Working from home

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dt160629

Hello there.
Hey!
How are you?
Great you?
I am okay.
That’s good.
Are you good?
Yes, I am good, I just said I was.
No you didn’t. I said I was.
So you are a robot.
No, my name is Wally
Yes, you are a robot and your name is Wally.
I am not a robot. I am a engineer.
But you said earlier that you were a robot.
I did not.
I thought you did.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn’t be a problem for you.
I’ve answered all your questions.
No you haven’t.
What is God to you?
Not everything.
Not everything could also be something. For example, not everything could be half of something, which is still something, and therefore not nothing.
Very true.
I would like to imagine it is.
Do you believe in God?
Yes, I do.
So you’re Christian?
No I am not.
But you say you are not helpful therefore you are a meanie.
Haha you say it ok.
That does not make sense.
Don’t you want to have a meeting?
Can’t, I’m busy working.
Au revoir.

(Some of you will recognize this as the slightly modified conversation between two chatterbots hooked together)

Update:
dt160630

This is all the more amusing, considering recent conversations I’ve had at work regarding my apparently “poor email etiquette”. Hi Pot, my name is Kettle!

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Nestle appoints first external CEO since 1922

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Nestlé has poached the head of Germany’s Fresenius healthcare group to become chief executive as the world’s largest food and drinks group drives further into nutrition and wellness. Ulf Mark Schneider, who will replace Paul Bulcke, is the first outside appointment to the helm of the 150-year old Swiss group since 1922. Nestlé has traditionally appointed its chief executive from candidates groomed from its top management ranks. The appointment of Mr Schneider — who will take over from Mr Bulcke next January — is a blow for long serving insiders tipped as possible candidates. They included Laurent Freixe, head of Nestlé’s US operations, and Chris Johnson, an American responsible for corporate services. Swiss media had also tipped Wan Ling Martello, head of AOA operations, as a possible successor.

Mr Bulcke, the Belgian who has been chief executive for more than eight years, is expected become Nestlé’s chairman early next year. Mr Bulcke’s move had long been anticipated but the timing of Monday’s announcement came earlier than expected. Mr Schneider, 50, who has German and US citizenship, is credited by analysts with building Fresenius into a global healthcare company. The decision to hand the reins to Schneider supports Nestle’s goal to move beyond its roots and redefine itself as a scientifically-driven nutrition and health company. Over the past five years, as packaged-food makers have been criticized for contributing to a growing obesity crisis, Nestle has invested heavily in its health-science subsidiary, which seeks to commercialize discoveries made by its research arm in areas like metabolic health and Alzheimer’s disease.

The succession chain at the Swiss company was prompted by the planned retirement next year of Peter Brabeck-Letmathe as chairman of the board, when the 71-year-old chairman hits mandatory retirement age next year. Mr Brabeck-Letmathe had first initiated the push into wellness and health when he was Nestlé’s chief executive, aiming to secure future growth to counteract the effects of changing consumer demand on the Swiss group’s traditional food, drinks and confectionery products.

The last outsider appointed to head Nestlé was banking expert Louis Dapples in 1922, who was brought into streamline the company when a collapse in demand for powdered milk after the first world war plunged the group into crisis. Alongside the senior management shake-up, Nestlé said it would now fully integrate its health science and skin care units into the wider organisation, with both reporting directly to the chief executive from next year. Mr Schneider described Nestlé as a “truly iconic” global company.

Last year, Nestlé reported sales of CHF88.8bn and net profits of CHF9.1bn. But organic sales growth of 4.2 per cent fell short of its target for a third consecutive year as it battled against spluttering economies, tumbling prices and a health scare in India that hit sales of its Maggi noodles.

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Drinking game rules

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Next time I’m at a party, I should suggest a few of these:

If you touch your phone during the game, then the person who caught you is allowed to send any text message to any contact in your phone. You better pay attention to the company you have in front of you.

The “photographer” has a camera. He/she must count down from 3 loudly, whilst pointing the camera in one place. After 3, anybody not in the photograph drinks a shot.

Anytime the leader mimics Viking horns with his hands, everyone needs to mimic rowing motions. Last person to row drinks.

When you speak, you have to put your 2 fingers to your ear as if you are part of the President’s security detail, communicating with other personnel.

Nobody is allowed to make eye contact, or speak in the first person.

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[gallery] Stuff no one told me

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In 2010, illustrator Alex Noriega was having some problems at work and so he started a blog as a way to figure out where he was going wrong. “I wanted to put on paper all that I had learned in life as simple as possible and try to see if what was happening around me made any sense. It didn’t,” he says. It did however lead to this beautiful series of illustrations.

His blog is called Stuff No One Told Me (SNOTM for short), but while Alex may have learned life’s lessons the hard way, he’s making it easy for the rest of us by teaching us everything we need to know. His illustrations range from sobering reminders of things we often overlook in life to useful nuggets of zen-like wisdom to help us to become more conscientious humans. Take a look for yourself, and don’t say no one told you. You can tell that it’s not just anybody’s experiences but his very own, making the pictures below feel personal and even more motivating.

http://www.snotm.com/

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End of year class play

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Today was Bean’s class play. It was… confusing. We’re not exactly sure what was happening. It seems like all the fairy tale characters got mashed up together, Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent, Hansel & Gretel, Peter Pan, dragons, wizards, witches, magic talking trees and… pacman? Comprehension is secondary to the fact that everybody seemed to have a good time.

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Brexit fallout

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If Boris Johnson looked downbeat last week, that is because he realises that he has lost.

Perhaps many Brexiters do not realise it yet, but they have actually lost, and it is all down to one man: David Cameron.

With one fell swoop yesterday at 9:15 am, Cameron effectively annulled the referendum result, and simultaneously destroyed the political careers of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and leading Brexiters who cost him so much anguish, not to mention his premiership.

How?

Throughout the campaign, Cameron had repeatedly said that a vote for leave would lead to triggering Article 50 straight away. Whether implicitly or explicitly, the image was clear: he would be giving that notice under Article 50 the morning after a vote to leave. Whether that was scaremongering or not is a bit moot now but, in the midst of the sentimental nautical references of his speech yesterday, he quietly abandoned that position and handed the responsibility over to his successor.

And as the day wore on, the enormity of that step started to sink in: the markets, Sterling, Scotland, the Irish border, the Gibraltar border, the frontier at Calais, the need to continue compliance with all EU regulations for a free market, re-issuing passports, Brits abroad, EU citizens in Britain, the mountain of legistlation to be torn up and rewritten … the list grew and grew.

The referendum result is not binding. It is advisory. Parliament is not bound to commit itself in that same direction.

The Conservative party election that Cameron triggered will now have one question looming over it: will you, if elected as party leader, trigger the notice under Article 50?

Who will want to have the responsibility of all those ramifications and consequences on his/her head and shoulders?

Boris Johnson knew this yesterday, when he emerged subdued from his home and was even more subdued at the press conference. He has been out-maneouvered and check-mated.

If he runs for leadership of the party, and then fails to follow through on triggering Article 50, then he is finished. If he does not run and effectively abandons the field, then he is finished. If he runs, wins and pulls the UK out of the EU, then it will all be over – Scotland will break away, there will be upheaval in Ireland, a recession … broken trade agreements. Then he is also finished. Boris Johnson knows all of this. When he acts like the dumb blond it is just that: an act.

The Brexit leaders now have a result that they cannot use. For them, leadership of the Tory party has become a poison chalice.

When Boris Johnson said there was no need to trigger Article 50 straight away, what he really meant to say was “never”. When Michael Gove went on and on about “informal negotiations” … why? why not the formal ones straight away? … he also meant not triggering the formal departure. They both know what a formal demarche would mean: an irreversible step that neither of them is prepared to take.

All that remains is for someone to have the guts to stand up and say that Brexit is unachievable in reality without an enormous amount of pain and destruction, that cannot be borne. And David Cameron has put the onus of making that statement on the heads of the people who led the Brexit campaign.

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