Posts by Nick Kew

Re: Fruit baskets NO!

Was that HP in Bristol? Went for interview there once, long ago. When I was a twentysomething grad, and there was no 'net as we know it today. R&D work looked great, but I couldn't have faced that airless, windowless office.

Re: wow

HPE is about to get a whole lot of dirty laundry aired.

It's not quite that simple. That was then, this is now. In the meantime, HPE was sold on to Micro Focus, whose management had no part in the Autonomy acquisition.

Whatever dirty laundry is aired, its connection to present-day entities may be less than clear.

Re: I commend The Register

You mean for grandstanding about not naming him? They published a story that reminds us all of the act, and tease us over the name.

How did you read the "I won't name him" bit? For me, it just prompted me to think "what was his name"? A matter too unimportant to have entered my mind up to that point in the article.

A "nameless one" can be a powerful trope. Are we building a mythology?

Re: From the inset panel:

Funnily enough, the current market cap of HPE's current owner (Micro Focus) is UK£8.25bn, which is in a rather similar ballpark to that $11bn.

Of course, Micro Focus is also the home of many other formerly-big names in software. Recycling the moribund, one might say. And, generally speaking, making good money out of it. Certainly a profitable holding in my pension pot.

Re: Scotland/Wales want increased powers locally

More like parliament and government. The parliament in both cases has very limited powers short of dismissing the entire executive, in what we traditionally call a vote of no confidence. That's kind-of the problem now: a nihilistic element that holds the balance of power in the Westminster parliament refuses either to accept the executive or to give her the boot.

Re: Scotland/Wales want increased powers locally

For once I agree with codejunky on the topic. Rees-Mogg doesn't represent him any more than Blair represents me. A plague on both their houses.

After all, it's only a select few whose hedge funds profit by betting against the UK. Fewer still who do so from within our parliament, and pulling the Prime Minister's strings.

Re: @DavCrav

Cameron's "deal" was a total sham.

Headline "concession": 4 years before an EU national in the UK qualifies for benefits. But rather nebulous qualifiers around the 'concession'.

Standard EU rules: 5 years before an EU national resident in another country qualifies for benefits and healthcare in the host country's system.

Re: Would it be wrong of me

Yep. I come through EE 4G, which they don't even try to geolocate more precisely than "somewhere in UK". Nevertheless, a majority of folks come from IPs that can be geolocated, albeit often not reliably. The days are gone when it's located me in Moscow or Minneapolis, or even a distant part of Blighty.

Re: Would it be wrong of me

Yes, it would be wrong.

Not as wrong as much that passes for democracy in this country (not least Cameron's gerrymandered 2016 charade), but we don't lower ourselves to their level.

I don't know what level of checking they might have against such things. We know they're mapping where signatures come from: that may mean inferring them from IP addresses. Who knows if they have Big Data that might associate your various email addresses/ It would, after all, be a fairly rudimentary defence against serious abuse like bots signing.

Re: Random thoughts on this sad situation

In France, for example, 5 years is sufficient to gain permanent resident status.

That's EU rules - and assuming the bureaucracy works (in contrast to the Windrush story here). Permanent resident status is what gives you the rights of a native to things like benefits and healthcare, and to get citizenship. Eligibility comes after five years legally resident, working and contributing to your host country, except where a host country has its own laws that are more generous than that.

I was in Italy long enough to qualify. Sadly back then I saw no reason to suppose an Italian passport offered any advantages that I didn't already have by virtue of my British passport, so I never bothered to tackle that particular bureaucratic process.

Re: @AC

Derogatory terms for an oppressed group in society.

That's the same mindset that used an american derivative of the Latin word for black to sneer at people whose liberty - and later civil rights - they resented.

Re: @DavCrav

Davis in 2012 was quite clear that we should "remain in the customs union" and participate in a "common market to deliver economic benefits for the whole continent".

So what changed? Other than his falling in with a nihilistic bunch of extremists. He's genuinely puzzling: I've no reason to suppose he expects to profit from the Rees-Mogg hedge fund's bets against Britain, nor that he'd even take such an incentive.

Re: Can you blame us?

Point of order. The Lords aren't bureaucrats. That's the Civil Servants. And Sir Humphrey controls an empire orders of magnitude bigger than the EU bureaucracy.

Re: Scotland/Wales want increased powers locally

Of course. Financiers can profit hugely from a country's troubles: most famously George Soros betting against Britain in 1992.

At least Soros wasn't doing so from inside parliament and pulling the Prime Minister's strings. Contrast Rees-Mogg's hedge fund betting against Britain (though Private Eye reported they closed some such bets as far back as January, from which I guessed he'll be looking for a way to accept some kind of damage-limitation deal).

Re: Time for Googlexit?

Playing MeToo with an incumbent like Google, and with rules that preclude doing it as well as them regardless of how good your researchers are, is not a productive use of research funds.

There's lots of good research around Europe that would've made better recipients for funds.

Re: Dear Facebook,

If you want to search, that'll be more google's province than facebook's.

AIUI, this is not about what adverts the user can find, but what users an advertiser can target when those users aren't explicitly seeking them.

Re: Most Inconvenient.

Your experience? You mean you've tried both and are in a position to compare?

My thought was, pick your demographic through where you advertise. For example, Grauniad vs Torygraph vs some trade rag.

Re: SQL

And if you're on a system (like a mac) that makes cut&paste a great feat of dexterity, who knows what command your fingers might end up with?

Your drive C idiot (being your vindictive boss) was on a long holiday. Better make that two weeks at least long enough to cover leave, including extended things like maternity.

Or just back the d*** thing up!

Re: Live system - Whilst training

Not good enough.

If the task is nontrivial enough to be worth scripting, the user will be multitasking with something else, and may not be paying much attention. Your second question comes across as "Delete [implied, unnamed] directory?"

And of course if it's doing anything in bulk, the user will soon get fed up with repeatedly hitting "Y" (there might just be some buffered "Y"s when your question scrolls up), and want to automate it away. Your script needs to take responsibility for sanity checks.

Re: I too have had that

Whoa, that looks like the executive summary of a proper story. A script that didn't test $variable sanity before use, and out there in the wild!

Re: To err is human

Scripts are good, but play in a sandbox. The real lesson: don't play with root, or give it to kids.