UK law said that there was a presumption that computer systems were working correctly unless there was evidence to the contrary. That’s not inherently nuts. It makes roughly as much sense as assuming that, say, a dishwasher is in working order unless there’s evidence to the contrary. This presumption in and of itself could just as well aid a person’s defense as hinder it (e.g. if they have an alibi based on computer records).

In this case it should have been very easy to provide evidence to override the presumption that the Horizon system was working correctly. That this didn’t happen seems to have resulted from a combination of bad lawyering and shameless mendacity on the part of Fujitsu and the Post Office.

Don’t get me wrong — the whole thing is a giant scandal. I’m just not sure if this particular presumption of UK law is the appropriate scapegoat.

>UK law said that there was a presumption that computer systems were working correctly unless there was evidence to the contrary.

Defense had to prove that only one Horizon/Fujitsu accounting software was buggy and the whole prosecution falls apart e.g. If John's Horizon/Fujitsu accounting software has bugs then Peter's Horizon/Fujitsu accounting software most probably has bugs too.

IIRC one issue was that every time someone advanced the theory something was wrong with Horizon, the Post Office kept claiming that nobody else was experiencing any issues. They also lied under oath, claiming no bugs that could cause such situations were known. Given this most the of defence lawyers abandoned that line of inquiry (they were nothing special, seeing as village postmasters aren't rich).

Proving bugs can be pretty hard if you don't have access to software & source code. That is similar to the US, courts usually won't give you access to source code to verify if software is operating correctly, you generally only get cross examine the company representative & person who performed the test. DNA tests are one good example.

One case where defense did get access to the code (FST developed by NYC) led to discoveries (https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-judge-unseals-new...) that led to it being retired from use.

In principle, yes. It may be that the bar was set too high and that there needs to be some clarification of exactly what the presumption means.

I’d argue that some kind of weak presumption along these lines clearly makes sense and is probably universal across legal systems. For example, suppose the police find that X has an incriminating email from Y after searching X’s laptop. Are they required to prove that GMail doesn’t have a bug causing it to corrupt email contents or send emails to the wrong recipients? Presumably not.

> To the NY Times: please don't say they died by suicide. The passive voice

“X died by suicide” is a sentence in the active voice. “Die” is an intransitive verb and cannot be passivized in English.

I’m not nitpicking the poster’s grammar, I’m nitpicking the claim about the grammatical structure of a particular sentence that’s the factual basis of their criticism of the article.

Read The Lion and the Unicorn if you want an overview of Orwell's political views: https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20180531/html.php

He was was in favor of wealth redistribution and nationalisation of key industries, but his political views were very far from Communism.

Even the literal literal Nazis didn’t campaign for minorities to be sent to gas chambers. If you’re going to do this silly pedantic act about how no-one in 2025 can literally be a Nazi, at least do it right.

There are elements of truth to this, but it’s a wild exaggeration. It feeds into exactly the kind of political cynicism that stops people voting and makes the problem worse.

You can find this by googling "trump allegator escape".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cdxlld0dgxwo

I don’t see “barely contained glee at immigrants being eaten by alligators”, I see an attempt at making a funny comment about escaping alligators by not running in a straight line.

That seems like a paraphrase of the same thing? He’s joking about prisoners trying to escape the camp and being eaten by alligators.

Yes, but they may ask for more USD than they would if the dollar were stronger against the Euro.

The 8051. I think C++ compilers technically exist for it, but for most hardware the only practical choice is the Keil C51 compiler, which is C89.

Not at all. The only reason I ever go into an Apple Store is that I know I won’t get pressured to buy something. But I do replace my iPhone and my MacBook every few years, and on some level, the Apple Store being a relaxing environment to browse Apple products probably contributes to that. Apple isn’t trying to sell you a new laptop right here right now. They’re smarter than that.

Oh, I have no problem with salespeople being hands off, that would be my preference too. But once you've made a decision to buy something, they should be available.

I mean they are? It’s just that you might have to go and talk to one of the employees rather than waiting passively for them to come to you. I find it weird that people have an issue with that.