Posts by Nick Kew

Hmmm. Not sure how useful paper is at performing an MRI scan?

Re: Once again. Technology should *not* be a goal, but a tool to deliver what the people want.

Exactly. It's an entirely false dichotomy. IT is a means to an end, no matter what magic properties the brexiteers may endow it with in their imagination. Insofar as it helps the NHS in its goal of treating patients better (whether directly or indirectly - e.g. by supporting admin), spending on it is justified.

A survey that puts IT in opposition to the goals it supports is somewhere on a scale from disingenuous to clueless.

This is why I hate agencies. They are in it for the commission, nothing more.

Never mind agencies. It's happened to my CV when it's been my then-employer (as a permie) trying to contract me to its client.

Client asks about $foo at interview. I reply honestly I know nothing about $foo. "But your CV says ..." "I've no idea who edited that, but it wasn't me".

@Mark 85 - Not just taxes, also blame. Lots of juicy blame. Blame that's well-deserved, alongside general scapegoating. The former is limited to what they do deserve; the latter is unlimited. Kind-of, the role telly played a generation ago in What's Wrong With Society.

Not that I want to defend them. I've never used them, and I'm not about to excuse their Enclosure of the Commons. But I do find it more than a bit ridiculous when posturing politicians make a big issue of wanting one particular individual from a bigco. If we apply an IR35-like test, $company should be free to send a face of its own choosing to do a particular job - like answering to the politicians. Unless we're going to claim Zuck is the government's employee and can't be substituted!

Re: RE: h4rm0ny

The question isn't whether $minister is competent.

It's whether they're cunning enough ever to thwart Sir Humphrey. Abbott isn't, so she'll be irrelevant.

Re: I doubt she'll ever be Home Secretary, but...

I wouldn't be so sure. You don't run a city like London for two terms without being tolerably competent.

It's a job in which loonies get to shine. Hence both Boris and his predecessor - who also got two terms. Actually more, given his time as leader of the old GLC.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr.

Hmm, on the subject of the planet, how about David J. C. MacKay? Recently dead, but wrote the book[1] on what is and isn't realistic with renewable energy.

[1] ISBN 978-0954452933

Re: Lise Meitner

Is the person who discovered the frequency of coincidences dead? Because if so, they'd be my candidate to go on the note.

Your candidate might be John Littlewood (1885-1977). See Littlewood's Law.

One of the mighty Trinity of ultra-pure mathematicians of around a century ago, with Hardy and Ramanujan.

Re: Crick

See all the comments about Rosalind Franklin on this thread. With a woman championed by the entire Establishment on the same ticket, a mere man like Crick is a non-starter. If DNA wins, Franklin will be the face of it.

Though I still think Hawking will win. He has an aura, and massive name recognition.

Re: 1+2+3+4+ to infinity = -1/12

Needs to be a Brit to qualify.

Ramanujan's mentor Hardy gets my vote. His work, proudly useless in his own time, now fundamental to modern cryptography. And his discovery of Ramanujan: interesting that an established great mathematician bothered to read the unsolicited work of an unknown Indian, as opposed to putting it straight in the spam!

I would also vote for Bertrand Russell, who might also qualify on grounds other than his science.

Re: Rosalind Franklin

Nonsense. Franklin comes up again and again: I hear a lot more of her than of Watson or Crick (the latter name comes up, but only in the context of the institute that bears it).

Re: Noted scientists

Why does there have to be *any* person on a banknote?

I expect Hawking will get it, and he is indeed a deserving candidate. Not to mention preferable to those candidates whose merits - though worthy - are secondary to matters of identity politics.

I shall make myself a lonely outlier by suggesting G H Hardy. His Mathematician's Apology was a seminal influence in my life[1], both for the way it shows the beauty of maths, and for its setting in the lost world of the academic elite it portrays. Deeply unfashionable of course, and his championing of Ramanujan probably just makes it worse, as that was purely on merit.

[1] It was one of main things that influenced me to study (pure) maths at Cambridge.

Re: Scary ?

The year is 2150, you are Bernard Cribbins and I claim my £5!

The £5 coin was phased out last century, as the value of a single sheet of A4 hit £100.

Re: PN, donkeys!

I had that problem with Plusnet, but stuck with them because others in my experience were much worse.

Only left plusnet when another house move took me where broadband-over-copper-or-openreach wasn't available. Signed up with Virgin in my folly, for a long nightmare. But now on EE 4G which, like plusnet, is mostly-OK.

Re: Virgin Media.

Because openretch supplied BB is even worse....

Really?

Compare and contrast When BT died on me vs When Virgin first died on me.

Whereas the BT line remained fine thereafter until my house move four years later, Virgin always had a lot of problems. And their customer support is inspired by Kafka's castle.

Re: and yet invariably

First one I saw was on paper back in the 1990s. Sent to the owner of a bar in Rome, at which I was a regular (one evening a week). He asked me about it 'cos it was in English, and he thought a native English speaker might have more clue than he did. Neither of us had a clue, beyond the good Italian and international word "mafia".

Re: Racist?

Down sir! BAD columnist. Fishing for compliments! You know answers posted here will be overwhelmingly either supportive or humorous - and even the latter collect downvotes (c.f. Frank Ly).

OK, on a more serious note, this would look racist if and only if it became a recurring stereotype of your unappealing eastern correspondent. Which would also be tedious. As far as I can tell, the only regular stereotype in your column is its author (and possibly his missus), and that's what we're here to read.

Having said that, I'd've left out lampooning the language. There's enough in those emails to make an article without it!

As for your editor? El Reg seems to have acquired some SJW police - possibly emanating from San Francisco. Your editor may be quaking in fear of them.

Re: I've seen a definite uptick in these

Don't try claiming that it's a unique gmail feature.

It was a feature back in the days when email addresses cost money, some people wanted more than one address, and neither security nor spam were issues.

It was a minor feature of my mail-by-web software from 1997. Back when webmail and other web-based office facilities like docs and calendars looked like a cool new thing people would find useful.