Posts by Nick Kew

Re: Well, go ahead and do it then!

Isn't the NSA already the largest employer of mathematicians in the US?

No idea.

But there are mathematicians prepared to take a stand. Not sure if Zimmermann would call himself a mathematician, but Bernstein certainly is.

How will the US force people in other countries to use communications which it is known the US can decrypt?

By making the likes of Huawei an offer they can't refuse, and then escalating if they try to refuse.

We've seen they how the UK government was on the point of reaching a sensible decision, but an agent within it (possibly Williamson) was able to scupper that. Vassal states do what we're told, and US sanctions have a long reach.

Re: As a currently visiting antipodean....

Speaking as a Brit who has lived several years in much hotter climes ...

Hot - including Too Hot - here starts at mid-20s. The fact that's not at all hot to an Aussie is irrelevant: your whole environment is much better-suited to heat, and it feels natural there. I don't know why, but 25 in Blighty feels like 40 in Oz[1] or the Med[2].

Note - Brits complaining of cold can be even more unedifying. We don't get real cold here, any more than real heat.

[1] Based on a couple of weeks hols, when the only thing I really needed that I don't in Blighty was sunglasses.

[2] Based on several years in central Italy - yes I do have real experience of hot summers. Needed sunglasses there too.

Re: Cold Snaps too.

Cold snap? I'd've thought Ymir seems an obvious first candidate. Are your suggestions from a Russian/Slavic tradition?

Re: Don't we have this already?

Is that a record locally or nationally?

I'd find the latter surprising. OK, you're not mediterranean, but you are continental, and don't expect the same narrow range between summer and winter as our island climate.

Re: Names

Last night's spell of illuminations should have had a name of its own.

Delightningful?

Had me turning various electricals off and checking none of the windows was too wide open.

Re: what's so difficult about Q, U, X, Y and Z?

I was going to say something like that. Of your names, Quentin and Xavier were also on the list that popped into my head within about five seconds of reading that in the article. But you missed someone who had fame thrust upon her just a few weeks ago ... (OK, she's foreign, but shares a name with a 'merkin SF author and the wife of the most English of composers).

Anyway, what heatwave? It's a comfy 21-ish and light cloud around here. Yesterday was hotter - mid-20s - but a comfortable dry heat for most of the day. Heatwave "damp squib"?

Re: The Song and Dance

Boris is a performer. He'll put on a show. He'll relish it in 'normal' times (when he has nothing particularly topical to hide), and (on past performance) absent himself at times when it could be embarrassing.

This could be difficult for the opposition. Put Jo Swinson against him and she'll sound whiny, even when she's firmly in the right about something. Corbyn may do better on occasion (when he has really good material), but probably not often.

Re: It depends where you stand...

Whereas I'm in the process of buying right now, far from London.

Strangely, houses are now more affordable than they've been at any time in my working life. Except for that golden age in the 1990s, when I missed out by being out of the country.

Re: Ha ha! </Nelson>

Of course we can still point and laugh at Trump. The day we stop doing that is time for the padded cell.

You want rid of him, what you need right now is to knock some sense into the Democrats, and make sure they put forward an electable candidate.

Re: Joining the Lib Dems

He could see the blame that was coming (as I said at the time):

The master plan was obviously a Boys Own scenario: come to power at the nadir of the the worst crisis since the 1970s (perhaps even the 1940s, at least in his dreams) and turn the country around. But that needed a scapegoat, to take the impossible (but eminently blameable) decisions that will now lead us to that low point. Cameron’s resignation today came too early for the master plan: he’s not going to be that scapegoat. So now it seems Boris has to take over too early and take that blame, or else chicken out at this obvious moment.

Sadly he successfully sidestepped it.

Re: Joining the Lib Dems

Sorry ...... don't believe you !!!

Long term Conservative voters would never do anything to 'harm' the 'Party!!!

The party we knew is gone.

As a supporter of Thatcher in my youth, I cannot possibly support the charlatans whose agenda is now to lose us her greatest achievement - the European Single Market. It's not at all the same party.

Libdems are far too lefty for me, but right now they're our least-bad option by a long way. Insofar as they are an option.

Re: Pissing the Judge off over a number of weeks

No Rumpole story is complete without him regularly pissing off the judge ...

Re: What is the efficiency ?

Depends what you do with the water that's absorbed the heat.

Feed that into a heating system where heat is wanted, and you have optimal efficiency.

Re: Not IT - food industry

Yes, that one.

Sorry, doesn't help. I can think of at least three large-scale candidates just in Blighty (Brisl, Brum and York), and Reg commentards are a multinational crowd.

Re: Chair related injuries

You'd expect to be agile enough for that when in - roughly speaking - the first half of working life.

Those five legs are apparently mandated by EU H&S rules. Four wheels with swivel leave lots of scope to capsize under very ordinary usage.

Unlicensed Pegasus

Call me paranoid, but the prospect of being on the Wrong Side of the Pegasus developers makes me uneasy. If pirate copies of Larry could contain a PC virus thirtysomething years ago, how much more trouble could you be in pirating something that's not a silly game but world-leading malware?