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That’s almost always my experience too.

Though fairly recently I learned that even with all the correct joins in place, sometimes adding a DISTINCT within a CTE can dramatically increase performance. I assume there’s some optimizations the query planner can make when it’s been guaranteed record uniqueness.


I agree with you. I also find that adding DISTINCT can sometimes make it easier for my colleagues to understand code, especially when I'm using multiple CTEs and it might be easy to miss a one-to-many join.

I've seen similar effects when changing a bunch of left outer joins to lateral joins with a limit 1 tacked on. The limit do nothing to the end result, but speed up the query by a factor of 1000..

> On the return trip trash was carried back down.


Three weeks ago I changed my Verizon FIOS plan and was told multiple times that my new bill would be $160. Guess what happened next!

If your guess was they immediately raised the price of the services on my plan and billed me $220 instead, you’d be right!


Verizon math can be a little wonky sometimes: https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/


"was told" means nothing. If you don't have it in writing, they can say anything. One time when i was contacted by sales to offer me a "new better offer" i asked to send it to me in writing and they refused, because "policy".

p.s. this is noname local provider that you have never heard of.


Even if you have it in writing, you need to have the tenacity to hold them to it in court. They can do the fun corporate game of “computer says no” and defy your written agreement as a gamble that you’re not willing to spend time and money suing them.


And there will be some fine print on the website that says "Only SVPs and CxOs have the authority to bind us to an agreement."


Oh, I have it writing. A screenshot of the order, an email confirmation, and a physical letter. All directly from Verizon, all saying $160.


They have a Chesapeake Bay Bridge walk/run every year. It should probably be noted that it’s not the same bridge as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel that this post is about.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge connects Annapolis with Kent Island, while the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel connects the southern tip of Virginia’s eastern shore with Norfolk, VA.


> It seems more and more that sports tickets are exclusively available on Ticketmaster

For US pro sports, I think it’s actually trending away from Ticketmaster. Baseball (MLB) tickets are now directly sold through the MLB. At least some (all?) American Football (NFL) teams have started partnering with SeatGeek. Basketball (NBA) and Ice Hockey (NHL) still seem to be through Ticketmaster.


> cash and cash equivalents, such as checks or gift cards that can be exchanged for cash, must never be accepted

The way it’s worded sounds like it can be a gift card, just not one that could be exchanged directly for cash.


The IRS generally considers gift cards as cash equivalent. I'm not a {tax,law,finance,*} professional, but I believe the USPS agrees. I do agree that the text you quoted is a bit ambiguous by itself. "De minimis fringe benefit" is a relevant thing to look up for the curious.

(PDF) https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/p_4090_fed_0305_text.pdf


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