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mjwalshe

323 karma · joined October 13, 2011

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mjwalshe··on Microsoft employee on stack ranking and its 'most universally hated exec'
Realy I know a team member at a previous employer who where grateful lthat thier team had two peopel with terminal cancer so they ehere given the crap position on the stack rank to hit the teams quota for poor performers
mjwalshe··on In Denmark, Pedaling to Work on a Superhighway
But those hills in SF! my poor knees hurt just thinking about them.
mjwalshe··on Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief
Realy you think that head hunting Matt Cutts is not many internet companies wet dream?
mjwalshe··on Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen
It wsnt the NSDAP that set the fire it was a lone wolf (who was unfortuatly sufering from metal health issues).

Some Nazis on the night where terifed that it was the start of a counter revolution from the left - read Alex Kershaws Bio of Hitler.

mjwalshe··on Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen
So I am registering with "local" govenment FFS that is even worse at least at the national level there is some oversight and Journalists holding teh executive to account.
mjwalshe··on Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen
the FBI collected a lot of dirt on MLK - Hoover was obsesed
mjwalshe··on Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen
Depends what you mean by dossier I am sure the NSA has a definative list of all Us residents names and SSN's but thats not a dossier in the same way That the FBI under hover had about anyone even sligtly progressive.

Id be more worried by the fact the in the USA its common practice to register with the govenment what political party you support.

mjwalshe··on Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief
True but you know Matt is anothger posibly trophy hire at soem stage he is acting way above his pay grade if my company asked me to represnt them to congress etc I would say "cool" but I want a board seat first :-)
mjwalshe··on Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief
I thought HN had a large preponderence of "engineers" (or at least they claim to be) I would have expected almost 100% of us sould have enough knowledge to understand the analogy.
mjwalshe··on UK anti-encryption law
Err the UK does not have a tripartate separation - there is a world out side of SV and the USA
mjwalshe··on The total price of the Digg acquisition was around $16 million
But why not recruit them idividualy or as a team the Ex Digg employes are not indentured.

This is the way the City (london) works its common for whole teams to be head hunted en block but the ex employers dosn't get anything.

mjwalshe··on UK anti-encryption law
The ultra fragmented nature of the police forces in the states lends its self to this unfortunately.

What the USA needs to do is to move into the 20th century and for each state to have a single police force with uniform standards - this would save a lot of resource wasted by every city/town having its own police force plus state troopers, sheriffs and what have you

mjwalshe··on UK anti-encryption law
No Judges are part of the "establishment" not the "govenment" ask Tony or Dave about the judges who ruled against them over a large number of issues.

I dubt wikipedia edited by a large number of Non UK People woud get the subtle destiction I am making here.

mjwalshe··on Some things I've learnt about programming
Status for one and pay and benefits for another.

Engineers (And I mean real ones) have enough trouble with people thinking they are blue colar craft workers.

mjwalshe··on UK anti-encryption law
Uk Judges are separate from the govenment.

You would ahve to go back to the bad old days of the star chamber to find the UK law system doing anything as doddgy as Al Capone (not exactly the USAs Legal systems finest hour)

mjwalshe··on City of San Francisco Will No Longer Buy Apple Products
Again Doctors are a special case

They are all self employed in the UK. They have a day job in the NHS and have private practice.

mjwalshe··on I bet you over-engineered your startup
oh so comapring two totaly diferent era's then?
mjwalshe··on City of San Francisco Will No Longer Buy Apple Products
None of those are "profesions" in the strict sense of the word

Dont forget that many builders/plumbers/electricians are not employees but contractors.

And Hairdressing (at least in the UK) has some bysantine working practices that only exist in that industry

mjwalshe··on Paid Vacation? That’s Not Cool. You Know What’s Cool? Paid, Paid Vacation.
My CTO in BT had worked both in the UK and in SV and he commented that he got exactly the same amount of work out of people in both places.

He commented that in the USA hs staff spent far more time gossiping around the water cooler and taking unofficial long weekends to go skiing etc

And BT has more holiday than the average in the UK - from the civil service days.

mjwalshe··on Paid Vacation? That’s Not Cool. You Know What’s Cool? Paid, Paid Vacation.
Lol When I worked in international testing for BT I recall when working with my opposite number in FT totally unable to contact them in August.
mjwalshe··on Paid Vacation? That’s Not Cool. You Know What’s Cool? Paid, Paid Vacation.
Its quite common in europe (but not the UK or IE) to get an extra months pay or two as a bonus. 13th Salary and 14th Salary.
mjwalshe··on I bet you over-engineered your startup
Nope the poster was comparing Apple Developing Macs with Ms developing NT when MS started with NT Apple was on OS9 and stayed that way for years.
mjwalshe··on I bet you over-engineered your startup
what was good about OS9 :-)OK it gave Amiga users a good laugh back in the day.

NT was developed by ex VAX Guys from DEC

mjwalshe··on I bet you over-engineered your startup
Thats not over engineering just crap design and using the latest toys for the sake of it.

Overengineering is the Victorian egineers way of desiging as they did not have the indepth knowledge we have and so have massive margins of safety.

Of course that means that some of the pre WW2 London Underground tains lasted longer than the ones bought in the 70's.

mjwalshe··on After my PhD how much salary should I expect as a professor of computer science?
I think geting tenure as a professor is harder than doing a PHD.
mjwalshe··on A Dust Over India
Not realy there have been large States that covered a substatial part of what is niow India but never one that covered the entire subcontinent in the way that the Raj did.
mjwalshe··on Three NSA Whistleblowers Back EFF's Lawsuit Over Government Spying Program
Are there really tons of hackers (in the way SV or even Silicon Roundabout understands it) remember a lot of the cream of engineering grads and technicians all want to work at Audi et all and get an office with "Doktor" on the brass plate

And this is from experience in having to work with german parent companies on behalf of their uk subsidiaries on web/internet work.

Makes working with France Telecom in Agust seem childs play

mjwalshe··on Three NSA Whistleblowers Back EFF's Lawsuit Over Government Spying Program
hmm a country where the local government FFS has its own "secret police" and you have to register with the police when you move house.

You have heard of the recent fiasco where one of the local secret police forces manged to miss (for several years) a neo nazi group under its nose who killed several people form ethic minorities finally committing suicide

mjwalshe··on Treating JavaScript like a 30 year old language
80 cols is to fit on a punched card and has nothing to do with the variable name length limit on old versions of FORTRAN.
mjwalshe··on Why Russia Locks Up So Many Entrepreneurs
You would rather that some one being investigated went back to work and potentially adjusted the evidence that is why when your investigated for a serious offence at work you are suspended.
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