blog Over on Whirlpool, forum poster Garthy advances an interesting theory about why the iiNet buyout of Internode took place, applying mathematical rigour to the situation to come up with the terrifying (or maybe glorious, depending on which way you look at it) prospect that the event may have the practical effect of creating an infinite number of Simon Hacketts. He writes:

“Simon Hackett still works for, and runs Internode. But who does he answer to? Well, with 100% iiNet ownership of Internode, the answer is now iiNet. In practical terms, he works for [iiNet CEO Michael Malone]. Now who does MM report to? The iiNet board. And the iiNet board? Their shareholders. Now, who has just recently become a big iiNet shareholder? I think you know where I’m going here. Let’s follow the chain of authority here: Simon reports to the Internode board, who report to MM, who report to the iiNet board, who report to … none other than Simon Hackett. Simon’s indirect superior, three levels removed, is … Simon.

Now, we all know what this means now, don’t we- the most logical conclusion that we can draw? There are now at least two Simon Hacketts. But it gets even more terrifyingly sinister.

You’ll notice that the reporting arrangement within Internode involving Simon is recursively defined. Now, if we take a benign recursive function, say, a factorial, you will notice that there is a termination condition. For factorials, it is the 0!, which is 1. However, in the case of the reporting arrangement now in place at Internode, there is NO TERMINATING CONDITION. So basically, what we now have as a result of this deal, is an infinite number of Simon Hacketts.”

The idea that there may be an infinite number of Simon Hacketts out there raises a number of disturbing questions. For starters, what effect will this have on the Tesla and glider markets? Will Internode’s customer base in the near term explode dramatically as those Simon Hacketts request infinite broadband connections? And what will happen to the DevOps Borat Twitter account when it starts to be infinitely retweeted? I will explore these questions and further implications in future analysis. In the meantime, can anyone verify that Garthy’s theory is mathematically correct?

Image credit: Being John Malkovich film

Related posts:

1. Simon Hackett should “cash out”, sell Internode,
   says iiNet CEO Malone
2. Simon Hackett needs one of these babies
3. Call me, Thodey tells Simon Hackett
4. iiNet completes Internode buyout a month early
5. Oh dear: Simon Hackett, datacentre disco star

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1. Martin Eddy
   Posted 28/12/2011 at 11:05 am | Permalink | Reply

   ‘I will explode these questions and further implications in future analysis.’

   Surely you will EXPLORE these questions.

   tsk tsk what would your editor say?

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 28/12/2011 at 11:17 am | Permalink | Reply

     Fixed. I think my editor is on holidays :)

     • Clinton
       Posted 28/12/2011 at 11:30 am | Permalink | Reply

       exploding the questions and implications sounds much better.
       you should have left it.

       • Renai LeMay
         Posted 28/12/2011 at 11:50 am | Permalink | Reply

         I thought about it ;)

2. Marks Mum
   Posted 28/12/2011 at 12:45 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Simon has depleted the world’s known resources of smarm. He sacked Mark Newton to secure the last of it.

3. Adam
   Posted 28/12/2011 at 1:07 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Is this kind of like dividing by zero?

4. Duke
   Posted 30/12/2011 at 11:41 pm | Permalink | Reply

   On my last sojourn to a fairly local parallel universe (actually to speak to the duplicate Minister Conroy over there, who is a Carlton supporter, the senior member of Julias left faction, in South Australia, and an adamant opponent of all web controls whatsoever, I could have sworn I spied a S Hackett lookalike loitering around the joint there too…

   …the theory expands, or maybe just the flashbacks kicking in again after too much seasonal ‘cheer’…

   hmmm,

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