The issue is that to setup push notifications for an app you link your apps bundle id/package name with the Apple/Google developer account that you publish with. For the Zulip app that will be the developer account owned by Zulip. Your app is then signed with credentials linked to that account as well.
When you want to send a push notification to the app you use an API key from that developer account. This lets Apple/Google know which app to send it to and confirms you have the permission to do it.
If Zulip wanted to allow a self-hosted notifications server to send notifications directly to Apple/Google and into the app they publish on the app stores then they would need to give out the API key from their developer account to everyone.
You wouldn't be able to do much without the matching device push token (a unique token per device which lets Apple/Google know which device you want to send a message to) but anyone could use that API token to attempt to spam messages which is a quick way to get your developer account banned, or at the very least have your access to the push API severly limited.
I'm sorry, why would they do that? Instead of building their own API key infrastructure and proxy the requests to the respective notification services? For an example, please see Mattermost's on-prem notification implementation.
This data was collected by O2 on their customers, so I presume the data comes from what cell site you’re phone is connected to. To avoid this you’d need to have mobile data disabled or just leave your phone at home.
TfL collected a separate dataset themselves using WiFi access points in the underground (covered later in the article).
Maybe the app sends requests with some timing tied to the user id? With spyware on the telephone, it should be possible to do some scheme to circumvent mac address hopping.
The site is the car park to the south of the train tracks. The red pin in your link shows it right in the middle of the housing development to the north. The Wikipedia map has the correct pin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSG_Sphere_London#/map/0
To note, I would object to this as well if I lived in the area and hope it gets rejected somewhere along the way.
Yeah, I'd say Charlie Brooker's stint at PC Zone was more notable. That was the best gaming magazine ever and the world is shitter without it. Dave Woods, Jamie Sefton, Will Porter, Rihanna Pratchett. I'm genuinely amazed PCGamer beat it in the market and continues to this day.
Maybe the issue is that you used the "Core" installation method which isn't a fully managed installation and only really there for "advanced" use cases. It has this warning above the installation steps:
> This is an advanced installation process, and some steps might differ on your system. Considering the nature of this installation type, we assume you can handle subtle differences between this document and the system configuration you are using. When in doubt, please consider one of the other installation methods, as they might be a better fit instead.
I use the container installation method and it's usually as simple as updating the version number in Docker Compose and restarting. I'd imagine the full OS image is even easier and more stable.
I use what they recommend: I installed Home Assistant Operating System on a Raspberry PI 3. Which still means there's an OS and there's HA Core.
> Home Assistant Operating System: Minimal Operating System optimized to power Home Assistant. It comes with Supervisor to manage Home Assistant Core and Add-ons. Recommended installation method.
I tried on purpose to do everything as 'basic' as possible because I don't want to spend time making sure it keeps working.
Ah ok, I misunderstood then. I presumed if you used the OS installation method then the upgrade was done from within the web UI, but I maybe have misunderstood that too.
no idea why it's recommended to install manually; I'd recommend docker every time. currently running on docker and upgrading was indeed just pulling new images (didn't even have to tweak the compose file, just docker compose pull). There's been a few helpful UI messages about outdated integrations in the config (e.g. workday detection moved to UI config, used to be yaml).
I don't think the problem is how to update: it's easy enough in the interface, it just works. The problem is whether after the upgrade you suddenly don't see the heater anymore, or another device stops working.
> I'd imagine the full OS image is even easier and more stable.
It notifies you when there's an upgrade, you just click "Install" in the GUI.
That said, every time I update it the disk image grows by like a full gig. Haven't figured out where that's going so I just don't update it anymore. It's running on a minimal headless computer and doesn't have enough space to keep doing that.
To allow them to do so there is a "legal fiction" where they're appointed to an "office of profit". This disqualifies them from being an MP and triggers a by-election. These are unpaid positions with titles like "Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham".
Since only two (or maybe three, I'm not 100% sure) of these positions exist, a mass resignation would be delayed by having to cycle people through the appointment and release of these figurative roles.
It also created a curious effect where a Sinn Fein MP (Gerry Adams), who like all Sinn Fein MPs never took his seat because he would not swear allegiance ot the crown, had to accept a crown job to resign, which David Cameron criticised him for (in rather poor form).
And there is nothing aside form precedent preventing a capricious government from stopping MPs from resigning by refusing to make such an appointment.
It's all fun and games having an unwritten messy constitution until a government exceeds its powers to e.g. prorogue parliament against its will and we have to wait months for a court to rule on it when a proper consitution would never have allowed such an act in the first place.
An insurrection like January 6th would suceed in the UK because there is so much arcane bullshit where our constitution should be, we are solely dependent on the good will and character of the current government to run things as they are meant to be run.
It doesn't in practice delay things much even with a fairly large group resigning at once -- in 1985 15 Ulster Unionist MPs resigned on the same day, and this was done by cycling between the two offices and spreading the appointments out through the day. So it's silly, but not actually a problem, which is why nobody's bothered to try to tidy it up.
Seems ripe for automation in this day & age. 15 per day, pff! I'm sure with the right cloud services and a well-engineered state machine we could get it up to over a 100. Should be just about enough to handle Tory members as election day approaches...
Unlike what many people think, the UK has a written constitution in the form of various laws. However, Parliament (more specifically, the House of Commons) can in theory alter any of these laws at any time. Such is likely only in case it would further solidify Parliament's power and preeminence. Brexit is the last time it happened, when the perceived subordination to the EU was removed.
It's admittedly a messy state of affairs and many important processes are indeed defined and motivated by convention and tradition only.
However, many of these traditions came about whenever the British were forced to deal with events or a constitutional crisis. For example, the monarch does not enter the Commons and Black Rod is admitted only after striking three times exactly because of such events.
January 6th is doomed in the UK for the same reasons it was doomed to fail in the USA: it was based on a flawed understanding how the government really works. The British would have doubtlessly dispensed with tradition and taken expedient measures, and those would become the new Tradition, regardless of whether it is subsequently embossed in Law or not.
Parliament, under the same theories, cannot alter any laws - parliament suggests laws to the monarch who grants them according to their caprices ...
Of course the monarchs rather like their position of power and the money they rob (it's only a threat of violence) from the taxpayer and so they don't rock the boat, even when they should (eg when a corrupt, lying PM asks them to please prorogue parliament in order to subvert democracy -- extraordinary prorogation being one of the few reserved powers).
The monarch is perfectly entitled to take a seat in the public gallery of HoC, just as they are entitled to vote, no court would ever deny them such rights as they really derive from shared freedoms given to all UK nationals. When the Tories take us out of ECHR they might lose those rights.
About the only good Mr Alexander Boris de Pfeffle Johnson was to demonstrate how we can no longer trust politicians to be honourable, and must reform our parliamentary system with an assumption that MPs are lying, cheating, thieving beings with utmost contempt for the electorate, the rule of law, and even the institutions of Westminster (buying silence with peerages and stuffing HoL with cronies, for example).
That we cannot, even now, have a general election is a despicable endorsement of the lack of actual democracy afforded to the British people.
Royal assent has not been unilaterally withheld by the monarch for more than 300 years. The role of the Monarch has been a ceremonial over for a very long time. Even if they wanted to rock on the boat now, the result would be uncertain.
Of course the Monarch can enter the visitor gallery, but, as you say, they would enter it as a citizen of the UK, not in their function as monarch.
I'd attribute the deficiencies of the UK's democratic system more to the first-past-the-post voting system, which causes government to be answerable to the winning coalition, not to the whole Parliament. Integrity in Parliament has been going downhill everywhere, not just in the UK.
The king is exempted from racial discrimination laws, for instance, and well into the 1970s it was their official and open policy that black and brown people were unfit for any position more exalted than cleaning the toilets:
Everything you think you know about the monarchy in the UK is a carefully crafted fiction by expensive PR consultants, paid by the taxpayers to lobby against their interests.
To quote you verbatim: "The role of the Monarch has been a ceremonial over for a very long time." (sic)
This is clearly not true, even if they go to great lengths to hide this from the public, in collusion with both UK and Scottish governments. That's before even discussing reserve powers.
The incident you quoted was an instance of a threatened use of withholding the Queen's Consent. In this case, even most of Parliament might have been unaware of the implication of the bill that was presented before them. More evidence of shady backoffice bill crafting (yes, I'm aware that the Monarch has regularly tea with the Prime Minister) than actual abuse of powers.
All of this is rather shameful, but not surprising. Especially since this happened in the 60s where the attitude of many people was still quite... old-fashioned. Personally, I think actively refusing the Queen's Consent would have caused a scandal not because of the actual discrimination, but because of special rules for the royal household being created, as well as direct interference with Parliament.
This rather demonstrates that the Monarch is aware that they would likely lose out and find their powers further restricted should such meddling turn into an actual confrontation between Parliament and Monarch. The Monarchy exists as long as the public can turn a blind eye to their faults. Yes, that requires that they sweep things under the rug. And this is indeed one of the strongest arguments against the continued existence of the Monarchy.
> Parliament, under the same theories, cannot alter any laws - parliament suggests laws to the monarch who grants them according to their caprices ...
Wrong, under those theories, Parliament can absolutely alter laws (this requires, of course, royal assent, but the monarch is a component of Parliament not separate from it in theory, even aside from the fact that this function is now essentially ministerial in terms of its performance by the monarch in both practice and constitutional theory.)
> The monarch is ... entitled to vote, no court would ever deny them such rights as they really derive from shared freedoms given to all UK nationals.
You seem to be correct that the monarch is technically not barred from voting (although they don't and shouldn't), but the Lords are not entitled to vote, so I don't think the reason you give is correct.
Adams never accepted anything - Cameron's admin unilaterally appointed him to the post, which is why Erskine May was subsequently changed to specify Maps are appointed to, rather than accepting, the paid job. "Call me Dave" was making stuff up, as he was wont to do.
> An insurrection like January 6th would suceed in the UK
The US situation can't arise in the UK because they cut the three key roles up differently
In the US the Figurehead and Executive Leader are one man (the US President in this case Donald Trump) in the UK the Figurehead is the Monarch (ie today King Charles) and the Executive Leader is the Prime Minister, who is also Legislative Leader (and historically both these jobs are sometimes done by women). Both countries bizarrely assign multiple jobs with different required skill sets to the same person, which would be understandable if they were tiny nations with a small population but they aren't. However which roles are split this way is crucially different.
The problem on January 6th in the US is that the Executive Leader wants to destroy the Legislature. Yes his Secret Service persuades him not to accompany the insurrectionists, but they're doing what he told them to do.
That can't happen in the UK because the Executive Leader is the leader of the Legislature. If the Legislature don't think he should be leader, they can get rid of him, and not via some "arcane bullshit" but with almost the simplest possible motion,
"That This House Has No Confidence In His [or Her] Majesty's Government".
> An insurrection like January 6th would suceed in the UK because there is so much arcane bullshit where our constitution should be, we are solely dependent on the good will and character of the current government to run things as they are meant to be run.
The "arcane bullshit" is kind of irrelevant in both directions on this question; power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Same applies to the Jan 6th rioters. They seized the building but not the institution. They had no coordinated support network (although it was a spectacular achievement for opportunism) among Congress, or - critically - Trump himself. Nor had they bothered to secure sufficient police/military/paramilitary political support to turn holding a building into holding power.
Storming Parliament would be met with gunfire in the same way as Jan 6th was unless conspirators had bothered to secure the support of the security services beforehand. Conversely, it doesn't matter what the constitution might say if the security services aren't willing to back it up and decide to fire on demonstrators instead, Bloody Sunday passim.
> The Chancellor may in theory deny an application, although the last time this happened was to Viscount Chelsea in 1842. In the debate over expelling the fugitive James Sadleir in 1856, the Government committed to refusing any potential application he would make.
The solution to this is a car sharing programme. You pay your membership and get access to a fleet of cars and vans that you can pickup whenever you like. Tax, insurance, and petrol is all covered in the price (usually) and you can pick the right vehicle size for the trip you're making (no need to own a truck for the rare occasions you need to move large items).
Obviously not a solution for every situation, but if you only need a car occasionally then it would likely work out well.
Personally I only drive once a week at most, but there isn't a car share scheme locally. If one started up that was cost effective and convinient enough then I'd consider it.
Carsharing can be recommended only by somebody who never have to share a car.
- Car won't available when you need it.
- You will come to a car, which will have steering wheel and driver's seat in a setup incompatible with your physique, so you need to waste your time to set it back. Every. Damn. Time.
- Car will be dirty. All the time. Dog hair, food crumbs, trash (i.e. coffee cups, cans). You will take it out and next time it will be back
- If you are sharing with a smoker, I hope that you like smoky smell of your car.
- Car will be always empty (gas, battery) because previous user has no incentive to fill it up.
- Minor accidents will go unreported, and then you will be wondering, where this scratch came from, why is this mirror busted or why I need to hold my steering wheel 10 degrees to the left to drive straight.
- Everybody will try to evade maintenance fees - You want money for winter tires? I don't drive in winter man... 2 weeks later your co-owner will want to drive, because it is his car too!
Carsharing is a dead end and whoever will try it, will quickly revert back to his own car. Less headache.
Carshares don't imply that the end users are liable for the upkeep financially, they just need to flag the issues to the car club, or at least that's how I've seen it be implemented in all the car clubs I've used.
To start off, smoking in the car is not allowed. If they detect dog hair and can deduce who introduced it, the user will be banned. If someone left it with less than either a quarter or a half a tank of fuel, the offender gets reprimanded or ultimately banned. Minor incidents and maintenance items are taken care of on a complaint basis - once a user complains, the company fixes it. Eventually. It's not as bad as you're making it out to be.
It really depends. A road trip in a car share can cost as much as a monthly lease payment, yet due to the way no one user feels responsible for the car, the tire was showing 4 different colors of threads. A trip to ikea can be really burdensome if the front right brake has a soft lock or if the bearing has gone. Or if someone's left the car with barely any fuel in it for that one time when the booking was made to make a tight deadline. For odds and ends, it can be perfectly serviceable, but I've had those three and some other less than savoury anecdotes in my 5 years of using a car share.
The summary is that if you have a full time job outside the UK or have spent less than 46 days in the UK (less if you were previously a UK resident) then you are never classed as a resident.
If that doesn't apply then working full time in the UK, spending at least half the year in the UK, or only having a home in the UK and using it for more than 30 days will automatically make the a resident.
If those don't apply, then there's a test to say if you have "significant ties" . The details for that are in the link and are applied on a sliding scale based on the number of days you spent in the UK.
To me, it looks pretty fair. You have a spend most of the year in the UK, have lots of "ties" here (property, family, etc), and not have a job elsewhere to be classed as a UK resident for tax purposes.
In reality the detail is what pushes most people to have to consider significant ties because the full time work test excludes a lot of people and is hard to prove for many others. eg if you are retired, a non working (or part-time working) spouse bringing up children, or make money via something HMRC could consider as not being a "trade" (eg investing your own money) then you don't automatically qualify as non resident.
The definition of full time work is explicitly linked to actual hours worked (not contracted), so the admin involved in proving this is painful.
For friends who've left the UK for work, the only way to qualify without massive hassle has been to spend less than 16 days a year in the UK for the first 3 tax years (and thereafter less than 46 days).
When you want to send a push notification to the app you use an API key from that developer account. This lets Apple/Google know which app to send it to and confirms you have the permission to do it.
If Zulip wanted to allow a self-hosted notifications server to send notifications directly to Apple/Google and into the app they publish on the app stores then they would need to give out the API key from their developer account to everyone.
You wouldn't be able to do much without the matching device push token (a unique token per device which lets Apple/Google know which device you want to send a message to) but anyone could use that API token to attempt to spam messages which is a quick way to get your developer account banned, or at the very least have your access to the push API severly limited.