darkpaw

seanj said:

 Ladies and gentlemen, we have a conspiracy theorist in the house! This is the kind of vitriolic fake news communists in the U.K. spout all the time these days. Not surprisingly the public voted for Brexit, destroyed their party in the recent general election, and why the government has the highest poll ratings and confidence ever.

Actually, no. Not a conspiracy theorist at all. I read something that said it was developed by Palantir and Faculty. I have now read that the Palantir/Faculty deal was definitely £250m but it was for an AI lab for NHSX, so I apologise for the 'fake news'. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd stick to my guns, right?

The remainder of my points are valid. The app doesn't work across borders, and not even within the same country!

My points on the Palantir/Faculty deal are valid. Do we really want Peter Thiel and someone who used data to make us vote to leave the EU to create an AI lab for us? Not really, no.

command_f said:

There is a privacy concern but, here and now, there are lives at stake. Later on, there must be a robust discussion on how the tracing is going to stop and the data be protected from non-covid analyses.

The government will use this crisis as leverage to make people install it. They're already doing it with the "Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives" slogan. Stay home or you'll adversely affect the NHS and kill people.

I'm totally in favour of the lockdown. I understand the need for it, and I'm not one of those crazy people who wants to nip out for a suntan. I just do not trust the UK government.

For better or worse, are you really not going to run it and support easing the lockdown and saving lives because there might be a small (or even big) privacy impact later?

Yes. There is a viable solution that doesn't have these privacy concerns, and Apple/Google have made the source code available for a working app. NHSX could've used it, but chose not to because they think they're better. They wilfully caused these concerns to flare up. The onus is on them to allay these concerns and to remove our data when we request it. We shouldn't have to wait months and years for an amendment on a Bill to go through the HoC to decide when their app respects our privacy; you build it in from the start.

Reasons why I'm not going to use this app:

- The development of the app was given to a specific company. It was not sent out to tender. Now, you can argue that we don't have a lot of time and we needed it developed quickly, BUT...
- The reported budget for the app was £250 MILLION... (Not sure on the veracity of that figure, but it's been widely reported. It may just be part of the deal between UK.gov and Palantir/Faculty.)
- It is being developed by both Palantir (run by the right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel) and Faculty...
- Faculty is an AI startup run by someone called Marc Warner...
- Marc Warner's brother is Ben Warner...
- Ben Warner was recruited to Downing Street by Dominic Cummings (if you don't who DC is, he's basically an unelected advisor to our inimitable dickwad, Boris Johnson)...
- Ben Warner was instrumental in the Vote Leave campaign.

Further:
- Dr Ian Levy is Technical Director of the National Cyber Security Centre. He put out a blog post pretty much saying, "Everything is fine. We won't grab your data, no-sireeeee, and we absolutely won't expand the remit of this app, until we absolutely feel the need to do exactly that". Within hours, NHSX said they'll expand the remit of the app where necessary. So-called "mission creep".
- The app ONLY works for NHS England, so spending any time with someone from, say, Wales or Scotland, won't work because they won't be using the NHS England app; they'll be using the NHS Wales or NHS Scotland app.
- The app will NOT work with the Apple/Google solution which means if you go abroad, neither your device nor anyone else's will match, so will record zero interactions.

So, no. I won't be downloading this app.

The Apple/Google solution would've been exactly what we needed, and it works across borders. Apple even provided the source code necessary to create a functioning app. Sadly, our government thinks it's the dog bollox when it comes to everything, so they've gone off on their own.

You wonder why the UK currently has the highest number of Covid-19 deaths in Europe? Because our government is pathetic. Our MPs are idiots. Our Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, said he wanted to test 100,000 people a day by the end of April. 30th April comes along and lo and behold we hit 122,000 tests! Oh, sorry, no, we hit 76,000 tests. The other 46,000 tests were actually just mailed out and hadn't actually been used. They did this to save his political career. In the days following the 30th April we tested 66,000 people then 56,000 people.

The UK is an f-ing joke.

I think Apple TV+ is a bit naff. Servant was good (took ages to get where it was going), but I have no interest in "Home", "The Beastie Boys Story", or anything about Oprah Winfrey. Apple TV+ should cater to everyone, and release shows in all genres. Sticking to drama and playing it safe with nothing rated higher than a 15 makes it lame. Also, Oprah Winfrey is very much a US thing; release something that's not US-centric. I won't be renewing when my free year ends.

It's also partly because Apple have made it so non-obvious to find anything TV+-related in the TV app.

I'm in the iPad's TV app right now. There are tabs for "Watch Now", "Library" and "Search", but there's no specific tab for Apple TV+. You have to scroll down in Watch Now to the horizontal list of channels, and tap the "tv+" icon in "My Channels" to get a full-screen page of Apple TV+ shows. (And those channel buttons are the smallest icons on the Watch Now screen.)

It makes you forget that you've got a subscription. This should be easier. Just add its own tab and I can see at a glance exactly what I can watch on TV+.

The app also suffers the same problem as Amazon Prime Video. Lists and lists of things to watch, and almost every time I tap on something I have to buy or rent it. Because of this, I now just watch things via the Library tab (which has its own problems...).

fastasleep said:

darkpaw said:

Hang on...

Option 1: Buy Mac Pro with feet = Included in cost, so $0 extra
Option 2: Buy Mac Pro with feet ($0), buy wheels later = $699 extra ==> $0 + $699 = $699

Option 3: Buy Mac Pro with wheels = $400 extra
Option 4: Buy Mac Pro with wheels ($400), buy feet later = $299 extra, so $400 + $299 = $699

How is it more expensive to buy either kit afterwards?

Well you assume the feet are $299 but baked into the price, with the wheels being a $400 surcharge on top of that so those are $699 separately, I guess.  

No assumptions made at all. I don't know the price of the feet you get with a Mac Pro. It's $0 extra to have feet. My calculations show the total cost when you pick either option at build time and add the other type later. Both come to $699, so I'm not sure why this article really exists?