You’ve probably heard of bitcoin, the most recognized online cryptocurrency, but like me, you may not know very much about it. The concept of a peer-to-peer (P2P) currency which requires no intermediaries to facilitate transactions is exciting to me, because of its potential to make transactions more efficient. Nobody likes middlemen. The concept behind bitcoin,Continue reading “Bitcoin and the blockchain”
Author Archives: Neil
Solzhenitsyn on ethics
An inspiring quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on ethics: The main thing is never to act against your conscience, not to put your signature on documents you do not believe in, not to vote for those who you think should not be elected, not to approve decisions, not to applaud, not to pass on lies… notContinue reading “Solzhenitsyn on ethics”
The recent unpleasantness
![By Fabio Lanari (Internet1.jpg by Rock1997 modified.) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/neilmcintyre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Internet2.jpg?fit=825%2C510&ssl=1)
Back on October 11, 2015, this website was “hacked” by some random group of miscreants. The hack placed new index.html and index.php pages in every folder, I learned upon further inspection of my hosted files via FTP. It made cleaning things up a bit tedious, but not difficult. I think the problem was that IContinue reading “The recent unpleasantness”
Invoice dates in the age of electronic billing
So as not to come off as too unreasonable or difficult on Twitter, a longer explanation of recent tweets is likely helpful. I tweeted this to Rogers, one of Canada’s big telecom companies: https://twitter.com/neilmcintyre/status/667060548908032000 Every month, I’m billed for my mobile phone service and cable TV on the 11th. Rogers bills in advance of theContinue reading “Invoice dates in the age of electronic billing”
Secondment to the finance department
For the next couple months I’ll be in Kansas City getting some experience in one of the regional offices of a division of my company, helping with some year end tasks. It’s going to be pretty interesting to be on the other side of the table for once, liaising with the external auditors and workingContinue reading “Secondment to the finance department”