> [The TCPA] moved Britain from a system where almost any development was permitted anywhere, to one where development was nearly always prohibited. Since [it] was introduced in 1947, private housebuilding has never reached Victorian levels, let alone the record progress achieved just before the Second World War.
> Today, local authorities still have robust powers to reject new developments, and little incentive to accept them. Historically, local governments encouraged development because their tax bases grew in line with the extra value created, but this incentive has been eroded by successive reforms that have centralised and capped local governments’ tax-raising powers.
I read it. I'm so sorry for what you went through, and that times are hard. Sending hugs your way.
Late 40s - you have so much of your life ahead of you! Are you medicated (with e.g. actual antidepressants)? Please explore that avenue as thoroughly as you can before doing anything drastic.
Definitely a "take it in the morning and maybe skip the coffee" kind of thing. The effects feel like methylphenidate. I wish it was further explored commercially, but the duration is a very obvious reason not to.
> [SW's] police report states that, after Assange woke her up trying to initiate intercourse, the two had a conversation in which she asked Assange whether he was wearing a condom and he replied he was not. She then said he “would better not have HIV” and he replied that he did not, after which, she “let him continue” (lät honom fortsätta) to have unprotected intercourse. There are no indications of coercive or incapacitating circumstances suggesting lack of consent. Accordingly, Chief Prosecutor for Stockholm Eva Finne stated: “I do not think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape” and closed the case on 25 August 2010 concluding that the “conduct alleged by SW disclosed no crime at all”.
Thanks. I guess that's the '27 August 2010' update in that document - is there more to read on it somewhere?
The doc I linked suggested it was the police who modified SW's statement, which triggered the re-evaluation of the case.
"AA took SW to a police station, so SW could enquire whether she could force Assange to take an HIV-test. There, they were questioned together by an investigating officer who knew AA personally and ran on the same political party ticket as AA in the general elections three weeks later. When superior investigators insisted on registering SW’s enquiry as a report of “rape” and to immediately issue an arrest warrant against Assange, SW reportedly refused to sign her statement and became so emotionally distraught that the questioning had to be suspended. While at the police station, SW even texted that she “did not want to put any charges on Julian Assange” but that “the police were keen on getting their hands on him” (14:26); and that she was “chocked (sic shocked) when they arrested him” because she “only wanted him to take a test” (17:06). Once Chief Prosecutor Finné had intervened and closed the case, it reportedly was again the police (not SW) who “revised” her statement lodged in the police system to better fit the crime of “rape” before it was resubmitted by a third Social Democrat politician to a different prosecutor who was prepared to re-open the case."
The "Social Democrat politician" was Claes Borgström (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Borgstr%C3%B6m) - calling him a politician without noting that he was a qualified lawyer with a track record in representing women in sexual assault and trafficking cases is incredibly misleading.
Courts concluded that under both Swedish and English law, what was described (if accurately described, which is a separate issue) qualified as rape. Section 116 and onwards of https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/11/assan... describe this in more detail. This isn't an arbitrary conclusion - it's based on an analysis of the described behaviour against national law. Someone unfamiliar with the specific law of the nations involved may reach a different conclusion, which is understandable and also entirely irrelevant.
I don't know what to believe. That document is pretty damning reading to be honest (thank you for sharing and pointing to the relevant sections), but the original post from Melzer still raises some alarming issues I think
It absolutely is, and it's something I am very much aware of.
I considered including something about that incident (for those of you coming in with less context, they're referring to [1] this) in this article, but I didn't for two reasons.
One, I sincerely do not think that was actually fatal (it was, at worst, a symptom of the same forces that forced a pivot). And two, the best thing I could say about it in terms of going forward is "no but seriously I'm not going to do that", which _I_ know is true but you obviously don't (and if you trust me when I say that, well, I don't think you're cynical enough). Every time I tried to write about it in the early draft versions of this post, I found myself coming back to saying both "you're not cynical enough and you shouldn't trust a damn thing I say if it doesn't cost me something" and "but look how I'm actually different". And that just seemed wrong to write.
It's hard to be an honest cynic in a world of distrust. Because I want you to trust me, because I think I am worthy of that trust, but I also think the average person is nowhere near cynical enough about how easy it is to fake sincerity and want to scream that fact from the rooftop.
Their product was a two sided market. Two sided markets are always hard, but it doesn’t get any easier if one of the sides (job candidates) loses trust in the platform. Glassdoor is finding out the same thing.
If you’re looking for examples where privacy violations hurt a company’s chances for success, look at Instagram for Kids. It was cancelled largely because the kinds of parents who would even consider such an app don’t trust Meta.
Flash memory relies on cells keeping charged, but the electrons can slowly leak and discharge the cells over time. It looks like the commonly claimed number is 10 years, but there's no clear answer. Hard drives also aren't great as a "set and forget" method. In either case you should refresh the data regularly (~yearly). Optical media is a great option for digital long-term storage, but paper is a very tried-and-true method, if stored in the right conditions.
Get a tape backup system and be happy. I rotate three tapes between offsite, my safe, and an active one in the tape drive. Don’t overthink “offsite”, your work office is good enough. Or your parents house. Or your neighbor on the other side of the neighborhood.
Or backup once and throw the tape in the back of the closet. At least you can restore the magnetic backup. I would not be happy with the error rate of transcribing data from paper :-)
She very kindly types up when and where she plans on being and publishes it on her website, but I guess that's not a security issue because it makes her money.
> They will know where she is going to so they can plan to get there.
Let's say that they do and they even manage to show up at LAX 20 minutes before her plane lands. Now what? Honestly. It's not as if they can just hang around at the baggage claim and find her there. What do you think they can do now? Surround the entire airport and stop every single vehicle from leaving until they find the one with her in it?
> [The TCPA] moved Britain from a system where almost any development was permitted anywhere, to one where development was nearly always prohibited. Since [it] was introduced in 1947, private housebuilding has never reached Victorian levels, let alone the record progress achieved just before the Second World War.
> Today, local authorities still have robust powers to reject new developments, and little incentive to accept them. Historically, local governments encouraged development because their tax bases grew in line with the extra value created, but this incentive has been eroded by successive reforms that have centralised and capped local governments’ tax-raising powers.
[0] https://ukfoundations.co/
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