GPS tracking on iOS can only be continuous if your app is registered as a navigation app. Apple won't let it into the App Store if you claim it to be a navigation app when it isn't.
GPS isn't any use in buildings, and quite poor even outside in urban environments. It's worth noting that "location "on smartphones also covers wireless positioning systems (cellular and Wi-Fi ID lookups basically) and there are some newer thing like WiFi-RTT though those are not widely supported as yet. So an app won't be only using GPS unless specifically coded to work that way.
Bluetooth, and in particular Bluetooth LE, is widely supported, works in all environments, and doesn't use much power. It's not perfect but if you want continous proximity detection, that works in the most places, and doesn't cause too many problems, BLE is the best option.
Ouch. Starmer waves the graph of international comparisons which is used every night in the press conference, just after Johnson says it is too early to look at international comparisons.
Has Sir K had polling evidence that smug patronising hindsighting is popular with the voters ?
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Hovering around the relegation zone is not middle of the road.
But being mid table is.
If we were to make a football analogy then Germany would be Liverpool, Italy would be Norwich City - while the UK would be around the likes of Tottenham or Crystal Palace.
I'd be interested to see a Covid league table of 20 comparable countries where currently the UK is closer to the top than the bottom (the top being the best numbers in reacting to the Covid crisis).
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
''After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with''
Understatement of the year.
See that CIPS construction number? sheesh These economic data are even shocking me and I'm expecting a bigger downturn than anybody.
Numbers right now are not what is relevant. What is relevant are the numbers afterwards.
I am quite liking Starmer's approach and if he can finally slay antisemitism and Corbynism he will lead a genuine opposition for the first time in five years
Can Sir Keir get you to vote for him though BigG? As you last voted Labour under Blair when Labour last won a general election you are clearly exactly the type of swing voter he needs to become PM
You do not seem to understand that you can be loyal to your party and at the same time complement an opposition politician
And Boris has my vote as long as he is a liberal compassionate conservative and not a pseudo ukipper
Ouch. Starmer waves the graph of international comparisons which is used every night in the press conference, just after Johnson says it is too early to look at international comparisons.
Has Sir K had polling evidence that smug patronising hindsighting is popular with the voters ?
Are we blaming HMG for activities in privately run care homes ?
Government forcing homes to take patients back with positive test results is a problem, however you want to spin it.
TGOHF believes that families only put relatives in care homes because they smell a bit and interfere with their travel plans so I wouldn't take any notice of his pronouncements on the social care sector.
You could be in with a shout of picking up Prof Ferguson's vacant gig with that degree of skill in inflationary extrapolation.
Have no fear, I shall be reminding people of that obnoxious comment on a regular basis. It speaks volumes.
Why are you so keen for me to validate your decisions ?
What decisions of mine do you believe you are validating exactly?
Don't welcome the NHS app. Criticise it, because it isn't going to work properly.
I guess its sensible to not criticise it until it does actually fail?
It won't fail, it'll just be updated.
That is right; they will ditch it for the OS solution but keep the interface and claim it is NHX 2.0. Or even 1.1.
As I understand it, it would just be a backend change that the user wouldn't even notice.
Indeed that's what I've said, the app will be patched and it will remain the same app. The whole point of a beta test is to identify any issues and then address them. If there's an issue that needs a backend revamp then just do it.
I'm still incredulous about the whole thing if it is indeed the case for iOS it needs to be awakened every few minutes. That should have been a show-stopper.
It seems seems unbelievable. If its the case then it clearly wouldn't get through the trial in the Isle of Wight successfully but it seems preposterous it would get that far if so.
We'll see. If its the case just adapt the backend and its done. Plan B will give less useful information than Plan A but so be it.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Hovering around the relegation zone is not middle of the road.
But being mid table is.
If we were to make a football analogy then Germany would be Liverpool, Italy would be Norwich City - while the UK would be around the likes of Tottenham or Crystal Palace.
I'd be interested to see a Covid league table of 20 comparable countries where currently the UK is closer to the top than the bottom (the top being the best numbers in reacting to the Covid crisis).
Are there 20 comparable countries?
We'll see afterwards how it lies but I think it seems clear we'll end up much worse than Germany etc and much better than Italy etc - I don't see how that's controversial.
And that's before we consider looking at the horror show that's across the Pond.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Credit where it is due, we definitely prevented our health service becoming overwhelmed and that certainly didn't look like a given in the early stages.
I remain convinced that the government were slow off the mark primarily down to Johnson not realising the threat as early as he should have done. I think he took his eye off the ball for the last 2 weeks of Feb when he went MIA to sort out his private life. When he returned he failed to take precautions seriously and ended up with a serious bout of the infection himself.
Since then we have recovered ground but I definitely think our overall response has been a lot nearer the bottom rather than in middle of the road.
I have not had time to follow the discussion on the tracing app but if that does turn out to be a failure where does that leave our lockdown strategy?
I don't think the app will fail outright if the problems are as they are claimed. They will just pivot to the alternative solution. Remember that this is a long-term thing they will need people to use for months on end, not just in the next week or so.
Fair enough, I was unsure of how critical it was to the lockdown-easing strategy.
Ouch. Starmer waves the graph of international comparisons which is used every night in the press conference, just after Johnson says it is too early to look at international comparisons.
Has Sir K had polling evidence that smug patronising hindsighting is popular with the voters ?
You are not the voters.
After Harry's exposure of his views on the care of relatives with dementia, it's obvious that he has a finely tuned and empathetic finger on the pulse of the voter.
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
When the debt needs to be rolled over interest rates might not be 0.1% and we may not be able to monetise our debt so easily either.
I am quite liking Starmer's approach and if he can finally slay antisemitism and Corbynism he will lead a genuine opposition for the first time in five years
Can Sir Keir get you to vote for him though BigG? As you last voted Labour under Blair when Labour last won a general election you are clearly exactly the type of swing voter he needs to become PM
You do not seem to understand that you can be loyal to your party and at the same time complement an opposition politician
And Boris has my vote as long as he is a liberal compassionate conservative and not a pseudo ukipper
Maybe but you are still in the small pool of Tory to New Labour in 1997 to Tory again switchers Starmer has to win to get into No 10
Unspectacular but competent, clinical and efficient 1 - 0 win for Starmer that one.
He could have gone for the jugular in the follow up questions but held off, I assume saving it up for when things go seriously pear shaped. A dangerous opponent for Boris.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Credit where it is due, we definitely prevented our health service becoming overwhelmed and that certainly didn't look like a given in the early stages.
I remain convinced that the government were slow off the mark primarily down to Johnson not realising the threat as early as he should have done. I think he took his eye off the ball for the last 2 weeks of Feb when he went MIA to sort out his private life. When he returned he failed to take precautions seriously and ended up with a serious bout of the infection himself.
Since then we have recovered ground but I definitely think our overall response has been a lot nearer the bottom rather than in middle of the road.
I have not had time to follow the discussion on the tracing app but if that does turn out to be a failure where does that leave our lockdown strategy?
I don't think the app will fail outright if the problems are as they are claimed. They will just pivot to the alternative solution. Remember that this is a long-term thing they will need people to use for months on end, not just in the next week or so.
Fair enough, I was unsure of how critical it was to the lockdown-easing strategy.
I think it's very important to prevent another surge, so they'll want it up and running with mass adoption quickly. I haven't seen anything tying it to the easing of restrictions however.
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
When the debt needs to be rolled over interest rates might not be 0.1% and we may not be able to monetise our debt so easily either.
Indeed in 30 or 50 years time interest could be higher. What we do with the deficit between now and then will matter more than trying to repay bonds.
GPS tracking on iOS can only be continuous if your app is registered as a navigation app. Apple won't let it into the App Store if you claim it to be a navigation app when it isn't.
GPS isn't any use in buildings, and quite poor even outside in urban environments. It's worth noting that "location "on smartphones also covers wireless positioning systems (cellular and Wi-Fi ID lookups basically) and there are some newer thing like WiFi-RTT though those are not widely supported as yet. So an app won't be only using GPS unless specifically coded to work that way.
Bluetooth, and in particular Bluetooth LE, is widely supported, works in all environments, and doesn't use much power. It's not perfect but if you want continous proximity detection, that works in the most places, and doesn't cause too many problems, BLE is the best option.
But BLE is a privacy nightmare so both Apple and Google disable it unless the application using it is in the foreground.
In an ideal world you would have two separate apps here:-
1) using Apple / Google's API and BLE to record person to person connections 2) using GPS to record location information.
but its fully understandable why that isn't occurring.
The self reporting in his app is as bad as the bluetooth technological issue. Any old twat can spend their day going to a load of high population density locations and then report they feel unwell with coronavirus symptoms.
Remember in China, the kids got their home schooling app removed from the app stores by mass reporting it as dodgy app, and the AI banned it.
I thought the whole point of having it centralised was that the alert only went out when someone was diagnosed with it.
It's not. The testing data can't simply be uploaded because there's no way to match up an app user ID with their testing information. It's completely stupid.
I think a better way would be for test results to include a linkout to the app which will push a positive test into it and then trigger the alerts and test appointment booking etc...
I said weeks ago, this desire for privacy in the West will cause a huge amount of problems. We are always starting from a position of basically having one hand tired behind our back. Rather than South Korea, who track your phone, your purchases, your travel on public transport, CCTV....and we are surprised they are the Gold Standard for controlling this without crashing your economy.
Incidentally, does anyone know how South Korea get their app to work? The Google/Apple solution wasn't available earlier.
Does it just use GPS tracking (which can be continuous, unlike bluetooth)?
GPS tracking on iOS can only be continuous if your app is registered as a navigation app. Apple won't let it into the App Store if you claim it to be a navigation app when it isn't.
One piece of information that seems to be missing from a lot of these discussions - the app is being developed by Pivotal which is a subsidiary of VMware
I don't agree with many of the criticisms of the government, especially those that required a tardis to fix problems long before this unexpected pandemic arose but when we do come to look into this afterwards I have little doubt that the way we have treated the most vulnerable groups in our society in care homes will be the subject that will hit hardest.
The absurd advice that people ceased to be infectious 7 days after symptoms led to people who were infected and infectious being transferred into groups that should have been in lockdown. Those groups were looked after by very poorly paid and largely unskilled staff who had access to almost no PPE at all and we did nothing about it. Then, perhaps understandably, we excluded the families of those residents who might have highlighted the inevitable risks. The result has been carnage, not just for those residents but many of their staff who were looking after highly dependent residents without the training or equipment that our hospitals have. It is truly shameful.
An interesting pattern has developed in the health field where everything good, positive and weekly-applause worthy is attributed to the 'NHS' and everything malign, ridiculous and unsuccessful is attributed to 'Government'. While this is understandable it does not aid understanding.
As we observed early on, pre-Boris illness, the strategy of outsourcing government to Chris Witty was never destined to be a success in anything other than arse-covering for the politicians. Although, thanks to the journalists, both the medics and the politicians might yet have a day of reckoning.
I'm quite surprised we aren't saying our doctors and nurses are inferior to other parts of Europe. It's a perfectly logical conclusion but obviously the left have a much easier target in the government.
To the left problems in the NHS are a result of chronic underfunding by the Conservative government; to the right the problem with the NHS is that it is an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining left-wing leaning bureaucracy.
Both of these charges can be correct.
They can indeed. Probably are in fact.
Begs a question though -
Would an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining right wing leaning bureaucracy be more acceptable to the Tory sensibility?
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
When the debt needs to be rolled over interest rates might not be 0.1% and we may not be able to monetise our debt so easily either.
Indeed in 30 or 50 years time interest could be higher. What we do with the deficit between now and then will matter more than trying to repay bonds.
The average maturity will be much closer to 12 years than 30-50 years.
GPS tracking on iOS can only be continuous if your app is registered as a navigation app. Apple won't let it into the App Store if you claim it to be a navigation app when it isn't.
GPS isn't any use in buildings, and quite poor even outside in urban environments. It's worth noting that "location "on smartphones also covers wireless positioning systems (cellular and Wi-Fi ID lookups basically) and there are some newer thing like WiFi-RTT though those are not widely supported as yet. So an app won't be only using GPS unless specifically coded to work that way.
Bluetooth, and in particular Bluetooth LE, is widely supported, works in all environments, and doesn't use much power. It's not perfect but if you want continous proximity detection, that works in the most places, and doesn't cause too many problems, BLE is the best option.
My Strava manages to keep track of my position almost perfectly, although I am in London so I guess more wifis to use.
It does however go to sleep after a while on my Honor device...
Ouch. Starmer waves the graph of international comparisons which is used every night in the press conference, just after Johnson says it is too early to look at international comparisons.
Has Sir K had polling evidence that smug patronising hindsighting is popular with the voters ?
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
When the debt needs to be rolled over interest rates might not be 0.1% and we may not be able to monetise our debt so easily either.
Indeed in 30 or 50 years time interest could be higher. What we do with the deficit between now and then will matter more than trying to repay bonds.
The average maturity will be much closer to 12 years than 30-50 years.
And I'm willing to wager that between now and 12 years time we would be trying to resolve the deficit and then rolling over debt not repaying the debt.
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
When the debt needs to be rolled over interest rates might not be 0.1% and we may not be able to monetise our debt so easily either.
Indeed in 30 or 50 years time interest could be higher. What we do with the deficit between now and then will matter more than trying to repay bonds.
The average maturity will be much closer to 12 years than 30-50 years.
The current gilt rate already reflects expectations for the whole of the period.
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
When the debt needs to be rolled over interest rates might not be 0.1% and we may not be able to monetise our debt so easily either.
That's right, Max. You have a go. He won't ever listen to me.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Credit where it is due, we definitely prevented our health service becoming overwhelmed and that certainly didn't look like a given in the early stages.
I remain convinced that the government were slow off the mark primarily down to Johnson not realising the threat as early as he should have done. I think he took his eye off the ball for the last 2 weeks of Feb when he went MIA to sort out his private life. When he returned he failed to take precautions seriously and ended up with a serious bout of the infection himself.
Since then we have recovered ground but I definitely think our overall response has been a lot nearer the bottom rather than in middle of the road.
I have not had time to follow the discussion on the tracing app but if that does turn out to be a failure where does that leave our lockdown strategy?
I don't think the app will fail outright if the problems are as they are claimed. They will just pivot to the alternative solution. Remember that this is a long-term thing they will need people to use for months on end, not just in the next week or so.
Fair enough, I was unsure of how critical it was to the lockdown-easing strategy.
I think it's very important to prevent another surge, so they'll want it up and running with mass adoption quickly. I haven't seen anything tying it to the easing of restrictions however.
It's a load of old bollocks, this app. They really wanted something like Tinder but with Coronavirus status. Seems like the security services were just slavering at the mouth about all the data they thought they were going to get.
They can't sack Hancock though, so best just to bring someone in 'alongside' him to do all the difficult bits so that he can 'concentrate' on his core role.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Hovering around the relegation zone is not middle of the road.
But being mid table is.
If we were to make a football analogy then Germany would be Liverpool, Italy would be Norwich City - while the UK would be around the likes of Tottenham or Crystal Palace.
I'd be interested to see a Covid league table of 20 comparable countries where currently the UK is closer to the top than the bottom (the top being the best numbers in reacting to the Covid crisis).
Are there 20 comparable countries?
We'll see afterwards how it lies but I think it seems clear we'll end up much worse than Germany etc and much better than Italy etc - I don't see how that's controversial.
And that's before we consider looking at the horror show that's across the Pond.
There must be comparable countries since the words 'we are doing worse than' and 'better than' appear in one of your posts.
Ouch. Starmer waves the graph of international comparisons which is used every night in the press conference, just after Johnson says it is too early to look at international comparisons.
Has Sir K had polling evidence that smug patronising hindsighting is popular with the voters ?
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
When the debt needs to be rolled over interest rates might not be 0.1% and we may not be able to monetise our debt so easily either.
Indeed in 30 or 50 years time interest could be higher. What we do with the deficit between now and then will matter more than trying to repay bonds.
The average maturity will be much closer to 12 years than 30-50 years.
And I'm willing to wager that between now and 12 years time we would be trying to resolve the deficit and then rolling over debt not repaying the debt.
Which is why assuming that these generous interest rates on gilts will still be available is a huge risk or assuming the market is still happy for the Bank to monetise the debt is a huge risk.
There are going to be spending cuts and tax rises, whatever Bozza says.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Hovering around the relegation zone is not middle of the road.
But being mid table is.
If we were to make a football analogy then Germany would be Liverpool, Italy would be Norwich City - while the UK would be around the likes of Tottenham or Crystal Palace.
I predict this won't age well. To me it's looking like we are among the worst, and may well be the worst on excess mortality.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Hovering around the relegation zone is not middle of the road.
But being mid table is.
If we were to make a football analogy then Germany would be Liverpool, Italy would be Norwich City - while the UK would be around the likes of Tottenham or Crystal Palace.
I'd be interested to see a Covid league table of 20 comparable countries where currently the UK is closer to the top than the bottom (the top being the best numbers in reacting to the Covid crisis).
Are there 20 comparable countries?
We'll see afterwards how it lies but I think it seems clear we'll end up much worse than Germany etc and much better than Italy etc - I don't see how that's controversial.
And that's before we consider looking at the horror show that's across the Pond.
There must be comparable countries since the words 'we are doing worse than' and 'better than' appear in one of your posts.
There are comparable countries. I asked if there were 20 comparable countries.
I am quite liking Starmer's approach and if he can finally slay antisemitism and Corbynism he will lead a genuine opposition for the first time in five years
Can Sir Keir get you to vote for him though BigG? As you last voted Labour under Blair when Labour last won a general election you are clearly exactly the type of swing voter he needs to become PM
You do not seem to understand that you can be loyal to your party and at the same time complement an opposition politician
And Boris has my vote as long as he is a liberal compassionate conservative and not a pseudo ukipper
Maybe but you are still in the small pool of Tory to New Labour in 1997 to Tory again switchers Starmer has to win to get into No 10
If the party went along with your ukip lite mutterings it would be overwhelmed in a GE
One piece of information that seems to be missing from a lot of these discussions - the app is being developed by Pivotal which is a subsidiary of VMware
To me it shows why this disaster is unfolding - being database experts they will have assumed that collecting the data is easy (as it usually is with internet of things devices) when in reality that isn't the case here.
Now I know this was a disaster yesterday but it was only when I saw last night who was working on the App that I saw exactly how and why this car crash was going to occur and how it would play out.
As you may have missed this I will post it again (sorry everyone else)
Nonsense in the fact that the App is being asked to do something that both iOS and Android explicitly stops an App from doing.
The fact that the app seems to have the sort of message you would add to it after discovering said issue, while trying to hide exactly how big the issue actually is (see the screenshot earlier). You wouldn't believe the number of times TCS / Wipro have tried to pull such tricks on me / others.
And the fact that as Sandpit pointed out (as I missed it) that the company developing this app works on backend systems and could have easily missed the fact mobile phones had barriers (see paragraph 1) which would stop the data from being collected.
Heck, I can even see the argument being used that the bluetooth issue isn't a real issue as hey Apple / Google will let us get around it (hint they won't their entire business is built on data privacy).
There is literally nothing in this story which surprises me I can see exactly how each step of it occurred and as I said earlier Hancock will need to go.
Remember both Sandpit and I are senior IT people with years of experience here. We aren't posting to score political points, we are posting because this is a shitstorm that could have been avoided but it's equally obvious as to how we got to this point.
I don't agree with many of the criticisms of the government, especially those that required a tardis to fix problems long before this unexpected pandemic arose but when we do come to look into this afterwards I have little doubt that the way we have treated the most vulnerable groups in our society in care homes will be the subject that will hit hardest.
The absurd advice that people ceased to be infectious 7 days after symptoms led to people who were infected and infectious being transferred into groups that should have been in lockdown. Those groups were looked after by very poorly paid and largely unskilled staff who had access to almost no PPE at all and we did nothing about it. Then, perhaps understandably, we excluded the families of those residents who might have highlighted the inevitable risks. The result has been carnage, not just for those residents but many of their staff who were looking after highly dependent residents without the training or equipment that our hospitals have. It is truly shameful.
An interesting pattern has developed in the health field where everything good, positive and weekly-applause worthy is attributed to the 'NHS' and everything malign, ridiculous and unsuccessful is attributed to 'Government'. While this is understandable it does not aid understanding.
As we observed early on, pre-Boris illness, the strategy of outsourcing government to Chris Witty was never destined to be a success in anything other than arse-covering for the politicians. Although, thanks to the journalists, both the medics and the politicians might yet have a day of reckoning.
I'm quite surprised we aren't saying our doctors and nurses are inferior to other parts of Europe. It's a perfectly logical conclusion but obviously the left have a much easier target in the government.
To the left problems in the NHS are a result of chronic underfunding by the Conservative government; to the right the problem with the NHS is that it is an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining left-wing leaning bureaucracy.
Both of these charges can be correct.
They can indeed. Probably are in fact.
Begs a question though -
Would an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining right wing leaning bureaucracy be more acceptable to the Tory sensibility?
I don't agree with many of the criticisms of the government, especially those that required a tardis to fix problems long before this unexpected pandemic arose but when we do come to look into this afterwards I have little doubt that the way we have treated the most vulnerable groups in our society in care homes will be the subject that will hit hardest.
The absurd advice that people ceased to be infectious 7 days after symptoms led to people who were infected and infectious being transferred into groups that should have been in lockdown. Those groups were looked after by very poorly paid and largely unskilled staff who had access to almost no PPE at all and we did nothing about it. Then, perhaps understandably, we excluded the families of those residents who might have highlighted the inevitable risks. The result has been carnage, not just for those residents but many of their staff who were looking after highly dependent residents without the training or equipment that our hospitals have. It is truly shameful.
An interesting pattern has developed in the health field where everything good, positive and weekly-applause worthy is attributed to the 'NHS' and everything malign, ridiculous and unsuccessful is attributed to 'Government'. While this is understandable it does not aid understanding.
As we observed early on, pre-Boris illness, the strategy of outsourcing government to Chris Witty was never destined to be a success in anything other than arse-covering for the politicians. Although, thanks to the journalists, both the medics and the politicians might yet have a day of reckoning.
I'm quite surprised we aren't saying our doctors and nurses are inferior to other parts of Europe. It's a perfectly logical conclusion but obviously the left have a much easier target in the government.
To the left problems in the NHS are a result of chronic underfunding by the Conservative government; to the right the problem with the NHS is that it is an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining left-wing leaning bureaucracy.
Both of these charges can be correct.
They can indeed. Probably are in fact.
Begs a question though -
Would an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining right wing leaning bureaucracy be more acceptable to the Tory sensibility?
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
When the debt needs to be rolled over interest rates might not be 0.1% and we may not be able to monetise our debt so easily either.
Indeed in 30 or 50 years time interest could be higher. What we do with the deficit between now and then will matter more than trying to repay bonds.
The average maturity will be much closer to 12 years than 30-50 years.
And I'm willing to wager that between now and 12 years time we would be trying to resolve the deficit and then rolling over debt not repaying the debt.
Which is why assuming that these generous interest rates on gilts will still be available is a huge risk or assuming the market is still happy for the Bank to monetise the debt is a huge risk.
There are going to be spending cuts and tax rises, whatever Bozza says.
The Bank of England will only be able to monetise debt while inflation remains low. It is still very low and we are still facing deflation so that is a possibility now.
There will have to be some spending cuts and tax rises ultimately possibly - though I think a short term tax cut would be smarter - but lets be realistic that's not the same as repaying the debt is it?
I am quite liking Starmer's approach and if he can finally slay antisemitism and Corbynism he will lead a genuine opposition for the first time in five years
Can Sir Keir get you to vote for him though BigG? As you last voted Labour under Blair when Labour last won a general election you are clearly exactly the type of swing voter he needs to become PM
You do not seem to understand that you can be loyal to your party and at the same time complement an opposition politician
And Boris has my vote as long as he is a liberal compassionate conservative and not a pseudo ukipper
Maybe but you are still in the small pool of Tory to New Labour in 1997 to Tory again switchers Starmer has to win to get into No 10
If the party went along with your ukip lite mutterings it would be overwhelmed in a GE
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Hovering around the relegation zone is not middle of the road.
But being mid table is.
If we were to make a football analogy then Germany would be Liverpool, Italy would be Norwich City - while the UK would be around the likes of Tottenham or Crystal Palace.
I'd be interested to see a Covid league table of 20 comparable countries where currently the UK is closer to the top than the bottom (the top being the best numbers in reacting to the Covid crisis).
Are there 20 comparable countries?
We'll see afterwards how it lies but I think it seems clear we'll end up much worse than Germany etc and much better than Italy etc - I don't see how that's controversial.
And that's before we consider looking at the horror show that's across the Pond.
There must be comparable countries since the words 'we are doing worse than' and 'better than' appear in one of your posts.
There are comparable countries. I asked if there were 20 comparable countries.
If your parameters encompass Germany, Belgium, Spain and Italy I'd say so. Explain your workings and let's see what can be done.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Hovering around the relegation zone is not middle of the road.
But being mid table is.
If we were to make a football analogy then Germany would be Liverpool, Italy would be Norwich City - while the UK would be around the likes of Tottenham or Crystal Palace.
I predict this won't age well. To me it's looking like we are among the worst, and may well be the worst on excess mortality.
ALL politicians are turned into a joke in that they WILL be satirised.
The question is whether "Mr Forensic" would be a bad way to be characterised. It seems to me very possible that boringly competent and across the detail might both be a good way to distance himself from his predecessor, and offer voters an attractive alternative to the PM in a few years.
I don't agree with many of the criticisms of the government, especially those that required a tardis to fix problems long before this unexpected pandemic arose but when we do come to look into this afterwards I have little doubt that the way we have treated the most vulnerable groups in our society in care homes will be the subject that will hit hardest.
The absurd advice that people ceased to be infectious 7 days after symptoms led to people who were infected and infectious being transferred into groups that should have been in lockdown. Those groups were looked after by very poorly paid and largely unskilled staff who had access to almost no PPE at all and we did nothing about it. Then, perhaps understandably, we excluded the families of those residents who might have highlighted the inevitable risks. The result has been carnage, not just for those residents but many of their staff who were looking after highly dependent residents without the training or equipment that our hospitals have. It is truly shameful.
An interesting pattern has developed in the health field where everything good, positive and weekly-applause worthy is attributed to the 'NHS' and everything malign, ridiculous and unsuccessful is attributed to 'Government'. While this is understandable it does not aid understanding.
As we observed early on, pre-Boris illness, the strategy of outsourcing government to Chris Witty was never destined to be a success in anything other than arse-covering for the politicians. Although, thanks to the journalists, both the medics and the politicians might yet have a day of reckoning.
I'm quite surprised we aren't saying our doctors and nurses are inferior to other parts of Europe. It's a perfectly logical conclusion but obviously the left have a much easier target in the government.
To the left problems in the NHS are a result of chronic underfunding by the Conservative government; to the right the problem with the NHS is that it is an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining left-wing leaning bureaucracy.
Both of these charges can be correct.
They can indeed. Probably are in fact.
Begs a question though -
Would an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining right wing leaning bureaucracy be more acceptable to the Tory sensibility?
We don't know it's never been tried.
What about the Army?
The very model of efficiency.
Like some bureaucracies, the army can be very efficient at doing thing it has never done before.
So building emergency hospitals can be quick because no-one has had time to build a emergency-hospital-building empire, complete with gatekeeping, training and process management.
If you send them to fight a war, they start fighting the last war. Because that is what the manual says. Hence trying to fight the PIRA in Afghanistan etc.
Testing has been around in the NHS for a good long while - so that within the testing world you will have gatekeepers. It is quite clear (to me) that various interests within the system were (are?) pushing back at attempts to increase the number of tests.
I don't think the objection is to testing. But to how it is carried out - a clue may be in the Guardian articles decrying the use of private sector companies and resources in he current crisis.
Hence the strange comments from NHS related bodies in various press reports - testing is good, we need more testing, the government target is somehow wrong, we need to target the testing.
What never gets said in such reports, is what they mean by "the targeting is wrong" and "the government target for more tests is wrong".
I think they are trying to object without saying - "we don't like testing if it means testing by doing x".
I am quite liking Starmer's approach and if he can finally slay antisemitism and Corbynism he will lead a genuine opposition for the first time in five years
Can Sir Keir get you to vote for him though BigG? As you last voted Labour under Blair when Labour last won a general election you are clearly exactly the type of swing voter he needs to become PM
You do not seem to understand that you can be loyal to your party and at the same time complement an opposition politician
And Boris has my vote as long as he is a liberal compassionate conservative and not a pseudo ukipper
Maybe but you are still in the small pool of Tory to New Labour in 1997 to Tory again switchers Starmer has to win to get into No 10
If the party went along with your ukip lite mutterings it would be overwhelmed in a GE
I voted Remain but I have never voted Labour unlike you.
I also voted Tory even in the 2014 and 2019 European Parliament elections which UKIP and the Brexit Party won
Have just had an alert Boris is on the one hand saying some lockdown restrictions could be eased next Monday while on the other saying he won't risk a second spike in cases.
So the usual old piffle from the Populist saying what he thinks his audience wants to hear, trying to please but ending up confusing everyone and contradicting himself.
We need clarity not populist equivocation. If some restriction isn't going to be lifted he should say so rather than building up hopes which he will presumably dash on Sunday.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Hovering around the relegation zone is not middle of the road.
But being mid table is.
If we were to make a football analogy then Germany would be Liverpool, Italy would be Norwich City - while the UK would be around the likes of Tottenham or Crystal Palace.
I'd be interested to see a Covid league table of 20 comparable countries where currently the UK is closer to the top than the bottom (the top being the best numbers in reacting to the Covid crisis).
Are there 20 comparable countries?
We'll see afterwards how it lies but I think it seems clear we'll end up much worse than Germany etc and much better than Italy etc - I don't see how that's controversial.
And that's before we consider looking at the horror show that's across the Pond.
There must be comparable countries since the words 'we are doing worse than' and 'better than' appear in one of your posts.
There are comparable countries. I asked if there were 20 comparable countries.
If your parameters encompass Germany, Belgium, Spain and Italy I'd say so. Explain your workings and let's see what can be done.
I'm not convinced Germany is a great comparison due to population density but the discrepancy between their results and ours is so clear that dismissing the fact they are doing better simply because of their population density would be foolhardy.
I would say if you wish to make comparisons then the key things to measure are demographics and population density.
And while per capita measurements should be used if you're not going to use them then population is obviously relevant too.
1) The announcement is on Sunday (rather than Monday to the House) to enable actions to begin on Monday. So not just a plan. 2) The new target for tests is 200,000 by the end of May.
Hancock was sitting in a corner seat with an anxious rictus.
ALL politicians are turned into a joke in that they WILL be satirised.
The question is whether "Mr Forensic" would be a bad way to be characterised. It seems to me very possible that boringly competent and across the detail might both be a good way to distance himself from his predecessor, and offer voters an attractive alternative to the PM in a few years.
It's also I imagine his default setting. After years as a lawyer I doubt he could do it any other way.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Hovering around the relegation zone is not middle of the road.
But being mid table is.
If we were to make a football analogy then Germany would be Liverpool, Italy would be Norwich City - while the UK would be around the likes of Tottenham or Crystal Palace.
I predict this won't age well. To me it's looking like we are among the worst, and may well be the worst on excess mortality.
I am quite liking Starmer's approach and if he can finally slay antisemitism and Corbynism he will lead a genuine opposition for the first time in five years
Can Sir Keir get you to vote for him though BigG? As you last voted Labour under Blair when Labour last won a general election you are clearly exactly the type of swing voter he needs to become PM
You do not seem to understand that you can be loyal to your party and at the same time complement an opposition politician
And Boris has my vote as long as he is a liberal compassionate conservative and not a pseudo ukipper
Maybe but you are still in the small pool of Tory to New Labour in 1997 to Tory again switchers Starmer has to win to get into No 10
If the party went along with your ukip lite mutterings it would be overwhelmed in a GE
I voted Remain but I have never voted Labour unlike you
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
1) The announcement is on Sunday (rather than Monday to the House) to enable actions to begin on Monday. So not just a plan. 2) The new target for tests is 200,000 by the end of May.
Hancock was sitting in a corner seat with an anxious rictus.
Very interesting that some easing will come into play on Monday. A headline stealing announcement. I would guess it will cover some small high street retailers.
I am quite liking Starmer's approach and if he can finally slay antisemitism and Corbynism he will lead a genuine opposition for the first time in five years
Can Sir Keir get you to vote for him though BigG? As you last voted Labour under Blair when Labour last won a general election you are clearly exactly the type of swing voter he needs to become PM
You do not seem to understand that you can be loyal to your party and at the same time complement an opposition politician
And Boris has my vote as long as he is a liberal compassionate conservative and not a pseudo ukipper
Maybe but you are still in the small pool of Tory to New Labour in 1997 to Tory again switchers Starmer has to win to get into No 10
If the party went along with your ukip lite mutterings it would be overwhelmed in a GE
I voted Remain but I have never voted Labour unlike you.
I also voted Tory even in the 2014 and 2019 European Parliament elections which UKIP and the Brexit Party won
That's nothing to be proud of. That just shows you to be an unthinking apparatchik whose views can be rather ignored and pay more attention people who think for themselves and change their vote accordingly.
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
When the debt needs to be rolled over interest rates might not be 0.1% and we may not be able to monetise our debt so easily either.
Indeed in 30 or 50 years time interest could be higher. What we do with the deficit between now and then will matter more than trying to repay bonds.
The average maturity will be much closer to 12 years than 30-50 years.
And I'm willing to wager that between now and 12 years time we would be trying to resolve the deficit and then rolling over debt not repaying the debt.
Which is why assuming that these generous interest rates on gilts will still be available is a huge risk or assuming the market is still happy for the Bank to monetise the debt is a huge risk.
There are going to be spending cuts and tax rises, whatever Bozza says.
The Bank of England will only be able to monetise debt while inflation remains low. It is still very low and we are still facing deflation so that is a possibility now.
There will have to be some spending cuts and tax rises ultimately possibly - though I think a short term tax cut would be smarter - but lets be realistic that's not the same as repaying the debt is it?
When we coming out of lockdown the deficit will be enormous, and stay enormous.
today's construction number suggested many industries are going to take years, not months to recover.
Raab's new normal, with its hectoring nanny state social distancing rules, will be a further big drag on growth.
1) The announcement is on Sunday (rather than Monday to the House) to enable actions to begin on Monday. So not just a plan. 2) The new target for tests is 200,000 by the end of May.
Hancock was sitting in a corner seat with an anxious rictus.
On the tests haven't they got the antibody one in the bag now? I suspect that's where the big increase is going to come from.
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
Maybe, but the majority will ignore the ramblings of the left as is usually the case. The polls look very rosy for Boris despite these lines of attack over the past 2/3 weeks.
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
When the debt needs to be rolled over interest rates might not be 0.1% and we may not be able to monetise our debt so easily either.
Indeed in 30 or 50 years time interest could be higher. What we do with the deficit between now and then will matter more than trying to repay bonds.
The average maturity will be much closer to 12 years than 30-50 years.
And I'm willing to wager that between now and 12 years time we would be trying to resolve the deficit and then rolling over debt not repaying the debt.
Which is why assuming that these generous interest rates on gilts will still be available is a huge risk or assuming the market is still happy for the Bank to monetise the debt is a huge risk.
There are going to be spending cuts and tax rises, whatever Bozza says.
The Bank of England will only be able to monetise debt while inflation remains low. It is still very low and we are still facing deflation so that is a possibility now.
There will have to be some spending cuts and tax rises ultimately possibly - though I think a short term tax cut would be smarter - but lets be realistic that's not the same as repaying the debt is it?
When we coming out of lockdown the deficit will be enormous, and stay enormous.
today's construction number suggested many industries are going to take years, not months to recover.
Raab's new normal, with its hectoring nanny state social distancing rules, will be a further big drag on growth.
Its just horrendous.
Today's construction numbers are irrelevant. Absolutely irrelevant.
What matters is post-lockdown construction etc numbers which will have nothing to do with today's.
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
Those headlines are why so many countries are hiding their non-hospital death statistics. The government are being crucified for being honest.
One piece of information that seems to be missing from a lot of these discussions - the app is being developed by Pivotal which is a subsidiary of VMware
To me it shows why this disaster is unfolding - being database experts they will have assumed that collecting the data is easy (as it usually is with internet of things devices) when in reality that isn't the case here.
Now I know this was a disaster yesterday but it was only when I saw last night who was working on the App that I saw exactly how and why this car crash was going to occur and how it would play out.
As you may have missed this I will post it again (sorry everyone else)
Nonsense in the fact that the App is being asked to do something that both iOS and Android explicitly stops an App from doing.
The fact that the app seems to have the sort of message you would add to it after discovering said issue, while trying to hide exactly how big the issue actually is (see the screenshot earlier). You wouldn't believe the number of times TCS / Wipro have tried to pull such tricks on me / others.
And the fact that as Sandpit pointed out (as I missed it) that the company developing this app works on backend systems and could have easily missed the fact mobile phones had barriers (see paragraph 1) which would stop the data from being collected.
Heck, I can even see the argument being used that the bluetooth issue isn't a real issue as hey Apple / Google will let us get around it (hint they won't their entire business is built on data privacy).
There is literally nothing in this story which surprises me I can see exactly how each step of it occurred and as I said earlier Hancock will need to go.
Remember both Sandpit and I are senior IT people with years of experience here. We aren't posting to score political points, we are posting because this is a shitstorm that could have been avoided but it's equally obvious as to how we got to this point.
I am not exactly new to IT - I've run projects including phone apps a few times over the years.
I have concerns about the app as well - the privacy issues particularly. The conflicts with the policies of iOS and Android seem damning.
The big question to me is why Apple have let it in the App Store if it is violation of the ToCs - using an exploit should have got it booted instantly. Either they are letting it slide or it is doing something different to what has been publicly stated.
Really? He immediately replied with what they had done for ESA.
Just because he doesn't give the answer you want does not make him unbriefed.
A Labour MP "supporting" an SNP MP might mean there is a point. From re-watching that exchange, Mhairi Black asked for an increase in ESA like the one in UC, and Boris responded that HMG had cut the waiting time for ESA but then pivoted to talking about Universal Credit, forgetting this was the difference behind Black's question.
That Boris was unbriefed so did not understand the different benefits is perhaps even a charitable assumption.
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
Those headlines are why so many countries are hiding their non-hospital death statistics. The government are being crucified for being honest.
They even made it worse for themselves by making the daily figures even more accurate a week or so ago.
The government has no intention of returning to the 'A' word
Which means tax rises in reality, if we’re not cost cutting anymore. I’m happy with that.
I do like the idea of a hypothecated tax to pay down the response, or a specific set of debt that is paid off separately.
We're borrowing at 0.1% interest. Why pay it off?
After the crisis hits there will undoubtedly be a deficit to deal with. We will need to resolve the deficit as we had to a decade ago but paying off the debt is never going to happen, lets be real.
When the debt needs to be rolled over interest rates might not be 0.1% and we may not be able to monetise our debt so easily either.
Indeed in 30 or 50 years time interest could be higher. What we do with the deficit between now and then will matter more than trying to repay bonds.
The average maturity will be much closer to 12 years than 30-50 years.
And I'm willing to wager that between now and 12 years time we would be trying to resolve the deficit and then rolling over debt not repaying the debt.
Which is why assuming that these generous interest rates on gilts will still be available is a huge risk or assuming the market is still happy for the Bank to monetise the debt is a huge risk.
There are going to be spending cuts and tax rises, whatever Bozza says.
The Bank of England will only be able to monetise debt while inflation remains low. It is still very low and we are still facing deflation so that is a possibility now.
There will have to be some spending cuts and tax rises ultimately possibly - though I think a short term tax cut would be smarter - but lets be realistic that's not the same as repaying the debt is it?
When we coming out of lockdown the deficit will be enormous, and stay enormous.
today's construction number suggested many industries are going to take years, not months to recover.
Raab's new normal, with its hectoring nanny state social distancing rules, will be a further big drag on growth.
Its just horrendous.
What building being built in early March can you be sure you still need today?
Offices - demand may have evaporated Leisure facilities - see Offices Shopping centres - see Leisure facilities Housing - yes but that assumes people have jobs to allow them to be sold at a profit.
Factories are a possibility but they are rarely the most expensive buildings they are usually function demands form.
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
Those headlines are why so many countries are hiding their non-hospital death statistics. The government are being crucified for being honest.
Well yes better to have transparency now rather than the inevitable unraveling of any cover up later. But the numbers are still appalling no matter how you dissect it.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Hovering around the relegation zone is not middle of the road.
According to Worldometers, the UK is 6th worst re. death rate per million inhabitants, behind (in increasing death rate) Italy, Spain, Andorra, Belgium and San Marino.
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
Those headlines are why so many countries are hiding their non-hospital death statistics. The government are being crucified for being honest.
Its absolutely pathetic. Spain needed to call its military in to clear the dead out of care homes and people are pretending we're worse than Spain? Seriously!?
Repeating such bullshit just makes you look like a preposterous, partisan, petulant, pathetic plonker.
I don't agree with many of the criticisms of the government, especially those that required a tardis to fix problems long before this unexpected pandemic arose but when we do come to look into this afterwards I have little doubt that the way we have treated the most vulnerable groups in our society in care homes will be the subject that will hit hardest.
The absurd advice that people ceased to be infectious 7 days after symptoms led to people who were infected and infectious being transferred into groups that should have been in lockdown. Those groups were looked after by very poorly paid and largely unskilled staff who had access to almost no PPE at all and we did nothing about it. Then, perhaps understandably, we excluded the families of those residents who might have highlighted the inevitable risks. The result has been carnage, not just for those residents but many of their staff who were looking after highly dependent residents without the training or equipment that our hospitals have. It is truly shameful.
An interesting pattern has developed in the health field where everything good, positive and weekly-applause worthy is attributed to the 'NHS' and everything malign, ridiculous and unsuccessful is attributed to 'Government'. While this is understandable it does not aid understanding.
As we observed early on, pre-Boris illness, the strategy of outsourcing government to Chris Witty was never destined to be a success in anything other than arse-covering for the politicians. Although, thanks to the journalists, both the medics and the politicians might yet have a day of reckoning.
I'm quite surprised we aren't saying our doctors and nurses are inferior to other parts of Europe. It's a perfectly logical conclusion but obviously the left have a much easier target in the government.
To the left problems in the NHS are a result of chronic underfunding by the Conservative government; to the right the problem with the NHS is that it is an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining left-wing leaning bureaucracy.
Both of these charges can be correct.
They can indeed. Probably are in fact.
Begs a question though -
Would an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining right wing leaning bureaucracy be more acceptable to the Tory sensibility?
Oh yes, I do remember that. But perhaps this was just their frustration at not having an effective and competent leader of the Opposition boiling over.
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
I pretty much agree, I was naughtily referring to a now deleted tweet by a Tory MP. The fact that it's been deleted is probably the most interesting thing about it.
On a life-for-like basis our excess deaths seem to be much better than Belgium, Italy and Spain, comparable to France and much worse than Germany. Middle of the road.
As someone else implied earlier. "As long as the UK is not the worst" is a bonkers attitude.
I said we are doing worse than Germany, better than Belgium, Spain and Italy. Middle of the road.
Claiming that we are in the middle does not mean we are the best and can't improve or learn lessons. We should recognise where is doing better and learn.
Hovering around the relegation zone is not middle of the road.
But being mid table is.
If we were to make a football analogy then Germany would be Liverpool, Italy would be Norwich City - while the UK would be around the likes of Tottenham or Crystal Palace.
I predict this won't age well. To me it's looking like we are among the worst, and may well be the worst on excess mortality.
I fully expect us to be third in Europe, behind Italy and Spain but possible higher than France.
From the FT's graphs, France's death toll looks like being considerably smaller than the UK's, especially given that they are further through their peak than the UK. Maybe by a factor of 2.
To extend the football analogy; the UK thinks of itself as Tottenham (sleeping giant and all that) but has found itself in a relegation scrap with Huddersfield. And not one where the outcome is clear.
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
Those headlines are why so many countries are hiding their non-hospital death statistics. The government are being crucified for being honest.
Well yes better to have transparency now rather than the inevitable unraveling of any cover up later. But the numbers are still appalling no matter how you dissect it.
It's a disaster, however, it does make international comparisons difficult as most countries are reporting hospital deaths or deaths where there was a definite positive test. The ONS is reporting any death where COVID was on the death certificate. I'm not sure which other nations have such a wide net.
I am quite liking Starmer's approach and if he can finally slay antisemitism and Corbynism he will lead a genuine opposition for the first time in five years
Can Sir Keir get you to vote for him though BigG? As you last voted Labour under Blair when Labour last won a general election you are clearly exactly the type of swing voter he needs to become PM
You do not seem to understand that you can be loyal to your party and at the same time complement an opposition politician
And Boris has my vote as long as he is a liberal compassionate conservative and not a pseudo ukipper
Maybe but you are still in the small pool of Tory to New Labour in 1997 to Tory again switchers Starmer has to win to get into No 10
If the party went along with your ukip lite mutterings it would be overwhelmed in a GE
I voted Remain but I have never voted Labour unlike you.
I also voted Tory even in the 2014 and 2019 European Parliament elections which UKIP and the Brexit Party won
That's nothing to be proud of. That just shows you to be an unthinking apparatchik whose views can be rather ignored and pay more attention people who think for themselves and change their vote accordingly.
Without party loyalists like me doing the groundwork at election time leafleting and canvassing even in bad years rather fewer Tory MPs and councillors would get elected.
One piece of information that seems to be missing from a lot of these discussions - the app is being developed by Pivotal which is a subsidiary of VMware
To me it shows why this disaster is unfolding - being database experts they will have assumed that collecting the data is easy (as it usually is with internet of things devices) when in reality that isn't the case here.
Now I know this was a disaster yesterday but it was only when I saw last night who was working on the App that I saw exactly how and why this car crash was going to occur and how it would play out.
As you may have missed this I will post it again (sorry everyone else)
Nonsense in the fact that the App is being asked to do something that both iOS and Android explicitly stops an App from doing.
The fact that the app seems to have the sort of message you would add to it after discovering said issue, while trying to hide exactly how big the issue actually is (see the screenshot earlier). You wouldn't believe the number of times TCS / Wipro have tried to pull such tricks on me / others.
And the fact that as Sandpit pointed out (as I missed it) that the company developing this app works on backend systems and could have easily missed the fact mobile phones had barriers (see paragraph 1) which would stop the data from being collected.
Heck, I can even see the argument being used that the bluetooth issue isn't a real issue as hey Apple / Google will let us get around it (hint they won't their entire business is built on data privacy).
There is literally nothing in this story which surprises me I can see exactly how each step of it occurred and as I said earlier Hancock will need to go.
Remember both Sandpit and I are senior IT people with years of experience here. We aren't posting to score political points, we are posting because this is a shitstorm that could have been avoided but it's equally obvious as to how we got to this point.
I am not exactly new to IT - I've run projects including phone apps a few times over the years.
I have concerns about the app as well - the privacy issues particularly. The conflicts with the policies of iOS and Android seem damning.
The big question to me is why Apple have let it in the App Store if it is violation of the ToCs - using an exploit should have got it booted instantly. Either they are letting it slide or it is doing something different to what has been publicly stated.
Has anyone followed up with Apple on this?
Apple won't say, heck apple won't comment on apps you yourself have published let alone other peoples
But I will say that I don't think there is an exploit and I don't think the App is available in the App store yet, they will be using testpilot to side load it and that doesn't require approval.
I am quite liking Starmer's approach and if he can finally slay antisemitism and Corbynism he will lead a genuine opposition for the first time in five years
Can Sir Keir get you to vote for him though BigG? As you last voted Labour under Blair when Labour last won a general election you are clearly exactly the type of swing voter he needs to become PM
You do not seem to understand that you can be loyal to your party and at the same time complement an opposition politician
And Boris has my vote as long as he is a liberal compassionate conservative and not a pseudo ukipper
Maybe but you are still in the small pool of Tory to New Labour in 1997 to Tory again switchers Starmer has to win to get into No 10
If the party went along with your ukip lite mutterings it would be overwhelmed in a GE
I voted Remain but I have never voted Labour unlike you.
I also voted Tory even in the 2014 and 2019 European Parliament elections which UKIP and the Brexit Party won
That's nothing to be proud of. That just shows you to be an unthinking apparatchik whose views can be rather ignored and pay more attention people who think for themselves and change their vote accordingly.
Without party loyalists like me doing the groundwork at election time leafleting and canvassing even in bad years rather fewer Tory MPs and councillors would get elected.
I don't agree with many of the criticisms of the government, especially those that required a tardis to fix problems long before this unexpected pandemic arose but when we do come to look into this afterwards I have little doubt that the way we have treated the most vulnerable groups in our society in care homes will be the subject that will hit hardest.
The absurd advice that people ceased to be infectious 7 days after symptoms led to people who were infected and infectious being transferred into groups that should have been in lockdown. Those groups were looked after by very poorly paid and largely unskilled staff who had access to almost no PPE at all and we did nothing about it. Then, perhaps understandably, we excluded the families of those residents who might have highlighted the inevitable risks. The result has been carnage, not just for those residents but many of their staff who were looking after highly dependent residents without the training or equipment that our hospitals have. It is truly shameful.
An interesting pattern has developed in the health field where everything good, positive and weekly-applause worthy is attributed to the 'NHS' and everything malign, ridiculous and unsuccessful is attributed to 'Government'. While this is understandable it does not aid understanding.
As we observed early on, pre-Boris illness, the strategy of outsourcing government to Chris Witty was never destined to be a success in anything other than arse-covering for the politicians. Although, thanks to the journalists, both the medics and the politicians might yet have a day of reckoning.
I'm quite surprised we aren't saying our doctors and nurses are inferior to other parts of Europe. It's a perfectly logical conclusion but obviously the left have a much easier target in the government.
To the left problems in the NHS are a result of chronic underfunding by the Conservative government; to the right the problem with the NHS is that it is an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining left-wing leaning bureaucracy.
Both of these charges can be correct.
They can indeed. Probably are in fact.
Begs a question though -
Would an intrinsically inefficient and self-sustaining right wing leaning bureaucracy be more acceptable to the Tory sensibility?
Oh yes, I do remember that. But perhaps this was just their frustration at not having an effective and competent leader of the Opposition boiling over.
It WAS frustrating! I well remember the plaintive yearning of several PB Tories for an effective opposition.
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
Maybe, but the majority will ignore the ramblings of the left as is usually the case. The polls look very rosy for Boris despite these lines of attack over the past 2/3 weeks.
I wouldn't set much store by the current polls. This will need time to percolate and settle.
"Scotland refuses to join NHS contact tracing app: Nicola Sturgeon says she will wait to see if it works before committing as experts warn Matt Hancock he will 'almost inevitably' face a legal challenge over privacy concerns"
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
Those headlines are why so many countries are hiding their non-hospital death statistics. The government are being crucified for being honest.
There is nothing honest about this government. It is made up of charlatans, liars and manipulators. That is why they are discredited, even when they are telling the truth. Every time I hear a government minister speak, my immediate reaction is: what are they saying that for? What are they trying to get away with now?
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
Those headlines are why so many countries are hiding their non-hospital death statistics. The government are being crucified for being honest.
They even made it worse for themselves by making the daily figures even more accurate a week or so ago.
'Doh! We're our own worst enemies, wot with us being so up front and honest and everything.'
Apple won't say, heck apple won't comment on apps you yourself have published let alone other peoples
But I will say that I don't think there is an exploit and I don't think the App is available in the App store yet, they will be using testpilot to side load it and that doesn't require approval.
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
'The strategy is working'
We'll see. WORST DEATH TOLL IN EUROPE. I can see that on the side of a bus. Cue lots of talk and protest about how it's "not fair", it's "apples and pears", "just look at America", it "started in China" bla bla, but all this does - as his chief political advisor knows full well since the trick is an invention of his - is to cement the point into the public consciousness and "Boris" becomes a byword not for getting Brexit over and done with but for doing exactly that to many many lives - live by the Cummings die by the Cummings, as it were.
Those headlines are why so many countries are hiding their non-hospital death statistics. The government are being crucified for being honest.
They even made it worse for themselves by making the daily figures even more accurate a week or so ago.
'Doh! We're our own worst enemies, wot with us being so up front and honest and everything.'
Not saying they were wrong to do it, just saying that is what happened.
I am quite liking Starmer's approach and if he can finally slay antisemitism and Corbynism he will lead a genuine opposition for the first time in five years
Can Sir Keir get you to vote for him though BigG? As you last voted Labour under Blair when Labour last won a general election you are clearly exactly the type of swing voter he needs to become PM
You do not seem to understand that you can be loyal to your party and at the same time complement an opposition politician
And Boris has my vote as long as he is a liberal compassionate conservative and not a pseudo ukipper
Maybe but you are still in the small pool of Tory to New Labour in 1997 to Tory again switchers Starmer has to win to get into No 10
If the party went along with your ukip lite mutterings it would be overwhelmed in a GE
I voted Remain but I have never voted Labour unlike you.
I also voted Tory even in the 2014 and 2019 European Parliament elections which UKIP and the Brexit Party won
That's nothing to be proud of. That just shows you to be an unthinking apparatchik whose views can be rather ignored and pay more attention people who think for themselves and change their vote accordingly.
Without party loyalists like me doing the groundwork at election time leafleting and canvassing even in bad years rather fewer Tory MPs and councillors would get elected.
I have never said I was a swing voter
You have an extraordinary high opinion of yourself
For your information I have done all those things for the party in the 60's 70's 80's and 2010
Morning all. Iconic presentational change on the John Hopkins monitor. It now shows USA deaths as a single figure rather than split across states. If it were not for this the UK would today have gone top of the global deaths table having just overhauled the previous leader - Italy. The change was made on the very day we passed them. As it is we remain in 2nd place, behind the newly consolidated USA with Italy dropping to 3rd. Now the change makes sense - the USA is indeed one country - but the timing of it does look suspicious. I'm not normally one for this sort of thing but when you put this oddity together with the "co-incidence" of the Telegraph breaking the Ferguson sex scandal also today, well it makes you think. Especially coming hard on the heels of last week's "dodgy data" on daily testing. Cummings? Johnson? One hopes not. PR is important for any government but it should never be the driver.
It was admitted yesterday that the official Italian stats were underestimated by 50%, whereas the UK has been adding additional categories into their daily numbers. It's no wonder the gap has closed.
Maybe it would be a good idea if those making claims about our figures read the BBC fact check and reflected
30,000 dead is nothing to be smug about.
Tories should be hanging their heads in shame, anybody promoting these imbeciles is crazy.
Comments
Bluetooth, and in particular Bluetooth LE, is widely supported, works in all environments, and doesn't use much power. It's not perfect but if you want continous proximity detection, that works in the most places, and doesn't cause too many problems, BLE is the best option.
The problem the government has is if the narrative that we have the most deaths in Europe takes hold.
https://twitter.com/spectator/status/1257977933504942081
And Boris has my vote as long as he is a liberal compassionate conservative and not a pseudo ukipper
I jest. Partly
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52556012
We'll see. If its the case just adapt the backend and its done. Plan B will give less useful information than Plan A but so be it.
We'll see afterwards how it lies but I think it seems clear we'll end up much worse than Germany etc and much better than Italy etc - I don't see how that's controversial.
And that's before we consider looking at the horror show that's across the Pond.
Just because he doesn't give the answer you want does not make him unbriefed.
In an ideal world you would have two separate apps here:-
1) using Apple / Google's API and BLE to record person to person connections
2) using GPS to record location information.
but its fully understandable why that isn't occurring.
https://twitter.com/d_spiegel/status/1257985559580065792
https://www.vmware.com/uk/company/acquisitions/pivotal.html
Not about to argue with you two - so it's a highly efficient, politically unbiased institution.
Pleasantly surprised.
It does however go to sleep after a while on my Honor device...
They can't sack Hancock though, so best just to bring someone in 'alongside' him to do all the difficult bits so that he can 'concentrate' on his core role.
There are going to be spending cuts and tax rises, whatever Bozza says.
The FT chart by the way is now showing England and Wales excess mortality at 62%. https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441
To me it shows why this disaster is unfolding - being database experts they will have assumed that collecting the data is easy (as it usually is with internet of things devices) when in reality that isn't the case here.
Now I know this was a disaster yesterday but it was only when I saw last night who was working on the App that I saw exactly how and why this car crash was going to occur and how it would play out.
As you may have missed this I will post it again (sorry everyone else)
Nonsense in the fact that the App is being asked to do something that both iOS and Android explicitly stops an App from doing.
The fact that the app seems to have the sort of message you would add to it after discovering said issue, while trying to hide exactly how big the issue actually is (see the screenshot earlier). You wouldn't believe the number of times TCS / Wipro have tried to pull such tricks on me / others.
And the fact that as Sandpit pointed out (as I missed it) that the company developing this app works on backend systems and could have easily missed the fact mobile phones had barriers (see paragraph 1) which would stop the data from being collected.
Heck, I can even see the argument being used that the bluetooth issue isn't a real issue as hey Apple / Google will let us get around it (hint they won't their entire business is built on data privacy).
There is literally nothing in this story which surprises me I can see exactly how each step of it occurred and as I said earlier Hancock will need to go.
Remember both Sandpit and I are senior IT people with years of experience here. We aren't posting to score political points, we are posting because this is a shitstorm that could have been avoided but it's equally obvious as to how we got to this point.
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1113378265115312129?s=20
There will have to be some spending cuts and tax rises ultimately possibly - though I think a short term tax cut would be smarter - but lets be realistic that's not the same as repaying the debt is it?
Oddly I said to my wife the other day I have gone beyond jury service now I am 76
Not that I'm saying your wrong but don't assume the dataset the FT or anyone else is using is complete even when they say it is.
The question is whether "Mr Forensic" would be a bad way to be characterised. It seems to me very possible that boringly competent and across the detail might both be a good way to distance himself from his predecessor, and offer voters an attractive alternative to the PM in a few years.
So building emergency hospitals can be quick because no-one has had time to build a emergency-hospital-building empire, complete with gatekeeping, training and process management.
If you send them to fight a war, they start fighting the last war. Because that is what the manual says. Hence trying to fight the PIRA in Afghanistan etc.
Testing has been around in the NHS for a good long while - so that within the testing world you will have gatekeepers. It is quite clear (to me) that various interests within the system were (are?) pushing back at attempts to increase the number of tests.
I don't think the objection is to testing. But to how it is carried out - a clue may be in the Guardian articles decrying the use of private sector companies and resources in he current crisis.
Hence the strange comments from NHS related bodies in various press reports - testing is good, we need more testing, the government target is somehow wrong, we need to target the testing.
What never gets said in such reports, is what they mean by "the targeting is wrong" and "the government target for more tests is wrong".
I think they are trying to object without saying - "we don't like testing if it means testing by doing x".
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-arrival-of-the-wolf/
I also voted Tory even in the 2014 and 2019 European Parliament elections which UKIP and the Brexit Party won
Have just had an alert Boris is on the one hand saying some lockdown restrictions could be eased next Monday while on the other saying he won't risk a second spike in cases.
So the usual old piffle from the Populist saying what he thinks his audience wants to hear, trying to please but ending up confusing everyone and contradicting himself.
We need clarity not populist equivocation. If some restriction isn't going to be lifted he should say so rather than building up hopes which he will presumably dash on Sunday.
I would say if you wish to make comparisons then the key things to measure are demographics and population density.
And while per capita measurements should be used if you're not going to use them then population is obviously relevant too.
1) The announcement is on Sunday (rather than Monday to the House) to enable actions to begin on Monday. So not just a plan.
2) The new target for tests is 200,000 by the end of May.
Hancock was sitting in a corner seat with an anxious rictus.
18 to under 76
I fully expect us to be third in Europe, behind Italy and Spain but possible higher than France.
today's construction number suggested many industries are going to take years, not months to recover.
Raab's new normal, with its hectoring nanny state social distancing rules, will be a further big drag on growth.
Its just horrendous.
What matters is post-lockdown construction etc numbers which will have nothing to do with today's.
*innocent face*
I have concerns about the app as well - the privacy issues particularly. The conflicts with the policies of iOS and Android seem damning.
The big question to me is why Apple have let it in the App Store if it is violation of the ToCs - using an exploit should have got it booted instantly. Either they are letting it slide or it is doing something different to what has been publicly stated.
Has anyone followed up with Apple on this?
That Boris was unbriefed so did not understand the different benefits is perhaps even a charitable assumption.
Offices - demand may have evaporated
Leisure facilities - see Offices
Shopping centres - see Leisure facilities
Housing - yes but that assumes people have jobs to allow them to be sold at a profit.
Factories are a possibility but they are rarely the most expensive buildings they are usually function demands form.
Repeating such bullshit just makes you look like a preposterous, partisan, petulant, pathetic plonker.
https://twitter.com/leonardocarella/status/1257779413921542145?s=20
To extend the football analogy; the UK thinks of itself as Tottenham (sleeping giant and all that) but has found itself in a relegation scrap with Huddersfield. And not one where the outcome is clear.
I have never said I was a swing voter
But I will say that I don't think there is an exploit and I don't think the App is available in the App store yet, they will be using testpilot to side load it and that doesn't require approval.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52532435
For your information I have done all those things for the party in the 60's 70's 80's and 2010