s of today, the BillBC says that today and tomorrow we should expect ultrasonic wind speeds, so we should probably enter some bunker:

Also tomorrow:

Obviously it’s some data issue, but their exception handling or input sanitation could use some work.

Deterioration of services has reached truly unacceptable levels

‘m done. Really, done!

It’s not about unreasonable pricing or quality of facilities or… (they too are issues, but…)

After what happened in April [1, 2] and what has just happened again (today) I see no reason to ever book a train here again. Ever. Unless my life depends on it or something….

It’s over.

At 4AM we get an E-mail from Trainline: “your train journey has been canceled.”

NO explanation, no reason given, 2 hours’ notice!

Second time out of 3.

That’s 66.6% cancel rate.

Imagine having 2 out of 3 journeys that you book canceled at short notice (the first time it happened minutes earlier; there was no notice until we had physically arrived at the station).

Is it possible to get a refund? Yes. It’s not even a full refund (that’s Trainline’s fault). So we lost money, even after the refund. They keep the booking fees, ticket collection fees etc. What’s more, they ruin our plans , they frustrated relatives waiting for us to visit, they’ve wasted a lot of time, e.g. having to do lots of clicking and stuff to only receive a partial refund (outrageous, as they canceled it for no stated reason, breaking their side of the contract and promise).

So we dressed up and prepared in vain. The train got canceled. Why? They don’t even tell us.

British Rail has gone off the rails, at least based on the high failure (to meet schedule) rate.

This industry (yes, it has been privatised) may deserve the same boycott some airlines and airports deserve.

If the service is so bad, why pay them?

Stop paying them, this way they’ll get the message, reform may be imposed (e.g. nationalising the system; it used to be like that before it became all about greed).

I’m done with rail travel. Any further time wasted trying to play roulette (booking in the hope it’ll actually materialise) is risk of disappointed or, as happened last time, hours on phone, E-mail etc. And arguing with about 6 different people before a refund gets issued.

It’s not like I’m some Luddite or Amish or grumpy old man. If it was still reliable like before (never mind affordable, too), then fine. But the trust is lost. We’re breaking up. It’s not me, it’s you. I have no time or desire to deal with this nonsense anymore.

want to present this morning’s data from ONS, comparing England and Wales (not Scotland) deaths in 2019:

And the same week this year (as per today’s release):

We went up from about 9,000 deaths per week to 10,000+.

Our government says that only about 50 people died that week “with COVID-19 on the death certificate in England,” so what causes those other 900+ deaths per week? Shouldn’t the government learn how it can save tens of thousands of lives?

Video download link | md5sum deb923a8340805a0040d08074d87dd02
Sirius Cannot Retain Anything
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ aside, it seems like the company has no chance of surviving; its 25^th anniversary is later this year, but it’s understaffed and running out of clients

THE company that once upon a time sponsored the Free Software Foundation and KDE resorted to defrauding its own staff in 2011 if not even earlier. Former staff is finding out and coming to grips with it.

The company has meanwhile lost several more clients (the ones it openly admits losing; usually it lies about that loss or keeps it secret for a long time… for the sake of ‘morale’). Many people, including managers, are mortified to discover what went on. Some leave and some are preparing to sue (albeit the company is in hiding, so it’s not easy).

Perhaps none of this should be particularly shocking. I know and I’ve seen attrition crises in the company over the years (dating back to 2011). But this one is different. This one the company cannot recover from and the fake ‘founder’ might even up in a jail cell. This is the first part of a series that we hope can become daily in the installments sense. There are things we cannot publicly state at this moment, but sooner or later it will be safe to blurt them out.

Video download link | md5sum 9014d1ac4981a4f86e5930dc24d3679d
Cadent Gas Limited Leaving a Mess Behind
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

THE local (ish) company that handles the gas pipes was here today. I didn’t agree to it, it was imposed on me, and the time wasn’t up for negotiation either. A dirty kitchen was left behind and it seems likely at least one of the people had COVID-19, judging by the cough. Some were smoking on the job, outdoors…

The video (conversation) above discussed a number of issues with one of the managers there (hopefully his name isn’t on the video). I was urged to make a complaint and ask for some clarification about what had happened, why it had to happen etc.

At the end I left aside the first call that I made, before their escalation and callback. It didn’t contain anything important that the second call did not cover as well (besides, it contained personal information like postcode and phone numbers), but it was useful for reference in case they tell inconsistent stories.

Excess deaths in the UK are very high this year. COVID-19 isn’t over either; it’s still spreading and swirling, so having several strangers inside my kitchen, where food and beverages are handled, is undesirable, especially without proper consent. We are paying a lot of money for gas, we sometimes smell gas leaks, and here they go replacing metal pipes with plastic. When challenged about it over the phone, the managers accepted that the greenwashing of plastic pipes was disingenuous.

It’s troubling to see the power that those power (gas/electricity) corporations have in the UK.

It should be noted that the above call (one of two and the more relevant/detailed one) is a culmination of a desire to phone up Cadent Gas Limited or E.ON Next (regarding the suspicious first letter and the suspected gas leak). If there really was an emergency/urgent matter (such as a confirmed gas leak in the area), they’re not talking about it. Both people whom I spoke with (at the above firm) deny there was a gas leak nearby. Remember that they have a vested interest here; they’d possibly deny any emergent issues with the pipes as it’s their responsibility to look after these pipes and leaks indicate a commercial failure of theirs. Lives would be at risk.

Video download link | md5sum 4f51d9642195366129bf811e95b14db4
Fraud Escalation to MP
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ are of interest to the British public sector; we’ve begun contacting relevant people

THE police chief in London openly admits that British courts are cherry-picking cases and it seems clear, based on personal experience, that the police is cherry-picking cases as well, no matter how many victims exist or how profound the crime/s might be. In fact, even when all the unambiguous (“slam-dunk”) evidence is handed over, Action Fraud can decide to do nothing.

I now correspond with my public representative in Manchester. Sirius has had many government clients (which we would rather not name as we never name clients of Sirius). This is a serious reputational problem for various high-profile clients of Sirius, which are tied to the umbrella system, governing the nation, including police, immigration, the health services and so on. They probably would wish to know government contractors scamming their own workers, who worked on government computer systems.

To put it another way, is this how the British government treats workers, via contractors that are rogue? The embezzlement started only a few months after I had joined the company in early 2011. So it’s not something that happened very recently. It had many victims other than me.

The way in which my reports were handled (or not handled) is of interest for political reasons, not just for more ordinary reasons (cracking down on crime). We’ll hopefully be ready to report concrete progress some time before this month ends.

If we must take this ‘dirty diaper’ to all the facilitators, who helped abuse their workforce by proxy, then so be it. We still have 4-5 escalation levels/points at this stage, but we’re exhausting them one by one, based on the hierarchy of the system. Sooner or later, we believe, the Rule of Law will catch up with Sirius and its enablers. Justice needs to prevail, one way or another.

Summary: Sirius ‘Open Source’ is collapsing, but that does not mean that it can dodge accountability for crimes (e.g. money that it silently stole from its staff since at least 12 years ago)

A SCREENSHOT of the PDF from Standard Life was shared here (with sensible redaction) a few days ago. Things are belatedly progressing.

This post has taken a long time to prepare as we need to separate gossip/speculation from verified facts. Standard Life also claims to be pursuing the facts (since the 7^th of March). As per their own update: “Dear Dr Schestowitz, I have attached our acknowledgement to your complaint. [...] If you’ve any questions, or problems accessing your acknowledgement, please email me at [redacted] and I’ll do all I can to help you.”

They’ve basically been looking into how on Earth the company (Sirius) was claiming to be paying into Standard Life accounts that don’t even exist!

The simplest explanation is, Sirius engaged in embezzlement. The management was contacted several times, being kindly offered the opportunity to explain what actually happened. Each and every time the response was schtum. For reasons we detailed here before, litigation seems imminent. Class action lawsuit is also likely, though the company is in hiding. Staff that actively oversaw and participated in the embezzlement is criminally liable, even if leaving the company later. They’ve been made aware of this (fraud, theft, forgery/embezzlement among the possible charges). Failing that, or in addition to that, pension providers can be sued. We’ll explain the legal grounds some other day.

What does this have to do with Techrights? Sirius is describing itself as Britain’s most respected and best established Open Source business.

If this is what the “most respected and best established” boils down to, then there’s serious trouble. Sirius is a major liability and a stain. This isn’t the company I joined more than 12 years ago. “You need to lie to keep your job” or “take one for the team” or “do something unethical/illegal to keep your salary” is the hallmark or symptom of criminal management, which needs to be prosecuted, not served (except served papers). I confronted the management many times before leaving (for over a year!) and nothing improved. They kept paying the salary, but behaviour only worsened over time, so I reached out to a friend.

Suffice to say, you need not be particularly charismatic to persuade workers whom you pay to also do bad things, acting out of fear (obedience for a payment). During a pandemic and financial crises (exacerbated by invasion of Ukraine) it gets even easier for bad people to compel workers to act unethically. This is a recipe for disaster.

Internally, as noted here back in December, I had circulated communications to try to ameliorate things amicably. But regarding my letters, however, they never wrote anything back. The attitude was to simply ignore the issues and to ignore the reporter. At one point I mused that I could joke with the boss, “so how has that secret money from Bill Gates worked out for you, eh?” Does one reckon that if the CEO goes to prison, Bill Gates will go visit him in prison? It’s closer than the facility Jeffrey Epstein was in when Gates visited him. As far as we know, the CEO is in Spokane area/WA somewhere (not too far from Seattle). He is hiding there, possibly not just from workers but also former wives.

Anyway, E-mails to the CEO are now bouncing. It’s a company that’s not functioning, lacks the staff to actually meet SLAs, and sooner or later will receive demands from clients that a refund is issued (not that the company has any money left).

There’s only one manager left in the company, apparently living with his girlfriend or someone else somewhere in the US (we cannot verify all the pertinent details). The company can implode any day now and we might hear just days later that he has been kicked out with a suitcase (he is working double-shifts at the moment, trying to slow down the collapse, which is inevitable anyhow).

The collapse of the company can devastate many people, who “have been in touch about trying to track down [...] pensions from the original Sirius pension scheme,” to quote one former colleague. “I am in the same situation and had previously given up trying to track it down.”

We still wonder how many people are impacted by this — probably a lot. It’s hard to find or track down every single person whom you worked with over a decade ago.

The Standard Life and NOW: Pensions plans/schemes are both registered with a company that has only one employee: the CEO. He moved everything else to two shells, one in the UK (Ltd.) and another in the US (Inc.). Both pension providers investigate this matter now.

Two months ago we requested written assurances from NOW: Pensions that the pensions cannot be scuttled as before. For the time being, Standard Life refuses to even tell what happened (the managers there made a guess/hunch) but it seems like no money ever reached their end. Now that the company is, in effect, ‘in hiding’ (a former CEO is rushing to delete anything that ever connected him to the company) It’ll be hard to sue, but accountability is still possible. The police may soon step in.