3
points
duncans
Joined 553 karma
- duncans parentYou spoke too soon!
- It's not surprising that due to massive advertising that VPN companies do that people such as MPs think that VPNs are a necessity for general web browsing etc. I think more people need to be aware that, (unless they are wanting to access US Netflix from UK/BBC iPlayer from the US, etc) VPNs in 2025 are completely unnecessary and arguably worse for your privacy.
- Feeling very nostalgic about getting interested in XML and XSLT circa 2000-2001 and all that Semantic Web stuff. Amazed to see that people were still taking it seriously nearly 10 years later https://www.flickr.com/groups/xmlsummerschool2010 and that they're still going! I hope they have a lovely time!
- In her late 60s so I expect she's retired but has the threat of impending prosecution hanging over her head along with other colleagues https://archive.ph/YH9GO
- What is amazing is the engineers the Fujitsu employed would testify in court against some of the subpostmasters saying "there were no faults" where in unearthed evidence of their support logs they could be clearly acknowledging bugs that could create false accounts, manually updating records and audit logs to balance it out (and also sometimes screwing that up).
See Nick Wallis' coverage: * https://www.postofficetrial.com/2019/03/the-smoking-gun.html * https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/ecce-chambers/
> [Anne] Chambers closed the ticket with a definitive: “No fault in product”.
> The cause of the defect was assigned to “User” – that is, the Subpostmaster.
> When Beer asked why, Chambers replied: “Because I was rather frustrated by not – by feeling that I couldn’t fully get to the bottom of it. But there was no evidence for it being a system error.”
...
> Chambers conceded: “something was obviously wrong, in that the branch obviously were getting these discrepancies that they weren’t expecting, but all I could see on my side was that they were apparently declaring these differing amounts, and I certainly didn’t know of any system errors that would cause that to happen, or that would take what they were declaring and not record it correctly…. so I felt, on balance, there was just no evidence of a system error.”
> No evidence. [Sir Wyn] Williams pointed out that it surely was unlikely to be a user error if both trainers and auditors had recorded the Subpostmaster as inputting information correctly. Chambers replied:
> “Well, yeah, I… yes, I don’t know why… I’m not happy with this one. But I still stand by there being no indication of a system error and the numbers that they were recording just didn’t make a lot of sense.”
- The thing here is that the Post Office as the "victim" could also act as its own investigator and prosecutor, due to historical reasons going back to the 17th century when it effectively functioned as part of the state and as such, had the authority to investigate and prosecute crimes related to its operations (like mail theft or fraud).
- It's worth pointing out that Mr Bates vs The Post Office screened in early 2024. The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry was set up in 2020/2021 and the public hearings started in 2023.
So it may have looked like "it was TV what done it" but the wheels of justice were turning long before the show came out.
- Reminds me of the Modernizr JS library from 2009 which would replace <html class="no-js"> with "js" for this purpose. https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/blob/v1.1/modernizr.j...
- Just be sure to note that the left side pedal (as you sit on it) has a left-hand thread: https://www.parktool.com/en-us/blog/repair-help/pedal-instal...
- 49 points
- Plus, fraught with usability issues https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-su...
- Yes, it requires getting admin to the AD FS server https://www.netwrix.com/golden_saml_attack.html which is kind of glossed over but surely is the real "hack"?
- See also https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/ecce-chambers/
> The Postmaster reported that the problem at his one specific site had been been happening intermittently all year. He told NBSC who sent experienced trainers out to ensure the Subpostmaster wasn’t doing something wrong. The trainers concluded the Subpostmaster was doing nothing wrong and witnessed the error happening. The auditors, who were incentivised by the Post Office to suspend Subpostmasters with discrepancies (another story), came out. They concluded the Subpostmaster was doing nothing wrong and they witnessed the error happening.
> Chambers went to work. She delved into the system and reported: “have checked the system figures… and can confirm that all the variants reported since then have been calculated correctly. There are no known issues that would result in the variance being incorrect.”
> Chambers closed the ticket with a definitive: “No fault in product”.
> The cause of the defect was assigned to “User” – that is, the Subpostmaster.
> When Beer asked why, Chambers replied: “Because I was rather frustrated by not – by feeling that I couldn’t fully get to the bottom of it. But there was no evidence for it being a system error.”
...
> Chambers conceded: “something was obviously wrong, in that the branch obviously were getting these discrepancies that they weren’t expecting, but all I could see on my side was that they were apparently declaring these differing amounts, and I certainly didn’t know of any system errors that would cause that to happen, or that would take what they were declaring and not record it correctly…. so I felt, on balance, there was just no evidence of a system error.”
> No evidence. Williams pointed out that it surely was unlikely to be a user error if both trainers and auditors had recorded the Subpostmaster as inputting information correctly. Chambers replied:
> “Well, yeah, I… yes, I don’t know why… I’m not happy with this one. But I still stand by there being no indication of a system error and the numbers that they were recording just didn’t make a lot of sense.”
- See also the Fujitsu whistleblower, Richard Rolls’ witness statement https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/evidence/witn007...
- Also all links are tracking links to http://click1.marketing.csid.com ... note they are plain http, of course. It's all so incompetently done I can only assume it's legitimate.
- Regarding the pop-out door handles - this is a fascinating video on how the Tesla Model S door handles design has been refined and made more reliable by someone who used to work at Tesla (SuperfastMatt) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bea4FS-zDzc
- No, you tap the button on the end if the indicator stalk. This gives you a wipe, and a wiper speed menu will appear on the screen if you want to override the auto wiper speed.
Saying that, the auto wipers can be dreadful. They mostly work OK, but occasionally will randomly turn on when it's dry, or not come on when it's pissing down. It's down to the fact that rather than use a simple infra-red based rain sensor (that the rest of the industry has used for decades) Tesla think they can do just as good a job using the front-facing AutoPilot camera and save a dollar or two on a dedicated sensor.
- From the paywalled https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new-and-used-cars/article/ca...
> Tesla's electric cars may look like the future, but once again, feedback from owners reveal the brand's disappointing dependability.
> 39% of Tesla owners we heard from with a car aged up to four years old had at least one issue they needed to get repaired in the past year, which is twice as high as the average fault rate for cars this new.
> The most common issues are, somewhat unusually, to do with the exterior and are mostly minor. Those that experienced faults with the exterior (19% of all owners) or non-engine electrics (21% of all owners) most frequently complained about paintwork issues and problems with lights respectively.
> Slightly less common were issues with rainwater seals, meaning water can leak into the car. It's rare for a brand to have such issues in such numbers on its new cars, and indicates a general low level of quality with the finish of Tesla's vehicles.
> While the fault rate is high, the breakdown rate (or cars failing to start) is in line with the average for cars in the 0-4 year group at 4.9%.
- New batteries are $49 https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair