So it seems that the UK scientific establishment was too prone to 'groupthink' and unwilling to challenge the orthodoxy during covid.
And too in love with their 'world leading' plan to consider things which were mundanely common sense such as to restrict travel from countries where covid was prevalent.
Was one of these group thinking scientists Patrick Vallance - then Government Chief Scientific Advisor and now Minister of Science.
I expect so. One other thing to watch out for is reverse ferreting by those who yesterday applauded or dismissed Hallett because they hoped or feared respectively that it was attacking the then-Conservative government.
The need for 'red teaming' science policies (and indeed any large scale government policy) ought to be obvious, but it does seem to run counter to the way government works in this country.
Uber hack apparently in progress causing widespread worldwide chaos. Not going to be a good day for Microsoft.
Been using Apple since 1994, can't believe anyone still uses MS.
The problem is not people like you with discombobulated laptops, it is all those companies running Windows on servers as part of their computing and ecommerce infrastructure. Their choice is (mainly) Linux or Windows because Apple is not in the servers business.
Thankfully we use Linux servers and Linux-based development environments.
A handful of systems at Mrs J's company are offline; they don't use Crowdstrike, but some of their service suppliers do...
The trouble the Tories have is they will be competing for attention as opposition to Labour.
The Lib Dems are a large parliamentary force and can cause trouble for the Tories if they position in a way that is hostile to more socially liberal but nimby areas in the south of England they want to win back.
Reform will be a significant media force with Farage a media favourite before he had a seat in Parliament, and will be more so now. This will create pressure on the Tories to remain hard-line on 'woke' and migration.
All of this while the Tories ideally want to position fairly neutrally in order to take advantage of inevitable Labour mistakes.
I can see the advantage of Sunak staying on as interim leader for a prolonged period to let the candidates campaign from a more settled place.
No-one seems very interested about the debate within the LibDems on what's often misdescribed as "nimby areas".
The social pressure for more housing is just as keen in the Cotswolds (where the LDs are close now to having every MP and controlling every District council) as anywhere else. Full-fat Nimbyism is rare in such places - and usually the preserve of Tory extremists, not LD well-wishers. Development-related iffiness under the Tories was primarily about providing adequate infrastructure (like water supply, primary schools and public transport) or perceived unaffordability. After all: even the Nimbyest of country-dwellers have children and grandchildren squeezed by accelerating house prices in places those descendants want to live in.
Personally, I believe that the recent LD electoral successes are primarily down to the LDs' better reflecting the modern psychographics of rural and suburban England than a Tory party that now looks downright medieval. And the current batch of LD MPs reflect this. Expect policies to morph as a result
Good morning everyone.
I tend to view LD Nimbyism as quite tactical. But they have a potential problem in areas where it runs deeper in the community.
They deliberately allow local pols or people campaigning to turn an area to be different to national policy.
I'd say they limit what Lib Dems would theoretically like to do by the assessed local limitations. That can be "welching on your principles" or "good politics" depending on your viewpoint.
I think it leads to some interesting contortions, where they tend to end up favouring whoever is the local with the vote, even in defiance of evidence or sense. I think there may be interesting examples in eg Richmond.
Uber hack apparently in progress causing widespread worldwide chaos. Not going to be a good day for Microsoft.
Been using Apple since 1994, can't believe anyone still uses MS.
The problem is not people like you with discombobulated laptops, it is all those companies running Windows on servers as part of their computing and ecommerce infrastructure. Their choice is (mainly) Linux or Windows because Apple is not in the servers business.
Thankfully we use Linux servers and Linux-based development environments.
Uber hack apparently in progress causing widespread worldwide chaos. Not going to be a good day for Microsoft.
Been using Apple since 1994, can't believe anyone still uses MS.
The problem is not people like you with discombobulated laptops, it is all those companies running Windows on servers as part of their computing and ecommerce infrastructure. Their choice is (mainly) Linux or Windows because Apple is not in the servers business.
Thankfully we use Linux servers and Linux-based development environments.
A handful of systems at Mrs J's company are offline; they don't use Crowdstrike, but some of their service suppliers do...
Which is obviously a good point. All seems to be running normally here though, so it looks like our suppliers are OK.
No surprises in Trump's speech apart from a raucous introduction by Hulk Hogan. Trump somewhat subdued as he recalled his assassination attempt. The obligatory attack on Biden and Pelosi. Main policy announcement he will finish building his wall on the southern border and deport lots of immigrants
The leader of the eco-fascists has been found guilty numerous times and given a suspended sentence each time. He finally ran out of road.
And the other four?
I haven't tracked the other four, but the five are the organisers recruiting foot soldiers to do the protests. So analogous to the people co-ordinating people trafficking, but recruiting and organising not carrying out the crimes.
I've suggested on Twitter that a prison sentence is warranted, whilst saying that I expect it to be appealed and modestly reduced. Little bit of blow back given my circles - some deep believing / apocalyptic green types don't like being challenged on methods.
I've been saying that general aims of bunging up key infra of society are not OK, based on my personal experience of a respiratory arrest very soon after reaching a hospital once. I've been a critic of XR and JSO on that since they started more or less.
Comparisons with Suffragettes and other similars are made, which I have little sympathy for since some suffragettes who embraced terrorist methods are whitewashed. "But suffragettes" is always a lazy excuse imo.
Lots of excuses around "they were just discussing carrying out a peaceful protest".
The most interesting comments back have been comparisons with petrol protests blocking the motorways, which were not dealt with harshly and given police escorts for go slow protests on major points. That is a very telling point, which also relates to particular causes being portrayed as justified or 'acceptable' by particular audiences, and where the moral high ground is believed to lie.
I think that what both XR have done, similarly to the "war on cars" brigade as expressed by anti-LTN types shading over into conspiracy theories and camera-vandals, is that they have both judged it wrong and risk losing or have lost their general audience.
Now I remember when GDR Merkel was widely lauded on PB, hailed as the leader British politicians should imitate.
Does anyone have a good word about her now ?
She dominated European politics for a decade and Germany remained largest economy in the EU on her watch and she handled COVID well. She also had personal integrity
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
Uber hack apparently in progress causing widespread worldwide chaos. Not going to be a good day for Microsoft.
Been using Apple since 1994, can't believe anyone still uses MS.
They do, because MS works. If it didn't, they wouldn't.
In all seriousness, what MS does is bloody amazing. Apple control their own hardware, which makes writing software fairly straightforward. MS have to make their systems work with 1,001 different peripherals, from monitors to mice; from different graphics cards to motherboards.
The fact it works at all is amazing, and the fact it works with so many different peripherals means there is competition, helping make prices that are far lower than Apple's monopoly.
As for viruses: blackhats choose to mostly target MS *because* MS is so widely used. which means there are so many more systems out there to exploit. And with chip-level exploits (more exploits and bugs have recently been found for both Intel and ARM architectures), much is outside the OS's purview.
Uber hack apparently in progress causing widespread worldwide chaos. Not going to be a good day for Microsoft.
Been using Apple since 1994, can't believe anyone still uses MS.
At work the majority of people use what they are given. Hell, a good number of corporate IT policies ban the use of shadow personal systems.
In a world where most Computers use Microsoft programs from Teams to Office and Outlook much of the developed world will then go down when it goes down like this morning
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
But what’s the limit?
I mean I am buying a new car soon, I’m sure my dealership will love me dropping of tens of thousands of pounds in £50 notes and coppers.
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
Legal tender is about payment of a debt and cash is legal tender in the UK too.
Uber hack apparently in progress causing widespread worldwide chaos. Not going to be a good day for Microsoft.
Been using Apple since 1994, can't believe anyone still uses MS.
At work the majority of people use what they are given. Hell, a good number of corporate IT policies ban the use of shadow personal systems.
In a world where most Computers use Microsoft programs from Teams to Office and Outlook much of the developed world will then go down when it goes down like this morning
It’s still tempting, as a Mac user, to feel a teeny bit smug this morning!
The trouble the Tories have is they will be competing for attention as opposition to Labour.
The Lib Dems are a large parliamentary force and can cause trouble for the Tories if they position in a way that is hostile to more socially liberal but nimby areas in the south of England they want to win back.
Reform will be a significant media force with Farage a media favourite before he had a seat in Parliament, and will be more so now. This will create pressure on the Tories to remain hard-line on 'woke' and migration.
All of this while the Tories ideally want to position fairly neutrally in order to take advantage of inevitable Labour mistakes.
I can see the advantage of Sunak staying on as interim leader for a prolonged period to let the candidates campaign from a more settled place.
No-one seems very interested about the debate within the LibDems on what's often misdescribed as "nimby areas".
The social pressure for more housing is just as keen in the Cotswolds (where the LDs are close now to having every MP and controlling every District council) as anywhere else. Full-fat Nimbyism is rare in such places - and usually the preserve of Tory extremists, not LD well-wishers. Development-related iffiness under the Tories was primarily about providing adequate infrastructure (like water supply, primary schools and public transport) or perceived unaffordability. After all: even the Nimbyest of country-dwellers have children and grandchildren squeezed by accelerating house prices in places those descendants want to live in.
Personally, I believe that the recent LD electoral successes are primarily down to the LDs' better reflecting the modern psychographics of rural and suburban England than a Tory party that now looks downright medieval. And the current batch of LD MPs reflect this. Expect policies to morph as a result
In Remain areas maybe but the vast majority of Leave seats in Southern and Eastern England stayed Tory on 4th July or went Labour or Reform not LD.
The seats that did go LD, especially in Oxfordshire and Surrey are overwhelmingly NIMBY even if anti Brexit and have LD councils they will expect to oppose the new homes on greybelt the Labour government is opposing. If they don't locally at least they could go Independent, Green or even back to Tory
An interesting and detailed video about Christian Nationalism in the USA, and how it shades over into MAGA and the Republican Party. A conversation with Jennifer Cohn , who specialises in Christian Extremism. Some names I recognise from the legal actions, such as Roger Stone and others. 30 minutes.
On this wild episode of Coalition Of The Sane, Denver Riggleman and Bucks County Beacon writer, Jennifer Cohn walk you through the financial spider web of the far right Christian nationalist networks that fund everything from the disruption of local school boards, NAR, Project 2025, and even The United States Supreme Court itself. Where does the money come from? You’ll get specific answers to questions like : Who are the donors? Who oversees distribution? Who is in charge of each department? And the most important question…How much have they invested in Donald J. Trump?
Now I remember when GDR Merkel was widely lauded on PB, hailed as the leader British politicians should imitate.
Does anyone have a good word about her now ?
She dominated European politics for a decade and Germany remained largest economy in the EU on her watch and she handled COVID well. She also had personal integrity
This personal inegrity, so youre a fan of sucking up to Putin ?
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
Because it’s not that simple. There will be a backup server, running the same software as the main one, but if you update them both with crap then they both fall over. The Microsoft issue is related to ‘cloud services’ over which the customers have no control whatsoever, they just trust Microsoft to keep them running.
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
But what’s the limit?
I mean I am buying a new car soon, I’m sure my dealership will love me dropping of tens of thousands of pounds in £50 notes and coppers.
Buy the car late on Friday after the banks are closed.
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
It's hard enough maintaining a backup system that has exactly the same software as the main system. Once they're running different versions of stuff you have two things to test, two different things that can break instead of one, and a potentially quite complicated interaction between the two when you need to failover from one to the other.
What you often try to do with backup systems is to do updates on a different schedule to the main system which would probably have saved people here if they'd done it, but there's a trade-off when you're dealing with security patches and anti-virus updates because if you hold off applying them you make them insecure.
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
Because it’s not that simple. There will be a backup server, running the same software as the main one, but if you update them both with crap then then they both fall over. The Microsoft issue is related to ‘cloud services’ over which the customers have no control whatsoever, they just trust Microsoft to keep them running.
My favourite IT feck up is the one RBS did when they added a comma into their systems for presenting transaction/balance amounts and it buggered up things for days.
Honourable mention to IT people who put their physical back ups next to original so when a fire or flood strikes…
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
Because it’s not that simple. There will be a backup server, running the same software as the main one, but if you update them both with crap then then they both fall over. The Microsoft issue is related to ‘cloud services’ over which the customers have no control whatsoever, they just trust Microsoft to keep them running.
And even if you make a switch to a paper back up system (like the Ambulance Service does during an IT failure), the process of transferring everything across and re-starting the process can take hours.
A friend stuck at Edinburgh Airport noted that the staff got things moving again very quickly, but the knock on effect has basically collapsed the whole airport.
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
There'll be various reasons. cost being one.
But there's also the problem of testing backups and ensuring they're available and work reliably in an emergency. An anecdote:
A small Midlands power station used an independent power from the National Grid to run its systems: the idea being that if the power station had a problem, it still had power coming in. If the power from the grid failed, there were diesel generators that could start at a moment's notice to provide power for the systems. They were never to use their own power.
This is sensible and logical. The backup generators were regularly tested. Then one day, they lost grid power and the backup generators started. They were kept going until the mains supply came back and was deemed stable. A while later, it was noticed that temperatures on some of the bearings in the turbines were very high. It turned out that when the generators were switched off, the power supply to a lubrication system failed, meaning the turbines were running unlubricated. The end result were a couple of ruined turbines, a couple more badly damaged, and millions in costs.
That's a problem with backup systems: they're hard to test, and when they fail, they can leave you in a worse situation than if you failsafe without them.
(AIUI air traffic control do have backup systems, including the old paper system. I think they still use that in parallel.)
The trouble the Tories have is they will be competing for attention as opposition to Labour.
The Lib Dems are a large parliamentary force and can cause trouble for the Tories if they position in a way that is hostile to more socially liberal but nimby areas in the south of England they want to win back.
Reform will be a significant media force with Farage a media favourite before he had a seat in Parliament, and will be more so now. This will create pressure on the Tories to remain hard-line on 'woke' and migration.
All of this while the Tories ideally want to position fairly neutrally in order to take advantage of inevitable Labour mistakes.
I can see the advantage of Sunak staying on as interim leader for a prolonged period to let the candidates campaign from a more settled place.
No-one seems very interested about the debate within the LibDems on what's often misdescribed as "nimby areas".
The social pressure for more housing is just as keen in the Cotswolds (where the LDs are close now to having every MP and controlling every District council) as anywhere else. Full-fat Nimbyism is rare in such places - and usually the preserve of Tory extremists, not LD well-wishers. Development-related iffiness under the Tories was primarily about providing adequate infrastructure (like water supply, primary schools and public transport) or perceived unaffordability. After all: even the Nimbyest of country-dwellers have children and grandchildren squeezed by accelerating house prices in places those descendants want to live in.
Personally, I believe that the recent LD electoral successes are primarily down to the LDs' better reflecting the modern psychographics of rural and suburban England than a Tory party that now looks downright medieval. And the current batch of LD MPs reflect this. Expect policies to morph as a result
In Remain areas maybe but the vast majority of Leave seats in Southern and Eastern England stayed Tory on 4th July or went Labour or Reform not LD.
The seats that did go LD, especially in Oxfordshire and Surrey are overwhelmingly NIMBY even if anti Brexit and have LD councils they will expect to oppose the new homes on greybelt the Labour government is opposing. If they don't locally at least they could go Independent, Green or even back to Tory
Opposing the new homes the Labour government is proposing rather
It's Italy, they always had badshit legal decisions - like locking-up scientists who don't predict earthquakes well enough.
Some democracies are even worse.
You can be done for libelling historical figures in S Korea. Which means that pretty well every historical drama that covers events within the last couple of centuries has to be at the very least lightly fictionalised. And even academic discussion can be significantly constrained.
Now I remember when GDR Merkel was widely lauded on PB, hailed as the leader British politicians should imitate.
Does anyone have a good word about her now ?
She dominated European politics for a decade and Germany remained largest economy in the EU on her watch and she handled COVID well. She also had personal integrity
This personal inegrity, so youre a fan of sucking up to Putin ?
It's of no consequence, but classicists, and those interested in the standards of state primary education, on here may be slightly cheered to hear that I have just been to my year 4 daughter's end-of-year assembly at which a short, upbeat and humorous performance is given on one of the subjects covered in the last term: this year: the Spartan Wars, cantered through in 10 minutes (including song). My daughter was narrator No. 5, and was entirely adequate, which for her was a triumph.
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
Legal tender is about payment of a debt and cash is legal tender in the UK too.
Yes, of course, but the ordinary meaning of legal tender in the ordinary mind is that you are allowed to use it for payment. Whereas in UK it is lawful to refuse payment in that form and require it in another. This may be sensible for buying a house but less so for buying a newspaper. The use of cash up to a certain amount in face to face transactions should be both permitted in all cases.
It's Italy, they always had badshit legal decisions - like locking-up scientists who don't predict earthquakes well enough.
Some democracies are even worse.
You can be done for libelling historical figures in S Korea. Which means that pretty well every historical drama that covers events within the last couple of centuries has to be at the very least lightly fictionalised. And even academic discussion can be significantly constrained.
Who gets the payout and when does the Libel Tourism start.?
"Mlud, thus person dids't verily slander Mr Saville (Deceased) in PB which is readable in Republic of Korea.
Maybe south and north korea are not to dissimilar. One has a head of state that is deceased. The other dosent let you defame deceased heads of state.
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
Legal tender is about payment of a debt and cash is legal tender in the UK too.
Yes, of course, but the ordinary meaning of legal tender in the ordinary mind is that you are allowed to use it for payment. Whereas in UK it is lawful to refuse payment in that form and require it in another. This may be sensible for buying a house but less so for buying a newspaper. The use of cash up to a certain amount in face to face transactions should be both permitted in all cases.
It’s a basic principle of our society and the freedom of contract in English law that people contract on whatever terms they like, including method of payment. Talk about constitutional vandalism.
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
There'll be various reasons. cost being one.
But there's also the problem of testing backups and ensuring they're available and work reliably in an emergency. An anecdote:
A small Midlands power station used an independent power from the National Grid to run its systems: the idea being that if the power station had a problem, it still had power coming in. If the power from the grid failed, there were diesel generators that could start at a moment's notice to provide power for the systems. They were never to use their own power.
This is sensible and logical. The backup generators were regularly tested. Then one day, they lost grid power and the backup generators started. They were kept going until the mains supply came back and was deemed stable. A while later, it was noticed that temperatures on some of the bearings in the turbines were very high. It turned out that when the generators were switched off, the power supply to a lubrication system failed, meaning the turbines were running unlubricated. The end result were a couple of ruined turbines, a couple more badly damaged, and millions in costs.
That's a problem with backup systems: they're hard to test, and when they fail, they can leave you in a worse situation than if you failsafe without them.
(AIUI air traffic control do have backup systems, including the old paper system. I think they still use that in parallel.)
Air traffic control and nuclear power plants have ridiculous backups, and the Space Shuttle famously had a fourth backup flight computer that was developed independently from the other three, which were the same and would vote on problems.
But for everyone else, they just have to deal with it.
All normal with our businesses windows stuff. I don't think our IT bod let anything, even updatesk get rolled out until tested internally on a reference network.
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
Legal tender is about payment of a debt and cash is legal tender in the UK too.
Yes, of course, but the ordinary meaning of legal tender in the ordinary mind is that you are allowed to use it for payment. Whereas in UK it is lawful to refuse payment in that form and require it in another. This may be sensible for buying a house but less so for buying a newspaper. The use of cash up to a certain amount in face to face transactions should be both permitted in all cases.
Worth remembering that there are already limits on cash payments in coinage. You can only use 50p coins up to a value for £10, for example.
Now I remember when GDR Merkel was widely lauded on PB, hailed as the leader British politicians should imitate.
Does anyone have a good word about her now ?
She dominated European politics for a decade and Germany remained largest economy in the EU on her watch and she handled COVID well. She also had personal integrity
This personal inegrity, so youre a fan of sucking up to Putin ?
That was more Schroeder
Policy-wise, she and Obama both share the biggest responsibility for the too-clever-by-half approach of trying to manipulate Putin's 'calculus' with a mixture of sanctions and economic engagement. They didn't realise that they were the ones being played.
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
There'll be various reasons. cost being one.
But there's also the problem of testing backups and ensuring they're available and work reliably in an emergency. An anecdote:
A small Midlands power station used an independent power from the National Grid to run its systems: the idea being that if the power station had a problem, it still had power coming in. If the power from the grid failed, there were diesel generators that could start at a moment's notice to provide power for the systems. They were never to use their own power.
This is sensible and logical. The backup generators were regularly tested. Then one day, they lost grid power and the backup generators started. They were kept going until the mains supply came back and was deemed stable. A while later, it was noticed that temperatures on some of the bearings in the turbines were very high. It turned out that when the generators were switched off, the power supply to a lubrication system failed, meaning the turbines were running unlubricated. The end result were a couple of ruined turbines, a couple more badly damaged, and millions in costs.
That's a problem with backup systems: they're hard to test, and when they fail, they can leave you in a worse situation than if you failsafe without them.
(AIUI air traffic control do have backup systems, including the old paper system. I think they still use that in parallel.)
We moved into a new building in the US with a small server room, with UPS and backup generators. The room also had a kill switch for safety in case somebody was being electrocuted while working on something with uninterruptible power.
Shortly after we moved in there was a power cut. The generators kicked in and the whole building came back up
Except the server room
The kill switch had been wired into the mains feed instead of the UPS feed so it tripped when the power went out
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
There'll be various reasons. cost being one.
But there's also the problem of testing backups and ensuring they're available and work reliably in an emergency. An anecdote:
A small Midlands power station used an independent power from the National Grid to run its systems: the idea being that if the power station had a problem, it still had power coming in. If the power from the grid failed, there were diesel generators that could start at a moment's notice to provide power for the systems. They were never to use their own power.
This is sensible and logical. The backup generators were regularly tested. Then one day, they lost grid power and the backup generators started. They were kept going until the mains supply came back and was deemed stable. A while later, it was noticed that temperatures on some of the bearings in the turbines were very high. It turned out that when the generators were switched off, the power supply to a lubrication system failed, meaning the turbines were running unlubricated. The end result were a couple of ruined turbines, a couple more badly damaged, and millions in costs.
That's a problem with backup systems: they're hard to test, and when they fail, they can leave you in a worse situation than if you failsafe without them.
(AIUI air traffic control do have backup systems, including the old paper system. I think they still use that in parallel.)
If airports are like ATC, they will have an "operational" / "non-operational" split.
Operational is keeping things flying, and safe. Non-operational is the rest.
I think timetable displays will be non-operational.
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
There'll be various reasons. cost being one.
But there's also the problem of testing backups and ensuring they're available and work reliably in an emergency. An anecdote:
A small Midlands power station used an independent power from the National Grid to run its systems: the idea being that if the power station had a problem, it still had power coming in. If the power from the grid failed, there were diesel generators that could start at a moment's notice to provide power for the systems. They were never to use their own power.
This is sensible and logical. The backup generators were regularly tested. Then one day, they lost grid power and the backup generators started. They were kept going until the mains supply came back and was deemed stable. A while later, it was noticed that temperatures on some of the bearings in the turbines were very high. It turned out that when the generators were switched off, the power supply to a lubrication system failed, meaning the turbines were running unlubricated. The end result were a couple of ruined turbines, a couple more badly damaged, and millions in costs.
That's a problem with backup systems: they're hard to test, and when they fail, they can leave you in a worse situation than if you failsafe without them.
(AIUI air traffic control do have backup systems, including the old paper system. I think they still use that in parallel.)
Air traffic control and nuclear power plants have ridiculous backups, and the Space Shuttle famously had a fourth backup flight computer that was developed independently from the other three, which were the same and would vote on problems.
But for everyone else, they just have to deal with it.
It is believed by quite a few that the Space Shuttle software was, eventually, bug free.
Every line in the code was reviewed and tested in multiple ways. At the end of the program they actually wrote a whole framework to torture the code with random inputs to see if they could find anything - after years of no bug reports. Still nothing.
Now I remember when GDR Merkel was widely lauded on PB, hailed as the leader British politicians should imitate.
Does anyone have a good word about her now ?
She dominated European politics for a decade and Germany remained largest economy in the EU on her watch and she handled COVID well. She also had personal integrity
This personal inegrity, so youre a fan of sucking up to Putin ?
That was more Schroeder
Nah, I was watching a program on Merkel om German TV earlier in the week, her through out the red carpet for Vlad was very much a big part of her time in office.
On the other hand we should of course thank her, if he hadnt been so shit to Cameron and had given him some concessions we'd still be in the EU. 52-48 the other way round. But she played hardball and fked up.
This concerning global IT outage - insiders say it arises because the security software gets high or “root” privileges which can then change the operating system.
Much of this appears to be from a faulty update to everyone’s root system by a cloud security provider…
major fail for cloud security “software as a service” boom industry, whose integration into highest levels of systems they are supposed to protect, appears to have brought them down globally.
Flip side, is should be straightforward to fix: “Boot in safe mode and delete a file”
My first instinct, as it was with the payments outage yesterday was that “this looks exactly like a cyber attack” esp given timing with big summit etc… industry insiders say it’s a “faulty update”
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
There'll be various reasons. cost being one.
But there's also the problem of testing backups and ensuring they're available and work reliably in an emergency. An anecdote:
A small Midlands power station used an independent power from the National Grid to run its systems: the idea being that if the power station had a problem, it still had power coming in. If the power from the grid failed, there were diesel generators that could start at a moment's notice to provide power for the systems. They were never to use their own power.
This is sensible and logical. The backup generators were regularly tested. Then one day, they lost grid power and the backup generators started. They were kept going until the mains supply came back and was deemed stable. A while later, it was noticed that temperatures on some of the bearings in the turbines were very high. It turned out that when the generators were switched off, the power supply to a lubrication system failed, meaning the turbines were running unlubricated. The end result were a couple of ruined turbines, a couple more badly damaged, and millions in costs.
That's a problem with backup systems: they're hard to test, and when they fail, they can leave you in a worse situation than if you failsafe without them.
(AIUI air traffic control do have backup systems, including the old paper system. I think they still use that in parallel.)
We moved into a new building in the US with a small server room, with UPS and backup generators. The room also had a kill switch for safety in case somebody was being electrocuted while working on something with uninterruptible power.
Shortly after we moved in there was a power cut. The generators kicked in and the whole building came back up
Except the server room
The kill switch had been wired into the mains feed instead of the UPS feed so it tripped when the power went out
Nobody had tested it, until it didn't work
The old engineering computer lab at QMW in London had a big emergency power cut-off handle by the door. From memory it was about two foot long, with a red rubber/plastic handle, and stuck out form the wall at about a twenty degree angle. The idea being that if anyone electrocuted themselves, the power could be easily cut off.
Except... people would come in to the lab, take their coats off, and hang it off the handle, not know what it was for. Someone else would then come in, see a coat there, and chuck theirs on top of it. Then someone would do the same with their bag. More and more items would get put on this handy 'hook' until the weight caused the handle to fall, cutting off the power to the entire room.
We'd see someone come in, chuck their coat on the handle and scream at them not to. Which caused them to jump, and on one occasion someone pushed the handle down...
(This is all from memory. It would be great to see a picture of the ITC lab to see if it is how I remember it. I must have spent hundreds of hours in that room, but I've been in so many similar rooms since it's interesting to think how accurate my recollections of its layout are...)
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
Legal tender is about payment of a debt and cash is legal tender in the UK too.
Yes, of course, but the ordinary meaning of legal tender in the ordinary mind is that you are allowed to use it for payment. Whereas in UK it is lawful to refuse payment in that form and require it in another. This may be sensible for buying a house but less so for buying a newspaper. The use of cash up to a certain amount in face to face transactions should be both permitted in all cases.
Worth remembering that there are already limits on cash payments in coinage. You can only use 50p coins up to a value for £10, for example.
That's not true. 50p coins are legal tender up to £10, which means that if you use 50p coins to settle a £10 debt the lender has to accept them. You can in fact use as many 50p coins as the lender/vendor is prepared to accept
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
There'll be various reasons. cost being one.
But there's also the problem of testing backups and ensuring they're available and work reliably in an emergency. An anecdote:
A small Midlands power station used an independent power from the National Grid to run its systems: the idea being that if the power station had a problem, it still had power coming in. If the power from the grid failed, there were diesel generators that could start at a moment's notice to provide power for the systems. They were never to use their own power.
This is sensible and logical. The backup generators were regularly tested. Then one day, they lost grid power and the backup generators started. They were kept going until the mains supply came back and was deemed stable. A while later, it was noticed that temperatures on some of the bearings in the turbines were very high. It turned out that when the generators were switched off, the power supply to a lubrication system failed, meaning the turbines were running unlubricated. The end result were a couple of ruined turbines, a couple more badly damaged, and millions in costs.
That's a problem with backup systems: they're hard to test, and when they fail, they can leave you in a worse situation than if you failsafe without them.
(AIUI air traffic control do have backup systems, including the old paper system. I think they still use that in parallel.)
We moved into a new building in the US with a small server room, with UPS and backup generators. The room also had a kill switch for safety in case somebody was being electrocuted while working on something with uninterruptible power.
Shortly after we moved in there was a power cut. The generators kicked in and the whole building came back up
Except the server room
The kill switch had been wired into the mains feed instead of the UPS feed so it tripped when the power went out
Nobody had tested it, until it didn't work
My old IT boss had a very simple test to see how confident the infrastructure guys were in the failover procedures. He walked into the server room and made to pull out the plug...
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
Legal tender is about payment of a debt and cash is legal tender in the UK too.
Yes, of course, but the ordinary meaning of legal tender in the ordinary mind is that you are allowed to use it for payment. Whereas in UK it is lawful to refuse payment in that form and require it in another. This may be sensible for buying a house but less so for buying a newspaper. The use of cash up to a certain amount in face to face transactions should be both permitted in all cases.
Worth remembering that there are already limits on cash payments in coinage. You can only use 50p coins up to a value for £10, for example.
That's not true. 50p coins are legal tender up to £10, which means that if you use 50p coins to settle a £10 debt the lender has to accept them. You can in fact use as many 50p coins as the lender/vendor is prepared to accept
Ah. We used to use that to stop people emptying their piggy banks out on the counter. I suppose we were still in the right.
*CROWDSTRIKE SHARES DROP 13% AMID REPORTS OF MAJOR OUTAGE
It’s unlawful to give investment advice if not authorised to do so, but I’m not 100% sure myself that that’s the bottom of this market.
Screaming buy, people will realise Crowdstrike is so contractually embedded it's easier to accept their apologies and assurances of non-recurrence than look elsewhere
There's a Dilbert about a product called Kwikprotect which uncannily predicts this scenario
*CROWDSTRIKE SHARES DROP 13% AMID REPORTS OF MAJOR OUTAGE
It’s unlawful to give investment advice if not authorised to do so, but I’m not 100% sure myself that that’s the bottom of this market.
Screaming buy, people will realise Crowdstrike is so contractually embedded it's easier to accept their apologies and assurances of non-recurrence than look elsewhere
There's a Dilbert about a product called Kwikprotect which uncannily predicts this scenario
No chance. You don’t recover from this big a fcukup.
My old IT boss had a very simple test to see how confident the infrastructure guys were in the failover procedures. He walked into the server room and made to pull out the plug...
Cisco invited us to a demo of their switches years ago. they built a "fully redundant" network, no single points of failure.
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
Legal tender is about payment of a debt and cash is legal tender in the UK too.
Yes, of course, but the ordinary meaning of legal tender in the ordinary mind is that you are allowed to use it for payment. Whereas in UK it is lawful to refuse payment in that form and require it in another. This may be sensible for buying a house but less so for buying a newspaper. The use of cash up to a certain amount in face to face transactions should be both permitted in all cases.
Worth remembering that there are already limits on cash payments in coinage. You can only use 50p coins up to a value for £10, for example.
That's not true. 50p coins are legal tender up to £10, which means that if you use 50p coins to settle a £10 debt the lender has to accept them. You can in fact use as many 50p coins as the lender/vendor is prepared to accept
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
Because it’s not that simple. There will be a backup server, running the same software as the main one, but if you update them both with crap then then they both fall over. The Microsoft issue is related to ‘cloud services’ over which the customers have no control whatsoever, they just trust Microsoft to keep them running.
And even if you make a switch to a paper back up system (like the Ambulance Service does during an IT failure), the process of transferring everything across and re-starting the process can take hours.
A friend stuck at Edinburgh Airport noted that the staff got things moving again very quickly, but the knock on effect has basically collapsed the whole airport.
The ATC backup systems are designed for the worst-case scenario, which is getting the planes currently in the air back onto the ground. Taking off is optional, but landing is compulsory.
*CROWDSTRIKE SHARES DROP 13% AMID REPORTS OF MAJOR OUTAGE
It’s unlawful to give investment advice if not authorised to do so, but I’m not 100% sure myself that that’s the bottom of this market.
Screaming buy, people will realise Crowdstrike is so contractually embedded it's easier to accept their apologies and assurances of non-recurrence than look elsewhere
There's a Dilbert about a product called Kwikprotect which uncannily predicts this scenario
No chance. You don’t recover from this big a fcukup.
The conversation in IT departments is now "Why the hell did we install a rootkit we don't own on every one of our devices?"
I think the whole business model of Crowdstrike might be in trouble
*CROWDSTRIKE SHARES DROP 13% AMID REPORTS OF MAJOR OUTAGE
It’s unlawful to give investment advice if not authorised to do so, but I’m not 100% sure myself that that’s the bottom of this market.
Screaming buy, people will realise Crowdstrike is so contractually embedded it's easier to accept their apologies and assurances of non-recurrence than look elsewhere
There's a Dilbert about a product called Kwikprotect which uncannily predicts this scenario
No chance. You don’t recover from this big a fcukup.
They'll get bought and renamed to some stupid trademark friendly name and be back to being sold to the same people who have it now.
It is very quiet on here. Some people having a spot of PC trouble.
Must admit I am leaving my (personal) microcrap windows pcs switched off until this blows over. But rarely use them anyway these days, phone is more convenient for 99% of time
Labours work from home plans will devastate the high street.
The vendors in Newcastle I have eaten at some of them in the Grainger Market. They are really good and many here are waiting for the 6,000 HMRC employees to move into the city.
This concerning global IT outage - insiders say it arises because the security software gets high or “root” privileges which can then change the operating system.
Much of this appears to be from a faulty update to everyone’s root system by a cloud security provider…
major fail for cloud security “software as a service” boom industry, whose integration into highest levels of systems they are supposed to protect, appears to have brought them down globally.
Flip side, is should be straightforward to fix: “Boot in safe mode and delete a file”
My first instinct, as it was with the payments outage yesterday was that “this looks exactly like a cyber attack” esp given timing with big summit etc… industry insiders say it’s a “faulty update”
SWIFT’s problems yesterday did appear to be faulty update. I tend to be of the view that cockup over conspiracy will get you nine times out of ten
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
There'll be various reasons. cost being one.
But there's also the problem of testing backups and ensuring they're available and work reliably in an emergency. An anecdote:
A small Midlands power station used an independent power from the National Grid to run its systems: the idea being that if the power station had a problem, it still had power coming in. If the power from the grid failed, there were diesel generators that could start at a moment's notice to provide power for the systems. They were never to use their own power.
This is sensible and logical. The backup generators were regularly tested. Then one day, they lost grid power and the backup generators started. They were kept going until the mains supply came back and was deemed stable. A while later, it was noticed that temperatures on some of the bearings in the turbines were very high. It turned out that when the generators were switched off, the power supply to a lubrication system failed, meaning the turbines were running unlubricated. The end result were a couple of ruined turbines, a couple more badly damaged, and millions in costs.
That's a problem with backup systems: they're hard to test, and when they fail, they can leave you in a worse situation than if you failsafe without them.
(AIUI air traffic control do have backup systems, including the old paper system. I think they still use that in parallel.)
Air traffic control and nuclear power plants have ridiculous backups, and the Space Shuttle famously had a fourth backup flight computer that was developed independently from the other three, which were the same and would vote on problems.
But for everyone else, they just have to deal with it.
It is believed by quite a few that the Space Shuttle software was, eventually, bug free.
Every line in the code was reviewed and tested in multiple ways. At the end of the program they actually wrote a whole framework to torture the code with random inputs to see if they could find anything - after years of no bug reports. Still nothing.
Cost about $10 per line - back in the 1980s..
Indeed. And yet they still developed a completely different system to be switched on in case of an emergency. No computer has ever been as bug-free and redundant as the Space Shuttle flight computer.
Don’t these Cyber security companies double check their updates on an internal system before they go out ?
I suppose the trouble is that every system is different. What might cause an issue for one setup may not on another, so testing can never be 100% reliable. It does seem something of a weak point in our tech-reliant society that software updates that can critically affect the functioning of large numbers of computers are released in one go. Perhaps a more staged release would be better, with software updates being released initially to a small number of users before the full release.
I was about to be glib then I realised you were making a point about whether the word "violent" can be directed against a non-living thing. I think it can, so I don't have a problem with the phrase.
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
Because it’s not that simple. There will be a backup server, running the same software as the main one, but if you update them both with crap then then they both fall over. The Microsoft issue is related to ‘cloud services’ over which the customers have no control whatsoever, they just trust Microsoft to keep them running.
And even if you make a switch to a paper back up system (like the Ambulance Service does during an IT failure), the process of transferring everything across and re-starting the process can take hours.
A friend stuck at Edinburgh Airport noted that the staff got things moving again very quickly, but the knock on effect has basically collapsed the whole airport.
The ATC backup systems are designed for the worst-case scenario, which is getting the planes currently in the air back onto the ground. Taking off is optional, but landing is compulsory.
This is as simple as BSOD on all the displays in the airport, so airlines are spending ages rounding up passengers via intercom or leaving them behind.
Don’t these Cyber security companies double check their updates on an internal system before they go out ?
I suppose the trouble is that every system is different. What might cause an issue for one setup may not on another, so testing can never be 100% reliable. It does seem something of a weak point in our tech-reliant society that software updates that can critically affect the functioning of large numbers of computers are released in one go. Perhaps a more staged release would be better, with software updates being released initially to a small number of users before the full release.
In any sufficiently complex system, adding "resilience" adds further complexity and introduces previously impossible failure modes...
I lose count of the number of times "adding a second one" makes it less reliable overall
Why the eff don't airports etc have back-up computer systems that don't use this software?
Because it’s not that simple. There will be a backup server, running the same software as the main one, but if you update them both with crap then then they both fall over. The Microsoft issue is related to ‘cloud services’ over which the customers have no control whatsoever, they just trust Microsoft to keep them running.
And even if you make a switch to a paper back up system (like the Ambulance Service does during an IT failure), the process of transferring everything across and re-starting the process can take hours.
A friend stuck at Edinburgh Airport noted that the staff got things moving again very quickly, but the knock on effect has basically collapsed the whole airport.
The ATC backup systems are designed for the worst-case scenario, which is getting the planes currently in the air back onto the ground. Taking off is optional, but landing is compulsory.
This is as simple as BSOD on all the displays in the airport, so airlines are spending ages rounding up passengers via intercom or leaving them behind.
= chaos
Yup! Yes it’s chaos, but no-one is going to die because their plane doesn’t take off or leaves them behind.
I was about to be glib then I realised you were making a point about whether the word "violent" can be directed against a non-living thing. I think it can, so I don't have a problem with the phrase.
I am not sure that you can.
I think planting a bomb counts as violent, regardless of whether anyone gets injured
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
Legal tender is about payment of a debt and cash is legal tender in the UK too.
Yes, of course, but the ordinary meaning of legal tender in the ordinary mind is that you are allowed to use it for payment. Whereas in UK it is lawful to refuse payment in that form and require it in another. This may be sensible for buying a house but less so for buying a newspaper. The use of cash up to a certain amount in face to face transactions should be both permitted in all cases.
Worth remembering that there are already limits on cash payments in coinage. You can only use 50p coins up to a value for £10, for example.
That's not true. 50p coins are legal tender up to £10, which means that if you use 50p coins to settle a £10 debt the lender has to accept them. You can in fact use as many 50p coins as the lender/vendor is prepared to accept
Ah. We used to use that to stop people emptying their piggy banks out on the counter. I suppose we were still in the right.
Yes, because in most cases you don't have to accept cash at all
Comments
@dizzy_thinks
Happy Resilience Engineering Day
I tend to view LD Nimbyism as quite tactical. But they have a potential problem in areas where it runs deeper in the community.
They deliberately allow local pols or people campaigning to turn an area to be different to national policy.
I'd say they limit what Lib Dems would theoretically like to do by the assessed local limitations. That can be "welching on your principles" or "good politics" depending on your viewpoint.
I think it leads to some interesting contortions, where they tend to end up favouring whoever is the local with the vote, even in defiance of evidence or sense. I think there may be interesting examples in eg Richmond.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErwS24cBZPc
(Ridley Scott)
Too little, too fucking late.
I've suggested on Twitter that a prison sentence is warranted, whilst saying that I expect it to be appealed and modestly reduced. Little bit of blow back given my circles - some deep believing / apocalyptic green types don't like being challenged on methods.
I've been saying that general aims of bunging up key infra of society are not OK, based on my personal experience of a respiratory arrest very soon after reaching a hospital once. I've been a critic of XR and JSO on that since they started more or less.
Comparisons with Suffragettes and other similars are made, which I have little sympathy for since some suffragettes who embraced terrorist methods are whitewashed. "But suffragettes" is always a lazy excuse imo.
Lots of excuses around "they were just discussing carrying out a peaceful protest".
The most interesting comments back have been comparisons with petrol protests blocking the motorways, which were not dealt with harshly and given police escorts for go slow protests on major points. That is a very telling point, which also relates to particular causes being portrayed as justified or 'acceptable' by particular audiences, and where the moral high ground is believed to lie.
I think that what both XR have done, similarly to the "war on cars" brigade as expressed by anti-LTN types shading over into conspiracy theories and camera-vandals, is that they have both judged it wrong and risk losing or have lost their general audience.
https://www.banque-france.fr/en/monetary-strategy/means-of-payment/national-cash-management-policy/acceptability
"The Banque de France guarantees cash acceptability
The Banque de France ensures the acceptability of cash, which is the first pillar of the National Cash Management Policy. It notably ensures that banknotes are accepted as legal tender and that they remain a secure and lasting means of payment.
Cash is legal tender in France. It is a criminal offence to refuse it in a transaction, although there are exceptions. The fact that cash is legal tender guarantees that everyone has the freedom to choose how they wish to pay. Euro banknotes and coins must therefore be available to the public at all times and universally accepted, as they are often the only means of payment possible for the most financially vulnerable. The Banque de France provides a banknote and coin supply and collection service for private individuals free of charge."
Journalist told to pay damages for mocking Italian PM's height
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnk41nnl125o
In all seriousness, what MS does is bloody amazing. Apple control their own hardware, which makes writing software fairly straightforward. MS have to make their systems work with 1,001 different peripherals, from monitors to mice; from different graphics cards to motherboards.
The fact it works at all is amazing, and the fact it works with so many different peripherals means there is competition, helping make prices that are far lower than Apple's monopoly.
As for viruses: blackhats choose to mostly target MS *because* MS is so widely used. which means there are so many more systems out there to exploit. And with chip-level exploits (more exploits and bugs have recently been found for both Intel and ARM architectures), much is outside the OS's purview.
MS do a stunning job.
I mean I am buying a new car soon, I’m sure my dealership will love me dropping of tens of thousands of pounds in £50 notes and coppers.
We have a three-year contract with them signed six months ago, and my boss wants it gone by the end of the month.
The seats that did go LD, especially in Oxfordshire and Surrey are overwhelmingly NIMBY even if anti Brexit and have LD councils they will expect to oppose the new homes on greybelt the Labour government is opposing. If they don't locally at least they could go Independent, Green or even back to Tory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T_WPuUCRm0
On this wild episode of Coalition Of The Sane, Denver Riggleman and Bucks County Beacon writer, Jennifer Cohn walk you through the financial spider web of the far right Christian nationalist networks that fund everything from the disruption of local school boards, NAR, Project 2025, and even The United States Supreme Court itself. Where does the money come from? You’ll get specific answers to questions like : Who are the donors? Who oversees distribution? Who is in charge of each department? And the most important question…How much have they invested in Donald J. Trump?
What a mess
Never had any problems.
Once you Mac, you don’t go back.
Break in on Saturday and steal the money back.
What you often try to do with backup systems is to do updates on a different schedule to the main system which would probably have saved people here if they'd done it, but there's a trade-off when you're dealing with security patches and anti-virus updates because if you hold off applying them you make them insecure.
Honourable mention to IT people who put their physical back ups next to original so when a fire or flood strikes…
A friend stuck at Edinburgh Airport noted that the staff got things moving again very quickly, but the knock on effect has basically collapsed the whole airport.
But there's also the problem of testing backups and ensuring they're available and work reliably in an emergency. An anecdote:
A small Midlands power station used an independent power from the National Grid to run its systems: the idea being that if the power station had a problem, it still had power coming in. If the power from the grid failed, there were diesel generators that could start at a moment's notice to provide power for the systems. They were never to use their own power.
This is sensible and logical. The backup generators were regularly tested. Then one day, they lost grid power and the backup generators started. They were kept going until the mains supply came back and was deemed stable. A while later, it was noticed that temperatures on some of the bearings in the turbines were very high. It turned out that when the generators were switched off, the power supply to a lubrication system failed, meaning the turbines were running unlubricated. The end result were a couple of ruined turbines, a couple more badly damaged, and millions in costs.
That's a problem with backup systems: they're hard to test, and when they fail, they can leave you in a worse situation than if you failsafe without them.
(AIUI air traffic control do have backup systems, including the old paper system. I think they still use that in parallel.)
You can be done for libelling historical figures in S Korea. Which means that pretty well every historical drama that covers events within the last couple of centuries has to be at the very least lightly fictionalised.
And even academic discussion can be significantly constrained.
My daughter was narrator No. 5, and was entirely adequate, which for her was a triumph.
A
S
H
"Mlud, thus person dids't verily slander Mr Saville (Deceased) in PB which is readable in Republic of Korea.
Maybe south and north korea are not to dissimilar. One has a head of state that is deceased. The other dosent let you defame deceased heads of state.
But for everyone else, they just have to deal with it.
Shortly after we moved in there was a power cut. The generators kicked in and the whole building came back up
Except the server room
The kill switch had been wired into the mains feed instead of the UPS feed so it tripped when the power went out
Nobody had tested it, until it didn't work
Operational is keeping things flying, and safe. Non-operational is the rest.
I think timetable displays will be non-operational.
Every line in the code was reviewed and tested in multiple ways. At the end of the program they actually wrote a whole framework to torture the code with random inputs to see if they could find anything - after years of no bug reports. Still nothing.
Cost about $10 per line - back in the 1980s..
On the other hand we should of course thank her, if he hadnt been so shit to Cameron and had given him some concessions we'd still be in the EU. 52-48 the other way round. But she played hardball and fked up.
This concerning global IT outage - insiders say it arises because the security software gets high or “root” privileges which can then change the operating system.
Much of this appears to be from a faulty update to everyone’s root system by a cloud security provider…
major fail for cloud security “software as a service” boom industry, whose integration into highest levels of systems they are supposed to protect, appears to have brought them down globally.
Flip side, is should be straightforward to fix: “Boot in safe mode and delete a file”
My first instinct, as it was with the payments outage yesterday was that “this looks exactly like a cyber attack” esp given timing with big summit etc… industry insiders say it’s a “faulty update”
Except... people would come in to the lab, take their coats off, and hang it off the handle, not know what it was for. Someone else would then come in, see a coat there, and chuck theirs on top of it. Then someone would do the same with their bag. More and more items would get put on this handy 'hook' until the weight caused the handle to fall, cutting off the power to the entire room.
We'd see someone come in, chuck their coat on the handle and scream at them not to. Which caused them to jump, and on one occasion someone pushed the handle down...
(This is all from memory. It would be great to see a picture of the ITC lab to see if it is how I remember it. I must have spent hundreds of hours in that room, but I've been in so many similar rooms since it's interesting to think how accurate my recollections of its layout are...)
Anyone know how Liz Truss's first day at Microsoft is going?
There's a Dilbert about a product called Kwikprotect which uncannily predicts this scenario
(Narrator: we fined somebody for mocking the dead Captain Tom)
...oh
So my colleague asked if he could pull a cable
He did
The network crashed
I think the whole business model of Crowdstrike might be in trouble
The US Secret Service are over the moon today, that Crowdstrike have taken over their mantle as the most disfunctional organisation in the world.
Must admit I am leaving my (personal) microcrap windows pcs switched off until this blows over. But rarely use them anyway these days, phone is more convenient for 99% of time
The vendors in Newcastle I have eaten at some of them in the Grainger Market. They are really good and many here are waiting for the 6,000 HMRC employees to move into the city.
https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/other/keir-starmers-wfh-plans-will-turn-our-high-streets-into-ghost-towns/ar-BB1qeCzG?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Still, I guess there will be winners and losers in this.
= chaos
I lose count of the number of times "adding a second one" makes it less reliable overall