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tldr: Incredible.550 long-suffering ex-Postal-workers -- many had their lives ruined -- have won a court-case and will be splitting £58m. This 20-year-old prob

tldr: Incredible.550 long-suffering ex-Postal-workers -- many had their lives ruined -- have won a court-case and will be splitting £58m. This 20-year-old problem in the UK Postal's $1billion computer system was so bad it has its own Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_(IT_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_(IT_system)

noir_lord 7y ago
Not the only one that does, If you want a giggle at the insanity of large organisations look up NHS National Programme for IT. That fuck up was 10bn pounds (+/- 2bn since no-one has definitely quantified the cost).
- arethuza 7y ago
  The book "Plundering the Public Sector" by David Craig gives a good account (simultaneously entertaining and appalling) of the the expensive antics of the NHS project. I vaguely knew people who worked on it and they made a pile of money - medics being the absolute dream customers for consultants to rip-off.
shakna 7y ago
The equivalent of I'm guessing three years pay for a multi-year life-ruining experience that spawned mental health problems, relationship breakdowns and other long-lasting effects: > But "a decade of hell" later, he had suffered a mental breakdown which led to him being sectioned. The point of me reinforcing the above isn't just the low compensation. It's that it's low compensation and avoiding the root problem. Software gets trusted more than people. This shouldn't be allowed to happen again. Safeguards need to be in place to prevent ruining lives over software bugs. Programmers don't trust computers to be right all of the time. We suspect a bug when it isn't human incompetence... Yet rulings like this don't tend to make that angle willing to be explored by anyone.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Aside from all the pain and suffering they experienced, they are being awarded less money than the government already stole from them in fraudulent claims.

noir_lord 7y ago

Not the only one that does, If you want a giggle at the insanity of large organisations look up NHS National Programme for IT. That fuck up was 10bn pounds (+/- 2bn since no-one has definitely quantified the cost).

arethuza 7y ago
The book "Plundering the Public Sector" by David Craig gives a good account (simultaneously entertaining and appalling) of the the expensive antics of the NHS project. I vaguely knew people who worked on it and they made a pile of money - medics being the absolute dream customers for consultants to rip-off.

shakna 7y ago

The equivalent of I'm guessing three years pay for a multi-year life-ruining experience that spawned mental health problems, relationship breakdowns and other long-lasting effects: > But "a decade of hell" later, he had suffered a mental breakdown which led to him being sectioned. The point of me reinforcing the above isn't just the low compensation. It's that it's low compensation and avoiding the root problem. Software gets trusted more than people. This shouldn't be allowed to happen again. Safeguards need to be in place to prevent ruining lives over software bugs. Programmers don't trust computers to be right all of the time. We suspect a bug when it isn't human incompetence... Yet rulings like this don't tend to make that angle willing to be explored by anyone.

lonelappde 7y ago
Aside from all the pain and suffering they experienced, they are being awarded less money than the government already stole from them in fraudulent claims.