jocanib

@jocanib@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Post Office lied and threatened BBC over Fujitsu dev whistleblower⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The fact that there was invisibilised third party access to the accounts used as the basis for prosecutions is important in and of itself. But I’m not seeing much about the underlying reasons for it.

  Fujitsu knew that Horizon didn’t work properly before it was rolled out to the Post Office. They were told by their own engineers that parts of it had to be rewitten because they were so shoddy. They chose, instead, to have a team of people correcting errors in the background, without disclosing this to subpostmasters or, apparently, the Post Office.

  The concern is not that Fujitsu’s trouble-shooters might be deliberately falsifying accounts, there is no obvious motive for them to do so. But it does make it clear that the ramshackle system did not work properly, that Fujitsu knew that it did not work properly, and that the only errors which could be corrected were the ones that got picked up centrally, with the process for correcting them creating the potential for more human error in the process.

  Fujitsu bosses knew about Post Office Horizon IT flaws, says insider

  There’s an interesting report on the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance site also: Origins of a disaster (and long form version.

  It is well-documented that the Post Office’s Legacy Horizon was a reconfigured version of a disastrously flawed parent project, the Benefits Payment Card. The impression given by three Secretaries of State to a Parliamentary Select Committee in July 1999 was that, once the BPC was thought to be irredeemably faulty by autumn 1998, all efforts were then focused on the reconfiguration into the Horizon project as we know it. But their evidence was far from complete. In late 1998 the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who had been warned of the system’s instability, was asked to decide the future of Horizon. The No.10 Policy Unit had advised on cancelling the BPC and the Law Officers had given a clear view on how the public sector might terminate the project. Blair’s steer, however, paid no heed.

  Many extremely well-paid heads need to roll.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Could Superman cook a batch of chilli so spicy that he couldn't eat it?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If he were said to be omnipotent, this would be an interesting conundrum. But he isn’t so it doesn’t really work?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨School absences: The school picking kids up from home to boost attendance⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  In primary school?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Wealth University job application process a scam?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure it’s ever legit for the job-hunter to be paying the recruiters. It would normally be the employer.

  A % commission doesn’t give that much incentive to find you the very best job as opposed to the first one that will do. You’re paying them a percentage but they’re looking at the return per hour of work they put in. You’ll come under a lot of pressure to accept the first job on offer simply because that job gives them the best return even if it is a smaller cash amount than the best job they could possibly find (if they put the time in).

  Their incentives do not align well with your incentives. So best avoided, IMO.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨West Midlands mayor calls for Crooked House pub to be rebuilt ‘brick by brick’⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  He actually made that demand before they illegally demolished it, when the facade was still mostly intact. I don’t think it would have been very practical but still, they absolutely cannot allow the developers to profit from this vandalism.

  They should build a mining museum on the site, with a modern but still wonky design (and coins rolling uphill). And force the crooked developers to donate the site as part of a plea deal. It may have been impossible to prove they were behind the arson but a piece of piss to prove that they were behind the illegal demolition.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Minimum Wage workers not using common sense are the worst.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Comfortably-off customers casting aspersions on “minimum wage workers” are the absolute pits.

  There is lots to say here but you are too clueless to say any of it. FFS

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fire engulfs historic pub famed for being wonkiest in Britain⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Rebuilding this would be impossible, I think. But listing the ruins to ensure they are preserved rather than redeveloped would be fitting, as would prosecuting the fuck out of these arseholes.

  Neither will happen, of course. As a semi-local, I hope the locals find ways to make sure any redevelopment is a loss-making disaster for the new owners.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  If you’re going to drink that much sparkling water (as I do), invest in a Drinkmate or similar. It’s about as cheap as the very cheapest sparkling water but you end up with much, much less plastic to pretend to recycle.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can a reply to an ongoing email conversation land in spam?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes. It’s happened to me and it is a head fuck. The email was from a business with a perfectly legit email address.