Posts by Sirius B

41) Message boards : Politics : Don't know where it should go? Stick it here 4 (Message 2131476)
Posted 20 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
I would love to know just who serves on company remuneration committees.
British Gas CEO says it's impossible to justify his salary
Ah, the debates held on this board over just that.
42) Message boards : Politics : UK political scene (Message 2131456)
Posted 19 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
Trouble ahead for the Tories, especially if the interest rate is at least 5% or more come September.
After all, Rsiky Sunshine will be a calling an election then instead of May.
Allowances frozen until 2028, so...
Now he's pulling the same stunt with pensioners. Another 650,000 retirees will be at the sharp end of this in April. I wonder who they'll be voting for at the upcoming election. Nine million tax-paying pensioners spells double trouble for the Tories.
43) Message boards : Politics : Profits 1st, Safety 2nd (Pt 4) (Message 2131455)
Posted 19 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
Time for a refresh.
1
2
3

Horizon v2.0?
I will add one more: it is high-time HMRC was brought to heel. It is a wild west government department that is laughing in the face of Ministers, its arrogant incompetence wre
aking havoc across the country, whilst enjoying absolute impunity. Enough is enough.

Edit: Unethical lawyers face scrutinty
44) Message boards : Cafe SETI : The Train Thread 3 (Message 2131347)
Posted 16 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
A train that is not a train
45) Message boards : Politics : Boeing: Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? (Part 3) (Message 2131346)
Posted 16 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
What is needed is someone to stand up & make the fines appropriate to the damage done.
For example, $5 million for every death. For the 737 Max that comes to $1.75 billion.
Also make it cover every company that does business not only in the US but those outside who deal with them.
After all the USA is the "Home of the Profit".
The KISS principle, but I think pigs will fly 1st.
46) Message boards : Politics : Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? Pt 2 (Message 2131208)
Posted 13 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
Even more difficulties for the Post Office.
Blatant tax evasion
The Post Office may have underpaid more than £100m in tax by deducting payments to victims of the Horizon scandal from its profits, say tax experts.
Claiming tax relief in this way could count as a breach of the law and could mean it is at risk of insolvency, said Dan Neidle, of Tax Policy Associates.
The company also may have overpaid senior executives, he says.
The Post Office said its financial information was "appropriate and accurate".
47) Message boards : Politics : Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? Pt 2 (Message 2131172)
Posted 12 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
Reading some of the comments, there sure are a lot of ignorant people out there.
Blaming the Tories & stating that Davis Cameron was aware & had been since he was PM throughout most of it.
Sheesh.
He didn't get into power until 2010.
It was Tony B liar & Gordon Brown in No 10 from 1997 to 2010.

While this on BBC.
Post Office went ballistic in 2015 over Panorama

Edit:
Live reporting on the inquiry by the BBC just restarted after the lunch break by the inquiry.
We are now hearing Jason Beer KC reading from a part of Jackson's witness statement.

It says: "Historic data governance problems, many of which were embedded in the Post Office's data landscape over many years, have risen to the surface under the scrutiny of the inquiry and Post Office's internal and external Inquiry teams."
Jackson says this refers to a 25-year period for the company where, as in other industries, IT was rapidly developing.
He's asked what he means by data governance and Jackson says it means "knowing what is where".
Beer suggest it's about internal standards, policies, how data is stored, processed and retained and should include accountability.
He then presses Jackson to explain the particular data governance problems identified in the Post Office.
Jackson says it can be "summarised as not a full map of systems, and what is where, and how it has evolved over time."

Talk has turned to Mimecast - a company specialising in cloud-based email management - and whether there was a complete repository of Post Office emails between 2012 and 2016.

Inquiry lawyer Jason Beer KC refers to a letter sent in November 2023 from Post Office lawyers Burges Salmon about the migration of Post Office data from email gateway platform Proofpoint to Mimecast prior to January 2016.

That letter states that the Post Office has been unable to establish why the transfer of email data from one platform to the other was not complete - after some emails were found to exist in Microsoft Exchange but not in Mimecast.

The inquiry previously revealed the Post Office had identified more than 300,000 emails from after 2012 that had previously been missed.


Sheesh.
48) Message boards : Cafe SETI : Transportation Safety 3 (Message 2131107)
Posted 11 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
Thankfully no injurues have been reported., no bridge involved this time.
Oh dear

On the other side of the pond...
Boeing jets won't fly until safe
49) Message boards : Politics : Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? Pt 2 (Message 2131064)
Posted 10 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
The Daily Telegraph reports that the architect of Horizon, the faulty software that caused the scandal, has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry. The paper says Gareth Jenkins's testimony has been delayed twice, and that his request for immunity has been refused twice. It also claims Mr Jenkins told forensic accountants as long ago as 2012 that the IT system could be accessed remotely by developers Fujitsu, despite one of the prosecution's key arguments being that it was tamper-proof. When approached by the Telegraph, Mr Jenkins said: "I don't have anything to say to you".

The Financial Times reports that, since 2019, when the Court of Appeal ruled that it's software had been at fault in the scandal, Fujitsu has been the joint or sole recipient of £4.9bn worth of government contracts, including £3.6bn during Rishi Sunak's time as chancellor or prime minister. A spokesperson for Mr Sunak tells the paper: "Once the full facts have been established by the inquiry we will make further judgments but it's important that we allow that process to take place."
Clear cut case of profits 1st.
The peasants don't matter & they don't mind.

What I find annoying is that this scandal has been ongoing for over 2 decades which the government were well aware of, yet they continue to award contracts to Fujitsu.
Edit.

Scary
Since 2013, the UK government has awarded Fujitsu 191 contracts worth more than £6.5bn, according to the procurement analysts Tussell, including:

£1.1bn with HMRC
£581m with the Ministry of Defence
£476m with the Home Office

Even after the Horizon scandal, its products are deeply entrenched in the government's IT infrastructure.
"Its mainframes have been used for decades at HM Revenue and Customs and the largest department of all, the Department for Work and Pensions, has been pretty reliant on Fujitsu equipment," IT journalist Tony Collins, who has covered the industry for decades, told the BBC in 2022.
50) Message boards : Politics : Boeing: Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? (Part 3) (Message 2131062)
Posted 10 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
YES. Or perhaps put the shareholder's wallet at risk if they don't choose safety first.
Ah wasn't that my favourite mantra in the past?
Make the fine so steep that it would be financially safer to fix the problem at the outset.
Hmm, pigs will fly 1st.
51) Message boards : Politics : Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? Pt 2 (Message 2131051)
Posted 10 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
Now this report I believe 100% as had personal experience in the past while a postman.
Racism+Horizon=trouble
The main problems stem all the way from Junior to Senior level management.
That seems to have got worse since privatisation.
52) Message boards : Politics : Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? Pt 2 (Message 2131030)
Posted 9 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
Interesting
Jason Coyne, who worked for Preston-based Best Practice Plc at the time, was instructed to examine the computer system called Horizon in 2003.

He said he notified the Post Office the data was "unreliable" but he was ignored, sacked, and then discredited.
53) Message boards : Politics : Boeing: Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? (Part 3) (Message 2131029)
Posted 9 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
What happened to test, certification, and Quality Control?

Can;t answer for the airlines but early in this scandal, posted a report on Boeing.
They laid off 100 QC inspectors from one of their sites.
That speaks volumes of what they think of us "peasants".
54) Message boards : Politics : Abortion and Birth Control (Message 2131027)
Posted 9 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
It beggars belief in the legal system.
CPS drops case
3 year investigation & they drop it for "lack of evidence".
3 years of wasting public funds.
They should be charged with theft from the public purse!
55) Message boards : Politics : Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? Pt 2 (Message 2130956)
Posted 8 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
While the scandal has been public knowledge for some time, an ITV drama which aired last week has thrust the issue back into the spotlight.
Speaking to the Today programme, Sir David Davis said the drama had galvanised the response to the scandal. "There are now tens of millions of people who care about this - care a lot. They're furious in many cases."
Sometimes the media can be brutally...
So far, nobody at the Post Office or Fujitsu has been held accountable, although the High Court judge said he would refer Fujitsu to the Director of Public Prosecutions for possible further action because he had "grave concerns" about the evidence of the company's employees.
...effective
56) Message boards : Politics : Cricket 3 (Message 2130937)
Posted 7 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
The Indians love cooking up a storm over nothing.
Many elite sports teams use their own chefs, though it is uncommon in cricket. Some players – including India’s Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya – have been known to pay for personal chefs to come on tour, including in the 2023 tour of Australia.
57) Message boards : Politics : Boeing: Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? (Part 3) (Message 2130936)
Posted 7 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
Grounding & checks continue
Last month, the FAA urged airlines to inspect Max models for a possible loose bolt in rudder control systems.
This saga reminds one of a popular TV series where you get some cliffhanger episodes.
At the end several, one gets TBC.
How many more cliffhangers are Boeing going to provide?
58) Message boards : Politics : The Ukraine Crisis (Message 2130811)
Posted 4 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
Shades of Grenfell!!!
It seems bureaucratic crap permeates everywhere.
How the Russian administration treats its own people
59) Message boards : Politics : Boeing: Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? (Part 3) (Message 2130762)
Posted 3 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
Too hot for the Transportation thread.
1st off though...
Air crew astounds the world of aviation
Japan Airlines experienced its own catastrophe in August 1985, when Osaka-bound Flight 123 crashed into a mountain shortly after take-off from Tokyo Haneda. It was later attributed to faulty repair work by Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer.Only four out of 524 people on board survived the crash.

Boeing can learn a thing or two from Airbus.
But there were also signs the aircraft's design was working to give those on board the best chance of escape. Prof Graham Braithwaite, director of transport systems at Cranfield University in the UK, told the BBC it looked like it "has done what it is designed to do, which is protect the occupants and allow a fast evacuation".
60) Message boards : Cafe SETI : Transportation Safety 3 (Message 2130761)
Posted 3 Jan 2024 by Sirius B Project Donor
Post:
R.I.P.
I bet he's happily conducting the Seti Special.


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