Do this at your own risk. If you want to be super safe, you can call AT&T and they will do this for you as well.

I used the method above to increase the time-before-forwarding-to-voicemail to 30 seconds. It worked!

When we attempt to create a materialized view with the ANSI join syntax we are surprisingly rewarded with an ORA error.

create materialized view mv2
  refresh fast
  as
    select
      t.key    t_key     ,
      t.val    t_val     ,
      t2.key   t2_key    ,
      t2.amt   t2_amt    ,
      t.rowid  t_row_id  ,
      t2.rowid t2_row_id
    from
      T INNER JOIN T2 ON ( T.KEY = T2.T_KEY )
;
      T INNER JOIN T2 ON ( T.KEY = T2.T_KEY )
      *
ERROR at line 12:
ORA-12015: cannot create a fast refresh materialized view from a complex query
 

While this behaviour appears to be a bug at first glance, Metalink note 420856.1 explains that it is really an undocumented limitation of fast refresh materialized views.

An examination of the EXPLAIN_MVIEW results for this case points to some behind-the-scenes transformations with ANSI syntax which may be causing the limitation.

select
  my_mv_capabilities
  ( 'create materialized view mv2
    refresh fast
    as
      select
        t.key    t_key     ,
        t.val    t_val     ,
        t2.key   t2_key    ,
        t2.amt   t2_amt    ,
        t.rowid  t_row_id  ,
        t2.rowid t2_row_id
      from
        T INNER JOIN T2 ON ( T.KEY = T2.T_KEY )'
  , 'REFRESH_FAST_AFTER_INSERT'
  ) as mv_report
from dual ;
 

MV_REPORT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not Capable of:
  REFRESH_FAST_AFTER_INSERT
    inline view or subquery in FROM list not supported for this type MV
  REFRESH_FAST_AFTER_INSERT
    inline view or subquery in FROM list not supported for this type MV
  REFRESH_FAST_AFTER_INSERT
    view or subquery in from list
 

Got bitten by this bug today (or is it just a limitation?). I had to get rid of ANSI join and use the good old Oracle specific join syntax.