Tim Hoverd

What's the point in a hospital you can't contact? @spirehealthcare After an hour on the phone I've given up. Luckily, I got a reply about reinstating "MySpire" access. This includes the text "click this link" which isn't actually a link! FFS, the incompetence runs deep here.

@amazon are excelling themselves. Not content with delivering to the wrong address they don't actually seem to know that today is Wednesday, not Friday. Of course, actually contacting an actual human is impossible.

Looks like a nice deal at @currys. Except "not available", "We're not allowed to display it without a price", "Google are coming to take it away" and other rubbish. The price then mysteriously disappeared. Do yourself a favour and shop for tech on the internet...

@CityFibre Well, that's great for her. For me, despite continuous "we can connect your house" messages, you took one look at my house and declared it a lost cause. It would take me 10 minutes to shin up to the supposedly inaccessible location, most of which time would be finding the ladder.

Our installation engineers set the standard, working together to deliver exceptional service for customers like Mrs B. We're delivering the smart network choice.

After two months of faffing about @CityFibre have decided they can't connect us, although they claim they can. This is after two installation visits and two "surveys", the latter being distinguished by no one coming to the house and no one standing outside looking at the house.

@TheBishF1 Seems to me he's potentially accelerating the creation of F1prime, the world wide championship for drivers and constructors that is nothing whatsoever to do with the FIA. I'm sure there are lots of mind-numbingly tedious street circuits available.

Please take a few minutes to read this wise & funny #MotorSport column by Mark Hughes, who’s tried his very best to analyse the petty & draconian illogic behind the FIA’s latest update in its increasingly autocratic president’s war against #F1 drivers’ swearing. (1/2)

@NatWest_Help What you can do is ensure that you're not requiring more of my personal data to be transferred for a simple enquiry. What you're doing is reducing security, annoying your customers and just trying to fob them off.

@teem50 We do appreciate your feedback so feel free to raise this with our team via the form below 🔗natwest.com/support-centre… Let me know if there's anything we can do to assist further at all ~Rachel🙂 (2/2)

Dear @NatWest_Help. Is it sensible that if I want to download data from my accounts I have to a) login to the website, b) use my fingerprint to open the app and c) use facial recognition to confirm I'm me. That's 3 login protocols just to download a bunch of numbers. Really?

@NatWest_Help Nonsense. Multiple authentications does NOT improve security. All you're doing is increasing the attack surface by requiring more personal data to be transferred for a trivial transaction. You're also driving customers away.

@teem50 This would all be in place to keep your account safe and secure Tim 🔐 We use strong customer authentication as an extra layer of security. You'll find more info on the link below 🔗natwest.com/fraud-and-secu… Using these multiple authentications is the best way to keep safe (1/2)

@NatWest_Help Security protocols are fine. But three separate ones (random password digits, fingerprint, facial recognition) for a non-financial transaction is ridiculous.

@teem50 Sounds like you were asked to use the biometrics to complete the transaction you had requested after the log in. This is a security protocol in place to keep your accounts secure. Were you able to download the transactions okay, Or do you need any further help this? - Carina twitter.com/messages/compo…

@NatWest_Help Transaction data. Securing the login is fine, but having to do it three times is raving bonkers; especially when it just used to need one secure login.

@teem50 Hey Tim What is it you are looking to download, you are correct you do have to login for security , this is to protect the accounts. Mike

I guess the incompetent commentary is to be expected along with the incompetent race direction. #F1

@AdamRutherford I'd like to brush up my general relativity. Which one of these is for me?

Not one of these, or indeed all of them combined, will teach you more than a 4 year college degree.

Need to talk to @virginmedia about broadband contract, complicated as it was my son's contract but transferred when he moved to a non-Virgin area. After many hours on phone and looking at infantile webchat I'm starting to think it'd be easier to cancel and find another supplier.

@graeme_cobb My personal experience, over 4 years of running EVs is that the charging is usually too quick. By the time you've had a wee, bought a coffee and drunk half of it the car's where you need it for the rest of the journey.

@graeme_cobb I find this talk of 5 minute charging tedious. It's all very well saying it's theoretically feasible but a DC charger that's capable of charging at something like 500 kW is some serious bit of kit that just isn't going to find its way to being installed any time soon.

Hopium and Perpetually Waiting For that Toyota Solid State EV I had an interesting driveway chat with a neighbour today. Years ago when I told him I was selling my PHEV for an EV he was a huge disbeliever in them, but I must have left a niggle of doubt in his head because he bought a PHEV a few years later wanting to cut down his fuel costs on his commute to work. So, when I got my EV, instead of regurgitating the FUD he reads he started to be inquisitive especially as I was driving all over the country in mine. Three years on and he knows his PHEV is great in EV mode and less great when the engine kicks in. He wants to drive in electric mode more, so much so he wants an EV, but because he’s an avid reader of mainstream newspapers and car magazines, he’s holding out for ‘that Toyota’ with the solid state batteries allegedly always launching next year. In other words, he wants an EV with a 5-10 minute rapid charge and 400-500 miles of range. It’s a mindset thing, but here lies the problem - it’s hard to correct the FUD and these perpetual promises printed in seemingly reputable publications. When I took the time to explain to him that there are EVs on sale that already fulfills his wishes for super long ranges and fast charging times, perhaps not 5-10 minutes, but certainly 16-30 minutes, he listened. The hardest part is explaining that he needn’t fully recharge the car or even charge it to 80% when the range is that long. A splash and dash is all that’s required, so a 5-10 minute charge is a reality when you don’t need to add 300 miles of range in one hit. But what I got from this conversation is the distinct lack of actual information out there in the public domain that would be helpful to any prospective EV owners. He may read about EVs and their ranges, and he may read about a charging infrastructure that’s seemingly reported as unfit for purpose, but despite all this, he knows he wants an EV. He just isn’t being informed about how and where to charge them, why he needs to get out of that filling-a-petrol car mindset, and what he needs to do to prepare for living with an EV. It seems this is not common knowledge in the public domain and so he’s waiting for Toyota to bring out their EV with ICE car ranges and refilling times that they keep promising is not far off. He’s hooked on their hopium. @StopBSCampaign @colinwalker79 there needs to be a way of disseminating actual helpful information in a way from a reputable and reliable source that’s accepted as public knowledge and read in mainstream publications.

@Jusmasel2015 Ah, but he "sensed that the code was good"; his massive background in distributed systems development helped him out here. In any case, the code might be great, but the architecture was f**ked.

#PostOfficeInquiry for someone with no IT experience, paragraph 50 of Young's witness statement needs some explanation. He didn't see Horizon's code... Mmm... All 2 million lines of it

@stugoo17 @fujitsu_uk @NFSP_UK @voiceofthePM @staticsean @HoweAndCo @CWUPostmaster @PMsinCWU @CWUnews @39EssexChambers Problem is, it's quite clear such people didn't exist in the Post Office. Fujitsu probably understood, but those in the know must have been hiding.

@stugoo17 @fujitsu_uk @NFSP_UK @voiceofthePM @staticsean @HoweAndCo @CWUPostmaster @PMsinCWU @CWUnews @39EssexChambers This bloke can determine that two bugs are the same, and declare in his statement that there's nothing wrong with Horizon. on the basis of absolutely no expertise whatsoever in systems development. Anyone with actual experience in distributed systems can clearly see the problem

#PostOfficeScandal #PostOfficeInquiry #StateCoverUp #StateSponsoredCrime Mr Sam Stein KC gets under the skin of today's Phase 5/6 witness - Mr Mike 'NotmeGuv' Young. @fujitsu_uk @NFSP_UK @voiceofthePM @staticsean @HoweAndCo @CWUPostmaster @PMsinCWU @CWUnews @39EssexChambers @edwardhenry1 @FloraClairePage @VerizonNews @PostOffInquiry @VarchasPatel @Karlfl @nickwallis @DanNeidle