Microsoft Wrongly Gives Britain the Day Off 253
Barence writes "An error in Outlook's public holidays calendar has incorrectly given Britons the day off work. Today was originally meant to be a Bank Holiday in Britain, but the holiday was postponed for a week to coincide with the Queen's diamond jubilee next week. However, Microsoft Outlook and Windows Live services are still reporting today as Britain's Spring Bank Holiday, potentially tricking Britons into believing they have the day off work."
This is what happens with kings/queens (Score:2, Insightful)
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Microsoft has people working in the UK and the USA...
Re:This is what happens with kings/queens (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft has people working in the UK and the USA...
Not today.
Re:This is what happens with kings/queens (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft has people working in the UK and the USA...
Maybe, but the Microsoft people working in the UK are largely employed to market products and lie to governments and standards bodies.
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/05/how-microsoft-fought-true-open-standards-v/index.htm [computerworlduk.com]
http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html [skolelinux.org]
Note that you have until June 4 2012 to counter some of this Microsoft propaganda.
Within the Government Digital Service we are already demonstrating how collaboration between departments, along with a clear focus on the user, delivers better public services for less. Open Standards are crucial for sharing information across government boundaries and to deliver a common platform and systems that more easily interconnect. Open standards are vital for progressing this work and I encourage you to share your views in this consultation.
Francis Maude MP- Minister for the Cabinet Office
http://consultation.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/openstandards/ [cabinetoffice.gov.uk]
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Hell, anything at all that is data-driven can be updated at the spur of the moment. In this particular case, though, Microsoft has been forewarned since planning for the jubilee started - which would have been a number of years ago, these things aren't quick to organize - particularly in Britain. In turn, that tells you about the latency in the administration of Microsoft.
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Exactly, it's taken about 60 years to organize this Diamond Jubilee, who knows how long the next one will take to arrive.
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Exactly, it's taken about 60 years to organize this Diamond Jubilee, who knows how long the next one will take to arrive.
Well, the last diamond jubilee was about 117 years ago, so they seem to have got the latency down by almost 50%. I expect the next one in less than 30 years if this trend continues.
(Slashdot, the playground for false statisticians for centuries!)
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Being from a certain family means you can just change holidays at will? Fuck that.
Except "they" did not change the day or declare the jubilee a bank holiday, Government did (Labour if i remember correctly). Queen has no authority in creating laws or policy's beyond rubber stamping government policy's. Hell if they even try to talk publicly (or get caught trying to influence privately) about policy's/laws they would like changed/implemented they get lamblasted so in some ways they have less rights that the average citizen
Re:This is what happens with kings/queens (Score:5, Informative)
Constitutionally, the monarch is strictly forbidden from talking about policy in public. The government is legally entitled to kick the monarch out of office for such an offense and has attempted to extend that to Prince Charles any number of times. The monarch also has no right to vote and no right to own personal property (they merely have the right to use the property held in trust for the monarchy), so they definitely have fewer rights.
Yes, Labour changed the holiday, which shows you just how much advance notice Microsoft had and thus the viscosity of the molasses they call management.
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The Queen does have the right to vote, she just chooses not to.
"Although the law relating to elections does not specifically prohibit the Sovereign from voting in a general election or local election, it is considered unconstitutional for the Sovereign and his or her heir to do so."
http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/QueenandGovernment/Queenandvoting.aspx [royal.gov.uk] (The Official Website of the British Monarchy)
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"His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 (1 Edw. 8 & 1 Geo. 6 c. 3) was the Act of the British Parliament that allowed King Edward VIII to abdicate the throne ..."
The Act did not remove the monarch, it allowed him to abdicate.
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I propose a new rating "-1 Drunk"
It should have similar consequences as "+1 Funny" with respect to Karma. In essence: "Bless him. He has no idea what he is talking about. We will hide his embarrassment as quickly as possible."
Re:This is what happens with kings/queens (Score:5, Informative)
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5 years ago, a 20%pa ROI from land ownership was probably considered reasonable. These days, not so much.
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And this would not be mentioned in news if it wasn't USA or UK
Well, this prediction is probably correct, but what I see here as news is what can happen when you outsource your clocks/calendars. Microsoft is not that influential in that matter, but an iPhone bug like this one [osxdaily.com] that affects when your morning alarm goes off, will probably end up with you arriving at work one hour late.
Not that it matters too much, because your boss, along with a fair share of the rest of your country, will be affected as well.
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Are those the friends of the USA of America?
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Are those the friends of the USA of America?
That they are. They are not very good friends with the People's Republic of PRC though.
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Your post is 100% full of fail because:
1) The queen didn't postpone or cancel the holiday, the government did
2) It is Microsoft's fault because no one else has both access to the source code and the ability to push out a correction other than Microsoft
3) Yes it would be mentioned if it was another country, I recall a number of stories on this sort of topic for countries as small as Samoa, and Tokelau. Here, have some:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/12/30/1810227/samoa-and-tokelau-are-skipping-december-30t [slashdot.org]
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meh (Score:5, Insightful)
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*raises hand*
I skipped work today.
Google listed today as a day off too, and at some point redacted it. But my iPhone (and android devices) held on to the notion that it was still a bank holiday.
Re:meh (Score:4, Funny)
Obvious troll is obvious.
Then again, I'm reading Slashdot at work, so you're "potentially" correct.
Re:meh (Score:5, Funny)
We're so lazy, our smoke alarms come with a snooze button.
Jokes aside, it's called Minimum Effort Efficiency.
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Have we actually seen pictures of Trayvon Martin as he looked on that day?
Many sites have been showing that the 'cute' picture used by most news outlets were several years old and from a time before Trayvon got into the 'gangsta' lifestyle; pictures of him with gold teeth, tattoos and gang paraphernalia has appeared. If he looked anything like that when Zimmerman encountered him, he's be more than justified shooting him IMHO.
After all, it was a Florida black youth gang that set the record in brutality again
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I have a hard time believing there are people anywhere that are significantly lazier then a lot of my fellow citizens.
Speaking as a Brit, yes, yes I am. Uh, I mean, we are.
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Yeah, that's why it doesn't even make the news when something like that happens... /trollfeeding
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that's why it doesn't even make the news when something like that happens
If it's not an unarmed teenager, it doesn't. You would probably be shocked by the number of homicides in the US not deemed newsworthy on any given day.
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In all seriousness, no, I suppose I wouldn't. For example, I remember when Washington, D.C., the area where I live most of the time, was the "murder capital of the world", with an average of more than one per day, yet most weren't deemed newsworthy. (I also live part time in a country where any murder dominates the news for at least a week, but then it's a very small country.)
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Microsoft CAN do this. (Score:5, Funny)
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This bit doesn't look quite so funny now:
'One change will immediately be instituted by Microsoft. "Currently students attend English universities yet they do not pay tuition. This is ridiculous. If students in the U.S. pay $50,000 to attend Harvard, Yale or Stanford, British students should do the same to attend Oxbridge." What about those students who cannot afford to pay such a high level of tuition? Gates responded, "Look, I am not totally heartless. Microsoft will be introducing its lifetime earnings pr
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For non-Brits who don't know: the paragraph in question, although it was written as a joke, is turning out to be surprisingly accurate (the numbers aren't 100% spot on, but the basic concept is). Fortunately, the earnings tax goes away after you've paid off enough money, but it can still last quite a while.
There were student riots over this last year (not the big riots in London, smaller ones in individual universities).
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For non-Brits who don't know: the paragraph in question, although it was written as a joke, is turning out to be surprisingly accurate (the numbers aren't 100% spot on, but the basic concept is). Fortunately, the earnings tax goes away after you've paid off enough money, but it can still last quite a while.
There were student riots over this last year (not the big riots in London, smaller ones in individual universities).
When I was at uni, you had to fork out money up front for tuition (£1100 a year).
Now, you don't. You effectivly pay a higher rate of income tax. Another way would be to say those brickies and sparks that don't go to university pay a lower rate of income tax.
Why should a coal miner, or perpetual student, subsidise the education of some city lawyers and bankers?
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You pay twice. You pay the interest on the loan AND you pay for being in a higher tax bracket. On top of that, since there's two groups collecting these taxes, you're paying double the overhead.
The correct thing would be to determine how much the educational system alters the economy, adjust the higher tax brackets accordingly, abolish loans and re-establish the grant system. You'd end up paying less (since you pay for fewer staff to collect the money), the system becomes simpler (one point of collection, n
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Why should a coal miner, or perpetual student, subsidise the education of some city lawyers and bankers?
I'm descended from coal miners. They were people who cared about education; they built libraries in their working men's halls, organised festivals of music and culture, and wanted the best for their children. I think they would have been delighted to know that free university education was, for a few decades at least, available to any of their descendents who were able to take advantage of it. I think they would have been deeply disappointed that the idea of higher education as a public good, which allowed
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Because I want a meritocracy.
If she is smart enough to benefit from a university education then I do not want worries about finance to affect her decision to go into further education.
What the taxpayer should be deciding (via his elected representatives) is how many places he wants to fund.
There's still a place for private higher education if there's unfulfilled demand but, given that in the UK you could
My Dilbert Calender (Score:4, Funny)
So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
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If anything this is more the fault of the government for making the change without enough time for software makers to fix it, or at least not deciding to make the change well enough in advance so they don't have to change it at all.
Though I can't find anything that lists when exactly this change was made.
Littered throughout the comments are other tech having the same problem.
Finally, a real.. (Score:5, Funny)
Windows Genuine Advantage
Lessee here.... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Google calendar has the same issue which is more embarrassing since Google calendar is online by definition and can be fixed more easily than outlook.
2. Apparently you can download an updated holidays file and patch Outlook.
3. Now that we've had our daily Microsoft-is-the-stupidest-and-evilest-company-on-the-planet-for-not-accurately-predicting-an-arbitrary-holiday-date-change-years-in-advance post, I'd like to see some more stories about how Americans are stupid and evil and some scientific studies showing that Christians are genetically inferior to the Atheist master race.
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1. Google calendar has the same issue which is more embarrassing since Google calendar is online by definition and can be fixed more easily than outlook.
Google's getting it right for me - of course, I didn't check this morning so they may have fixed it at the 11th hour...
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They did. Eventually.
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They did. Eventually.
^ this. When I first spotted it (last week, during which I thought the coming weekend was a bank-holiday weekend**) I did a search and discovered a report for this very issue.... from last year. You'd think they'd learn!
Also, even though it has been corrected in Google Calendar, my Android now has two "Spring Bank Holiday" Mondays in succession! If there's a way to remove the erroneous one, it evades me.
** Although the weather was nice so obviously it could not possibly be a bank-holiday weekend!
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Oh, great, you're persecuting someone with a persecution complex about their persecution complex? That doesn't usually help.
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They're both trying very hard; can't you say anything positive? ;-)
In their defense... (Score:5, Funny)
but the holiday was postponed for a week to coincide with the Queen's diamond jubilee
In their defense, I must point out that the Queen of England writes terrible VBScript code. It probably is still being reviewed. If she wants to postpone a national holiday, she needs to get her changes committed at least 2 weeks prior to the hotfix release date.
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England no longer exists as a Kingdom ever since the 1707 Act of Union. The Kingdom is of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and so the Queen should be more accurately called informally the Queen of Britain or the Queen of the United Kingdom.
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But that's a bit of a mouthful.
As Lady Di said to James Hewitt.
Too soon?
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Um. Wasn't her mom also named Queen Elizabeth, and wasn't said mother a queen consort of Ireland? I'm having trouble understanding why that would not make her Queen Elizabeth the Second with her mother also being Elizabeth.
I will admit my history on this subject is so bad that I could be dead wrong. It has been a great many years since I learned about British royalty and all that.
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Wasn't her mom also named Queen Elizabeth, and wasn't said mother a queen consort of Ireland?
Her mother was indeed Queen Elizabeth, but wasn't a reigning queen of anywhere (her husband was king). The mother was considered to be Queen of the whole of Ireland for a while (through her marriage); Ireland only became a republic in 1949. The daughter was never queen of any part of Ireland other than the 6 counties that make up Northern Ireland (which remains part of the UK).
None of which is particularly important in the grand scheme of things.
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Is it actually a problem? (Score:3)
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UK isn't England (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't pay any attention anyway.
Microsoft insists in referring to England as the UK when in fact they mean England.
Scotland has different holidays to England, but these aren't available to Scottish users according to MS.
Last year Windows UK had a UK tour, which only toured English cities. Nothing in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
A peeved UK citizen in Scotland.
Re:UK isn't England (Score:5, Funny)
A peeved UK citizen in Scotland.
Isn't that statement redundant?
Re:UK isn't England (Score:5, Funny)
not so, not all Scottish UK citizens are peeved, most of them are just drunk.
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Ehh... Stop your whining, They are technically correct. Any time they are in England, they are officially in the UK. If I live in a state in the US and they don't tour my state, I don't get pissy that they didn't hit ALL of the United States. You can always solve that by taking your sovereignty. We did it. Seemed to work well for us. Become sovereign, see the world, get some respect. You may even be able to do it without killing anyone. That would be better than when we chose to do it. Other than that, quit
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Well, that's not a very good comparison.
If we take the US Tour example, the idea of calling it a US Tour would be laughed at if it toured only one of your many states. This is precisely what Microsoft did in the UK, when they toured only one of the UK countries, and called it a UK tour.
So if, for example, only Missouri was part of the US Tour, I'm sure most Americans would laugh at it, and point out that it's a Missouri Tour, not a US Tour.
This is the same situation I have highlighted.
And as for your rant a
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If it only hit Missouri, it would still be called a US Tour. It happens all the time. There are 50 of us, not counting protectorates. I don't know of ONE single US tour that hit all 50 States. Come on. It NOT being called a US Tour is silly and just not standard. So, the only way for it to be called a "US Tour" would be to hit all 50 States? It is still the US Tour, as soon as it hits any State in our Union.
Our states are larger than many of your European countries. Many times, tours will have regio
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Our states are larger than many of your European countries.
Being bigger than Belgium isn't something particularly special in the grand scheme of things. (Heck, according to at least one definition, Paris is bigger than Belgium.)
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Trust me, most Americans in power only consider CA, NY, and occasionally TX and consider that the entirety of the US. (Politicians also look at IA for a little while.)
"tricking"? (Score:3)
if you cant think enough for yourself and don't know when a holiday really is, you have bigger problems.
Same sorts of people that will drive into a brick wall when the GPS says to turn right.
can't be! (Score:2)
MS Creates Holidays? (Score:2)
Wait--who relies on Microsoft to tell when they have off work? Since when is Microsoft the authority? Whatever MS may or may not say about holidays, it's your own fault if you listen to anyone other than your employer as to when you've got off work.
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Wait--who relies on Microsoft to tell when they have off work?
Microsoft employees.
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Smart man.
Even if MS had caught the error and issued a patch (Score:2)
Since the patch isn't a critical or security patch, a large portion of end users -- and a larger portion of systems administrators would not install the patch.
Still not a news item.
I gave up on the holidays calendar years ago due to an overabundance of errors -- primarily inclusions of US holidays in the Canada calendar.
I suspect most Outlook users in the UK did the same.
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I gave up on the holidays calendar years ago due to an overabundance of errors -- primarily inclusions of US holidays in the Canada calendar.
Iti s a good bet that a Canadian will live within commuting distance of the American border or will have business and personal contacts in the states.
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Agreed. The Far North states are just as much a part of the good old United States as the Far South states (Mexico & friends).
We only let them think they are independent (with their own provincial government) so that they are easier to control. It's basically the same deal the UK has with the United States.
There's no way we could be tricked by this... (Score:2)
Microsoft and work (Score:2)
Remember the good old days when Microsoft prevented you from working because its software crashed?
Explains my Windows Phone 7 this morning. (Score:2)
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Re:Seems a bit late to post this! (Score:5, Informative)
Normal work hours in the UK are 9am to 5.30pm, with an hour for lunch (this is typical of every job I have worked, non-retail). This was posted at about 5.15pm - just before the end of the normal working day for most people.
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Normal work hours in the UK are 9am to 5.30pm, with an hour for lunch (this is typical of every job I have worked, non-retail). This was posted at about 5.15pm - just before the end of the normal working day for most people.
....So I guess you weren't highly productive in that last half hour, then?
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It's pedantic because it's unlikely anybody will be working in an empty building with the lights off until 5.15pm, then read on Slashdot ir's a bank holiday and suddenly feel a bit of a fool and realise they can go home instead of waiting 15 more minutes.
Phillip.
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Now who is being the pedantic asshole...
You just cant leave alone, can you? I'd go get that seen to if I were you - you have the larger attitude issue here.
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Most people would consider 5pm to be a nice early finish. Hell, I don't finish until after 8!
And others have lives...
I often work til 8pm, but on those days I don't start until 2pm. Far too much to do to be in the office in the morning.
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Blue,
Blue,
Ah! so that's what that colour is called. I had been beginning to worry.
Unfortunately wikipedia has nothing on "That strange yellow ball in the sky".
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"That strange yellow ball in the sky".
Don't worry; it's just an advert for the Olympic flame. It will certainly go away before the games start.
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We never have gray skies.
We often have grey ones.
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That sent us back to 1792. I couldn't even have toast since sliced bread hadn't been invented yet.
You could have invented it yourself, and then been the inventor of the greatest thing until [insert cool thing here].
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IIRC, there were some guys at the stock exchange, coincidentally in London.
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The ship is waiting
All systems are go
"Are you sure?"
Control is not convinced
But the computer
has the evidence
No need to abort
The countdown starts
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Using 64-bit processors is just a stopgap! What happens in 292 billion years?
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Bank holidays are not statutory holidays in that sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_holiday [wikipedia.org]
From the Wikipedia entry:
Re:LOL Monarchy (Score:5, Insightful)
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The depressing thing is that our anachronistic, out-of-touch, hereditary monarch is probably the sanest and best informed member of our government...
Not to mention the most popular.
And the least corrupt.
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I've a suspicion that some of those aren't independent variables. It would be interesting to know how they connect, because then instead of having to get depressed, you'd know why the rest of government was so flawed on such a consistent basis and what was actually needed in the way of reform. Discovery is only depressing if you never do anything with it.