Install HP Smart without permission.

I checked when I saw this story a few days ago, and there it was. I uninstalled it. Today it asked for permission to install itself again. I suppose at least this time it asked and could be refused.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many extremely well-paid heads need to roll.

In primary school?

I know that. I did add a disclaimer, I’m not trying to sell the things.

Still haven’t had it

You almost certainly have. A substantial minority never develop symptoms. It’s one of the things that makes it spread so easily. If it made everyone very sick they’d all be safely tucked up in bed and not spreading it.

There is no useful answer to your question. Some people develop symptoms very quickly, some people are asymptomatic for a period, others remain asymptomatic throughout.

If you think you’ve been exposed and you could put others at risk, do a test. False positives are common but they’re better at picking up people who are very infectious so that’s something.

If you want to know if you’ve had it, there are antibody tests which check for antibodies from infection rather than vaccination. (Example for information, not a personal recommendation.) They’re not 100% accurate but a positive is most likely a true positive, given that the vast majority of people have had it by now. They test for two types of antibody, IgM and IgG. IgM should only show up during or immediately after recovery from an infection, IgG turns up later in the course of an infection and sticks around after recovery.

You don’t need to register a company unless you need to employ people yourself to get the work done. You can just register as self-employed. The details will vary depending on where you are. You’ll most likely have to convince the tax authorities that it is genuine self-employment and not your employer dodging taxes. If you have an actual job with an employer abroad, you’ll need to ask your local tax authority how to handle it.

Your hourly rate when self-employed should be around 2.5x the equivalent salaried hourly rate. This is because the employer is not paying for your admin time, training, equipment, office costs, holiday pay*, sick pay*, or contributing to your pension, or doing your taxes for you*. And because you don’t have the security of a salary and will need to spend a lot of time bidding for work that might not pan out, while they get the benefit of having you on tap with no long-term commitment.

*these are not USian things but as a European you will still be losing them

It depends a bit on the field you work in but self-employment is not generally a great idea for a fresh graduate. Your degree qualifies you to become qualified and you can’t easily do that on your own. Lack of experience will also make it hard to get the kind of work you need to develop your skills and get better work.

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

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

How Oxford Street is being reclaimed from American candy shops

Westminster Council has been cracking down on US sweet shops after many were discovered to be fronts for illegitimate businesses. In November 2022 one third of the stores had been shut down and by March 2023 the Met Police had seized £1 million worth of goods from the shops.

The solution is pretty sweet (pun intended):

A new initiative by Westminster Council called Meanwhile On: Oxford Street will allow up-and-coming businesses to open in the sites of closed-down candy shops without paying rent, while also having their business rates cut by 70 percent. The free rent will last for the first six months of the stores opening. It comes as part of a scheme to regenerate central London’s waning high street.

Then you’re in a perfect position to help him out.

Make sure he gets a say in it. Invite him into your life, don’t just make sure you’re the next dumping ground for him, if that makes sense. Kid needs a sense of agency, I’m sure. And he needs to know that someone wants him around.

And make sure he has trusted adults outside your household he can talk to if things get difficult at any point. Your brother sounds perfect for that. Weekly phone calls or something to check in with him. It’s important that he knows he can tell someone if he’s being treated badly. Not that you will, but he needs to know that f anything goes wrong, he has someone he can tell about it.

This will not be easy. But if you’re in a position to do it, it’d be a great thing to do.

Good luck.

I used to live round the corner from a strange little place that sold cassette tapes (what we used for music and sometimes even data before CDs, for those too young to know). Everyone was convinced it was a front but it turned out it was a world famous tape supplier. Just happened to be based in my quiet little back street.

The newsagents next door to my last place have to have been a front though. Shelves were half bare, only ever stocked with stuff that doesn’t go off. Always two or three guys hanging out in the back room, looking slightly surprised if you wanted to buy something. Cash only, no cards (not that unusual round here but they usually have a minimum purchase rather than just no card machine at all these days).

They were absolute sweethearts. Took loads of deliveries for us, always really nice about it. And that’s more evidence that it’s a front. Proper criminals are the best neighbours anyone could ask for because the last thing they want is complaints bringing the police to their door.

Do you live close enough to his school to offer (effectively) childcare during the week plus any time she is working at the weekends?

If so, you don’t need to take him off her or present it as that kind of threat. Just give her some space to get her shit together without forcing the kid along for the ride.

If you don’t live close enough to his school, it gets a lot more complicated.

(Apologies if I’ve missed this detail somewhere.)

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

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

An easy non-tomato pasta is a tin of soup as the sauce.

Butter and black pepper is as easy as it gets; get some fruit for afters and that’s not a terrible meal. You can chuck in extra bits and pieces to make it more interesting (cold meats, salad veg, cheese, anything tasty you can get to bite size).

Corner stores have trouble keeping fresh produce in because it goes out of date so quick. It might be worth asking them if you could pick up any past their best items for cheap at the end of the day.

You can quarter an onion or a potato (no need to peel) and get through most soft veg with a butter knife. But you could do with a better knife. Ask around some charity shops, they’ll often have stuff like that come in and (depending on where you are) many of them still function as both fundraiser and provider of cheap stuff for people who need it.

Good luck. Hope things get easier for you soon.

The Huawei Talkband series does it. It’s a smartwatch which turns into a bluetooth headset. For some reason, most reviewers struggle to see why anyone would want that but I struggle to see why anyone wouldn’t…

They’re different sorts of foldables. Hence Samsung calling one of theirs “Fold” and the other “Flip” (because the latter is the same form factor as older clamshell designs).

The cases do make them larger, as for every phone. But they still fit in your back pocket without threatening to fall out of it. The bulk of the case makes it even safer to pocket without making it any harder.

Secure pocketability when I’m not wearing a big jacket is the reason I have one, obv.

And are we not animals just doing the same?

If you know what “man made” means you know this question is pointless?

You want to see a forum full of people whining about what other users choose to post?

And there’s a difference between demanding everyone else post how you want them to and going somewhere people are already posting how you want them to.

You have plenty of options. You don’t need to clutter this place up with whining. Post the sort of stuff you want to see or go somewhere people are already doing that.

We’re in the middle of a global fascist spasm. If you want to stick your fingers in your ears and pretend it’s not happening, I think Threads is trying to be that place.