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I voluntarily live in the UK as an EU citizen. Most countries have faults, these are the British faults. Germany won't act without a manual to follow, in Hungar
by pmlnr 6y ago
I voluntarily live in the UK as an EU citizen. Most countries have faults, these are the British faults. Germany won't act without a manual to follow, in Hungary you need direct permission from the maffia (also known as the governing party); choose your poison.
- futurix 6y agoWell, the difference is that German manual tends to work in the end. Certainly worked for Coronavirus (so far).
- microcolonel 6y agoThere were a lot of bad editions of the manual throughout the 20th century.
- unfunco 6y agoGodwin's law at work…
- microcolonel 6y agoNot just talking about the '40s editions.
- nix23 6y agoAh yes? Please tell what in Germany works's, Rail-stations? Airports?
- bb123 6y agoI think there are times when the go it alone and keep calm carry on attitude works well, but this is not one of them. Hopefully lessons will be learned.
- johannes1234321 6y agoMind that Germany went towards a centralized non-Apple- Google solution first (PEPP-PT) They just took the turn sooner than the British and others.
- BillyTheKing 6y agotbf, everyone went for their own custom solution initially since apple/google only really announced their plans for a joined effort some time early/mid April or so
- votepaunchy 6y agoThe decision to centralize the data collection was not due to a lack of a privacy-preserving API. Any country could have gone this route independent of Apple and Google.
- makomk 6y agoYou have to bear in mind that the UK press was pushing the narrative that non-decentralized tracing was boneheaded British exceptionalism that ignored what every other country was doing even back when Germany, France, and various other countries were still basing their apps on that exact same solution. Because they had a narrative they wanted to push, that narrative was that the UK was a stupid backwards country that needed to copy the enlightened Europeans but was refusing to because it was run by Brexit-supporting idiots, and they weren't going to let contradictory details get in the way of that.
- jnxx 6y ago> They just took the turn sooner than the British and others. Because of protests and massive intervention of experts and digital citizens rights group like the CCC. Luckily, the government listened in this case. I am somewhat amazed how well different sectors of society can suddenly work together when the situation is serious.
- AsyncAwait 6y agoAs another EU citizen living in the UK, I don't think anyone is saying everything the UK does ever is stupid or doesn't work. But there's a certain cultural thing about doing things "my way" despite good evidence it's not worth doing that way. I am not sure why everything has to be compared in terms of all or nothing. In this case specifically, they knew that they're playing a loosing game since Apple and Google are ultimately the gatekeepers of the gadgets doing the actual tracing. Thinking that somehow the UK has the individual power to go ahead and reasonably do it's own thing is nothing but arrogant.
- matthewdgreen 6y agoThey spent 108m GBP in the process of failing, too. The Swiss spent a couple million CHF. I wonder where that money went. ETA: sources in grandchild comment.
- raxxorrax 6y ago108m pound for a tracking app? How can I develop software for the British government?
- M2Ys4U 6y agoBe friends with Dominic Cummings
- nicky0 6y agoSource?
- matthewdgreen 6y agoUK app cost was reported here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/world/europe/uk-contact-tracing-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/world/europe/uk-contact-t... I am trusting Kenny Paterson at ETH Zurich on the cost of the Swiss app, since he was involved in developing it: https://twitter.com/kennyog/status/1273612397861842950?s=20 https://twitter.com/kennyog/status/1273612397861842950?s=20 ETA: NYT article also mentions a "secretive procurement process" for the UK app, which sounds a bit worrying.
- mcintyre1994 6y agoIt looks like Germany pretty much wrote the manual for a Coronavirus tracking app - https://github.com/corona-warn-app https://github.com/corona-warn-app
- NicoJuicy 6y agoSome people should read Germany's manual and picking the worst problem in internal Europe ( Hungary) is no excuse for bad decisions ( UK ) It's the same strategy non-democratic regimes use ( Trump, China, Russia)