October 2024
I'm usually reluctant to make predictions about technology, but I feel fairly confident about this one: in a couple decades there won't be many people who can write.
One of the strangest things you learn if you're a writer is how many people have trouble writing. Doctors know how many people have a mole they're worried about; people who are good at setting up computers know how many people aren't; writers know how many people need help writing.
The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it's fundamentally difficult. To write well you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.
And yet writing pervades many jobs, and the more prestigious the job, the more writing it tends to require.
These two powerful opposing forces, the pervasive expectation of writing and the irreducible difficulty of doing it, create enormous pressure. This is why eminent professors often turn out to have resorted to plagiarism. The most striking thing to me about these cases is the pettiness of the thefts. The stuff they steal is usually the most mundane boilerplate — the sort of thing that anyone who was even halfway decent at writing could turn out with no effort at all. Which means they're not even halfway decent at writing.
Till recently there was no convenient escape valve for the pressure created by these opposing forces. You could pay someone to write for you, like JFK, or plagiarize, like MLK, but if you couldn't buy or steal words, you had to write them yourself. And as a result nearly everyone who was expected to write had to learn how.
Not anymore. AI has blown this world open. Almost all pressure to write has dissipated. You can have AI do it for you, both in school and at work.
The result will be a world divided into writes and write-nots. There will still be some people who can write. Some of us like it. But the middle ground between those who are good at writing and those who can't write at all will disappear. Instead of good writers, ok writers, and people who can't write, there will just be good writers and people who can't write.
Is that so bad? Isn't it common for skills to disappear when technology makes them obsolete? There aren't many blacksmiths left, and it doesn't seem to be a problem.
Yes, it's bad. The reason is something I mentioned earlier: writing is thinking. In fact there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing. You can't make this point better than Leslie Lamport did:
If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking.
So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too.
This situation is not unprecedented. In preindustrial times most people's jobs made them strong. Now if you want to be strong, you work out. So there are still strong people, but only those who choose to be.
It will be the same with writing. There will still be smart people, but only those who choose to be.
Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Ben Miller, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.

Quote:Taken from: https://paulgraham.com/writes.html

Japan and the European Union have announced a security and defence partnership, as they seek to step up military ties amid growing tensions with China, North Korea and Russia.

“We live in a very dangerous world,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Tokyo on Friday, alongside Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya.
“We live in a world of growing rivalries, climate accidents and threats of war. And there is only one antidote to this challenging world, which is partnerships among friends,” Borrell added, announcing the security partnership.

The agreement is the first that the EU has concluded with an Asia Pacific country, the two officials said.
“It is an historical and very timely step given the situation in both of our regions,” Borrell said.

The EU official is in Tokyo as part of an East Asia tour that includes South Korea, where he will also hold a strategic dialogue, underscoring the EU’s increasing engagement with the Asia Pacific region, as China and Russia step up joint military activities and North Korea sends troops to Russia.
Their talks came a day after North Korea test-fired what is believed to be a new type of ICBM-class ballistic missile.

Borrell and Iwaya also shared “grave concern” about Russia’s deepening military cooperation with North Korea, including the North’s troop deployment to Russia and arms transfers between the two countries, according to an EU statement. The two officials reiterated their commitment to supporting Ukraine and condemned Russian aggression.

Japan, under a new security strategy adopted in 2022, has been rapidly accelerating its military buildup through its alliance with the United States, its only treaty ally, and other partners, including Australia, the United Kingdom and a number of European and Asia Pacific countries, to deter an increasingly assertive China.

Tokyo has also significantly eased its voluntary arms export ban, seeking to expand its defence industry and play a greater role globally. Japan is jointly developing a next-generation fighter jet with the UK and Italy.

The text of the EU-Japan Security and Defence Partnership said they would promote “concrete naval cooperation” including through activities such as joint exercises and port calls, which could also include “mutually designated third countries”.

It also said the EU and Japan would discuss “the development of respective defence initiatives including exchange of information on defence industry-related matters”.
Earlier on Friday, Borrell met Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani and shared the view that security in Europe and the Asia Pacific is interconnected as they agreed to deepen defence cooperation, Japan’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

The two officials expressed grave concern about North Korea’s missile development programme and its growing military cooperation with Russia, saying they are significant challenges for the international community.
“We reaffirmed the need for strengthened EU-Japan cooperation in security and defence, including on maritime security, cyber and hybrid threats amid growing regional and global security challenges,” Borrell said on the social media platform X.

Quote:Taken from: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/1...source=rss

Tuesday Lancent released the 2024 Lancet Countdown report updating on environmental issues status, and their impact on health, this year. On Wednesday Lancent had an online launch event for the report.

122 people including advisors from World Health Organization, agencies of United Nations, and academic institutions contributed to the report. The report was on a global scale rather than a specific region such as Europe.

Among other conclusions, the authors noted heat caused deaths increasing rapidly and requiring urgent attention. The report noted an average person was exposed to 50 more days of dangerous temperatures this year compared with 2023. Other factors affecting health included extreme weather events, such as heat waves and floods, dust storms.

For instance, heat related sleep loss increased worldwide except three regions -- north-west of Australia, a region in Brazil, and a region near the Great Lakes in the United States.

The report included notes that less than 35% of countries were capable of assessing early symptoms of heat caused health issues, and less than 10% for mental issues pertaining to increased temperatures. The authors wrote this limited the resources available for prevention and for planning emergency response if needed.

Additionally, in the report, the authors noted the fossil fuel industry was continuing to setup new mining sites, a concerning trend in light of ready availability and necessity to adopt renewable energy sources.
The report included a summary of 15 parameters. The analysts wrote that in 2023, the planet was already 1.45 C warmer than pre-industrial levels, and was on track to reach 2.7 C heating by 2100.

The authors called for urgent action to reverse the effects of climate change and pollution to reduce their impact in the future, and for improvements to risk assessment and management of associated health and wellbeing issues.

Quote:Taken from: https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Lancet_rele...sed_deaths

Yeah, is that somekind of a joke? : - P

Why is Trump's face so orange? xD

Ex-president’s comments come after comedian at one of Trump’s recent rallies called Puerto Rico ‘island of garbage’

Donald Trump praised Puerto Ricans on Tuesday during a Pennsylvania rally, days after a comedian made a racist joke and referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at one of his rallies.
“Nobody loves our Latino community and our Puerto Rican community more than I do,” the former president said a little over an hour into a rally in Allentown, in the Lehigh Valley, which has a sizable Latino population.
More than 68,000 people – over half of the total population – in Allentown are Hispanic or Latino, according to US census data. A few blocks from the rally, a home had a Puerto Rican flag posted on the door.
He also claimed that he had done a lot for Puerto Rico as president. Trump drew ridicule for tossing paper towels into a crowd on the island after it was ravaged by a hurricane; blocked hurricane aid; and mused about selling the island.

He also again praised the rally at Madison Square Garden, saying “the love was unbelievable” and told a rambling story about watching a SpaceX rocket that lasted longer than his discussion of Puerto Ricans.
Many of the speakers on Tuesday, including the Puerto Rican official Zoraida Buxó, emphasized their Puerto Rican heritage, signaling the campaign’s effort to win Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania, the key battleground state in this election, where polls show a tight race.

“We won’t get rattled, we won’t yield to ignorance, foolishness, or irrational thoughtlessness,” she said.
Senator Marco Rubio, another speaker at the rally, also joined Trump onstage during the former presidents remarks to share with the crowd comments from Joe Biden Tuesday in which the president condemned the remarks about Puerto Ricans and said: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s – his – his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American”, according to a White House transcript. After

Republicans circulated a clip of the statement, calling it an attack on Trump supporters, Biden put out a statement saying he meant to refer to the comedian who made the joke.
A small protest arrived outside the arena just before the rally began on Tuesday. Some of the protesters were carrying signs that said Latinos for Harris-Walz, while others wore the Puerto Rican flag.

One of the people marching was Luis Gonzalez, a retired 65-year-old truck driver from Allentown. He wore a sweater with the Puerto Rican flag stitched on it.
“
The guy has no idea what he’s talking about,” he said. “I was born in Puerto Rico. That island as well as all the other islands around it are beautiful.
“For anybody to say that it’s a garbage island – they’ve never been to the Caribbean.”

But inside the rally, few people thought the fallout from the comment would have much effect on Trump. Some had not heard it.

“It was made in poor taste, I have to admit. But Donald Trump is Donald Trump, ” said Mark Melendez, 55, who is Puerto Rican and traveled to the rally from New Jersey. “I don’t think it will affect him; it might.”
At least one audience member was holding a sign that said “Boricuas for Trump”, using a term that describes people of Puerto Rican descent.


Jackie Beller, 60, who lives near Allentown, thought the joke was funny.
“If you take a comedian out of context and you look at it as a serious thing, yes, you would be offended,” Beller said.
“It’s all a joke – I’ve spoken to some Puerto Rican people and they weren’t offended, so I don’t know,” said Mary Mendez, 65, a retired paramedic from New York.

Trump’s speech kicking off the final week of the presidential race mixed personal attacks, grievance, anti-immigrant rhetoric and a smattering of policies. He accused Democrats of having already cheated, misrepresenting an ongoing investigation in Lancaster county in an example of how he is priming his supporters to challenge the election results if he loses.

His remarks were less an appeal to undecided voters than a full-throated appeal to his base, pledging that he would be able to fix all of the US’s ills.

“This is gonna be a very special time. It’s going to be America’s new golden age. Every problem facing us can be solved,” he said.

As Kamala Harris made her closing argument in Washington and called Trump “unstable” and “obsessed with revenge”, Trump called Harris a “low-IQ individual” and mused about getting retribution against Michelle Obama for criticizing him on the campaign trial.
“Michelle Obama was very nasty,” he said. “I’ve gone out of my way to be nice to Michelle. Haven’t said a damn thing about her. She hit me.”

Quote: Taken from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...nnsylvania

The US president has argued that the rhetoric of the fans of the Republican candidate was “un-American”

The supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump are “garbage,” outgoing US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday. He later claimed that he misspoke and meant to condemn a specific speaker at Trump’s recent Madison Square Garden rally.

Biden made his comments during a Zoom call organized by the Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino. He began by bringing up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe who made a joke on Sunday comparing Puerto Rico to “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.”

“Just the other day, a speaker at [the Trump] rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage,” Biden said, adding that Puerto Ricans are “good, decent honorable people.”
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American,” Biden stressed. “It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”

The president went on to accuse Trump of trying to “divide the country based on race,” and insisted that the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, “will be a president for all of America.”
Biden later took to X to clarify that he had “referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage.” 
“That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation,” Biden wrote.

The president’s remarks were quickly condemned by Trump’s allies. “He’s talking about everyday Americans who love their country,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said, urging the Biden campaign to apologize. “We are not garbage, we are patriots who love America,” Rubio said during a Trump rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania. 
Hinchcliffe himself had accused Democrats of overreacting to his set at the Madison Square Garden event.

“These people have no sense of humor,” he wrote on X on Sunday, claiming that the Harris team had taken the joke out of context “to make it seem racist.” 

Both Democrats and Republicans have frequently accused each other of hateful rhetoric and demonization. Some conservatives have drawn a parallel between Biden’s ‘garbage’ comment and that of Hillary Clinton, who described Trump supporters in 2016 as a “basket of deplorables.” Trump himself has been recently criticized for labeling his opponents an “enemy from within.”

Quote:Taken from: https://www.rt.com/news/606713-biden-cal...mpaign=RSS

Great climbers don't power their way up a wall, they "technique" their way to the top using a set of moves designed to help them attack specific problems. If you want to become a better climber, hone your technique and movement. And the best way to do that is by climbing every chance you get.
Improving technique involves learning principles of movement and balance. Then you can concentrate on nailing the nuances of individual moves.

Climbing Techniques

It's hard to overstate the importance of good technique. When you focus on technique, moves start to click into place and you find yourself floating up routes that used to be too difficult. This section covers some key concepts:

• Ways to use your feet
  
• Ways to maintain balance
  
• Ways to be more efficient
  

• Edging is exactly what it sounds like: You step on a hold with the rubber on the edge of your shoe. You can use the inside edge, where your big toe offers stability on smaller holds, or you can use the outside edge. Your choice depends on the direction you need to move in order to get on or off the hold.
  
• Smearing happens when you don't have an actual foothold, so you rely on your shoe's rubber for friction against the rock. Smearing is useful in slab climbing, when you're on low-angle rock without many defined footholds.
  

• Try to keep your feet directly below you. Keep an eye out for footholds in good positions, so you can maintain better balance.
  
• Look for foot placements even more than for handholds.
  
• Once you set your foot, keep it still. You'll have a better chance of staying on the hold as you make your next move.
  
• Keep your heel low so you have plenty of contact with the wall. With a high heel less rubber is on the rock, reducing friction and increasing the odds that you'll lever your foot off the wall when you make your next move.
  

• Press your foot in the opposite direction of the pull to create counter pressure.
  
• Pull in the opposite direction with your other hand or a hooked foot.
  
• Lean over hard and use your body weight as a counter balance.
  

• Straight arms are happy arms. Straightening your arm allows your skeleton to take most of the weight, not your muscles. Even a slight bend in your elbow means your muscles are working to hold it there.
  
• Focus on your hips. Beginners often keep hips squared to the wall, which can feel very stable, but it pushes your weight away from the wall and stresses your muscles.
  
• Try to keep one hip pushed up against the wall. That helps keep your weight over your feet and lets you lean back with straight arms.
  
• Having a hip close to the wall brings your shoulder closer. Your weight is over your feet, decreasing your chances of peeling off. A close shoulder also changes the angle of pull on handholds, making them easier to grip.
  
• Good climbers climb with their eyes. Keep your eyes on the wall to look for holds that let you take a quick rest. Don't just focus on the chalk marks.
  
• When you find a good rest, use it. Allow your pulse to slow down and shake out your arms so they don't get pumped later.
  

Quote: More at: https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/...iques.html

Still haven't tried that out, but I will in the nearest future! ^^

Don't forget to create backups before you proceed...

Using pkg_add for stable builds ↑

You can now use the doas pkg_add minetest again (since they actually updated it).

Using automated build for dev builds ↑

Or use the automated dev builds which I (Miniontoby) am providing at | https://edugit.org/Miniontoby/openbsd-minetest-builds/-/releases

Building minetest yourself ↑

Install Dependencies: ↑

Quote:Taken from: https://wiki.freeirc.org/pmwiki.php?n=Openbsd.Minetest

For Linux Web Hosting packages and Managed Dedicated Servers

When the crontab -e command is used, the vi editor opens. This editor has a command mode and an insert mode.
In command mode, you can enter commands, such as saving the file. Keystrokes in this mode do not appear as text on the screen, but are interpreted as commands.
You can access the insert mode by entering an appropriate command. In most cases, this is the i (insert) or insert key. In this mode, the characters you enter are immediately inserted into the text editor. To enter the command mode, press the ESC key.

dd
Delete current line

u
Reverse last change

x
Delete character under the cursor

j
Merge lines

o
Insert a new line under the current one

p
Insert data from the memory buffer at the cursor position

q
Quit the editor without saving the text.

wq
Write the changes to the file and quit the editor

i
Switch to input mode, in order to add and edit text

Quote:Taken from: https://www.ionos.com/help/hosting/cron-...e-with-vi/

Quote:Taken from: https://without-systemd.org/wiki/index_p...g_archive/

1. systemd flies in the face of the Unix philosophy: "do one thing and do it well," representing a complex collection of dozens of tightly coupled binaries.[1] Its responsibilities grossly exceed that of an init system, as it goes on to handle power management, device management, mount points, cron, disk encryption, socket API/inetd, syslog, network configuration, login/session management, readahead, GPT partition discovery, container registration, hostname/locale/time management, mDNS/DNS-SD, the Linux console and other things all wrapped into one. The agenda for systemd to be an ever-growing and invasive middleware for GNU/Linux was elucidated in a 2014 GNOME Asia talk.[2] Keep it simple, stupid.
   
2. systemd's journal files (handled by journald) are stored in a complicated binary format, and must be queried using journalctl. This makes journal logs potentially corruptible, as they do not have ACID- compliant transactions. You typically don't want that to happen to your syslogs. The advice of the systemd developers? Ignore it. The only way to generate traditional logs is to run a standard syslogd like rsyslog alongside the journal.[3] There's also embedded HTTP server integration (libmicrohttpd). QR codes are served, as well, through libqrencode.
   
3. Since systemd is very tightly welded with the Linux kernel API, different systemd versions are incompatible with different kernel versions and portability is unnecessarily hampered in many components. This is an isolationist policy that essentially binds the Linux ecosystem into its own cage, serving as an obstacle to developing software portable with both Linux variations and other Unix-like systems. It also raises some issues backporting patches and maintaining long-term stable systems.
   
4. udev and dbus are forced dependencies. In fact, udev merged with systemd a long time ago.[4] The integration of the device node manager, which was once a part of the Linux kernel, is not a decision that is to be taken lightly. The political implications of it are high, and it makes a lot of packages dependent on udev, in turn dependent on systemd, despite the existence of forks, such as eudev. Starting with systemd-209, the developers now have their own, non-standard and sparsely documented sd-bus API that replaces much of libdbus's job, and further decreases transparency. Further, they intend to migrate udev to this new transport, replacing Netlink and thus making udev a systemd-only daemon.[5] The effects of this move are profound.
   
5. systemd features a helper which captures coredumps and directs them either to /var/lib/systemd/coredump... or the journal, where they must be queried using coredumpctl.[6] The latter behavior was a default and is likely to return.[7] It assumes that users and admins are dumb[8], but more critically, the fundamentally corruptible nature of journal logs makes this a severe impediment, and an irresponsible design choice. It can also create complications in multi-user environments related to privileges.
   
6. systemd's size makes it a single point of failure. As of this writing, systemd has had 9 CVE reports, since its inception in March 2010[9](truncated; not all entries apply). So far, this may not seem like that much, but its essential and overbearing nature will make it a juicy target for crackers, as it is far smaller in breadth than the Linux kernel itself, yet seemingly just as critical.
   
7. systemd is viral by its very nature, due to its auxiliaries exposing APIs, while being bound to systemd's init. Its scope in functionality and creeping in as a dependency to lots of packages means that distro maintainers will have to necessitate a conversion, or suffer a drift. As an example, the GNOME environment often makes use of systemd components, such as logind, and support for non-systemd systems is becoming increasingly difficult. Under Wayland, GNOME relies on logind, which in turn requires and is a part of systemd.[10] More and more maintainers are going to require systemd for this reason, and similar instances like it. The rapid rise in adoption by distros such as Debian, Arch Linux, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and others shows that many are jumping onto the bandwagon, with or without justification. Other dependent packages include the Weston compositor, Polkit, upower, udisks2, PackageKit, etc. It's also worth noting that systemd will refuse to start as a user instance, unless the system boots with it as well - blatant coercion.[11]
   
8. systemd clusters itself into PID 1, rather than acting as a standalone process supervisor. Due to it controlling lots of different components, there are tons of scenarios in which it can crash and bring down the whole system. We should also mention that in order to reduce the need for rebooting, systemd provides a mechanism to reserialize and reexecute systemctl in real time, however, if this fails, of course, the system goes down. There are several ways that this can occur[12], including an inability to reload a previous, potentially incompatible state. This happens to be another example of SPOF and an unnecessary burden on an already critical component (init).
   
9. systemd is designed with glibc in mind, and doesn't take kindly to supporting other libcs all that much.[13] In general, the systemd developers' idea of a standard libc is one that has bug-for-bug compatibility with glibc.
   
10. systemd's complicated nature makes it harder to extend and step outside its boundaries. While you can more or less trivially start shell scripts from unit files, it's more difficult to write behavior that goes outside the box, what with all the feature bloat. Many users will likely need to write more complicated programs that directly interact with the systemd API, or even patch systemd directly. One also needs to worry about a much higher multitude of code paths and behaviors in a system-critical program, including the possibility of systemd not synchronizing with the message bus queue on boot, and thus freezing. This is as opposed to a conventional init, which is deterministic and predictable in nature, mostly just serially execing scripts.
    
11. Ultimately, systemd's spread is symbolic of something more than systemd itself. It shows a radical shift in thinking by the Linux community. Not necessarily a positive one, either. One that is heavily desktop-oriented, choice-limiting, isolationist, reinvents the flat tire, and is just a huge anti-pattern in general. If your goal is to pander to the lowest common denominator, so be it. We will look for alternatives, however.
    
12. systemd doesn't even know what it wants to be. It is variously referred to as a "system daemon" or a "basic userspace building block to make an OS from", both of which are highly ambiguous. It engulfs functionality that variously belonged to util-linux, wireless tools, syslog and other projects. It has no clear direction, other than the whims of the developers themselves. Ironically, despite aiming to standardize Linux distributions, it itself has no clear standard, and is perpetually rolling. 
    

• Boycott distros that use systemd.
  
• Spread word of this web page.
  
• Contribute to and use distros like Slackware, CRUX, Funtoo, and Gentoo that follow traditional Unix paradigms.
  
• systemd alternatives include runit, OpenRC, s6, monit, perp, supervisord, Upstart, nosh and GNU dmd. Note that not all of these are meant as replacements for initd, specifically, even if they can theoretically be hacked in to be. Some are specifically designed for the task of process supervision and monitoring.
  
• Consider migrating to *BSD, Plan 9 or something similar, if things get really out of hand.
  
• Make an xBill mod that replaces Bill Gates' sprite with that of our great overlord Lennart Poettering. Maybe.
  
• Research, work on and promote reimplementations of common systemd interfaces (hostnamed, localed, timedated, etc.) and their D-Bus APIs, which will facilitate running applications that depend on them, without the host system having to use systemd as its PID1. An OpenBSD GSoC developer is currently working on OS-agnostic, BSD-licensed replacements, which will likely prove the most viable. In the meantime, take a look at Gentoo's OpenRC-settingsd, as well as Canonical's systemd-shim and ubuntu-system-service. For udev alternatives, see Gentoo's eudev and Busybox's mdev (source).
  

Damn... :P Stupid council! ^^

East Riding council promised to store Robert Bracewell’s possessions after his disappearance, but disposed of them

A council destroyed the belongings of a tenant who went missing, after banning his family from entering his flat.
Robert Bracegirdle, 75, disappeared from his home in Goole in 2020 after struggling with mental health issues. A police search failed to find him and a coroner later ruled that he had died by drowning in the nearby River Ouse.

His next of kin were forbidden access to his flat by East Riding council which promised to store his possessions until he was officially declared dead. However, when an inquest was held two years after his disappearance, the family discovered that the contents of his flat had been disposed of.

“The council told us that we were not allowed to enter the flat and remove any items because my uncle could not give permission,” said his niece, Charlotte Bracegirdle.

“It said that once it had repossessed the property through the courts, it would take a full inventory of the contents and put them into storage until an inquest. My mum contacted them when an inquest date was set and received a two-line email, which didn’t even address her by name, stating that the contents had been disposed of as is ‘standard procedure’ when a property has stood empty for a long period. We suspect some of the more high-value items may have been sold.”

The family, who live in London and did not have a key to the flat, say that the council has refused to tell them what happened to the items, which included family heirlooms and sensitive documents.
Bracegirdle’s niece Charlotte said personal items were destroyed that were important to the family, including a games table that Robert and his siblings had initialled and given to their father when he retired.

“This was one item I so wanted to cherish, along with a tapestry made by my grandmother and five paintings I’d given him. The police were not allowed to give us his phone and iPad until a death certificate had been issued following the inquest, so we don’t know how the council was able to throw all his belongings.”

The Guardian recently reported on daughters of a deceased council tenant who were barred from his flat and told the contents may be disposed of.

According to the probate expert Giles Peaker, partner of Anthony Gold Solicitors, relatives of council tenants who die without having made a will usually have to wait for a grant of probate before they can enter a property. However, in Bracegirdle’s case, probate could not be applied for until he was officially declared dead two years later, by which time his property had been disposed of.

“Under the Tort (Interference with Goods) Act 1977 the council would have to keep the deceased tenant’s belongings secure and serve a notice on the administrator, executor and/or on the public trustee requiring collection of the belongings before disposing of them. It appears that something has gone very wrong here,” Peaker said.

East Riding council declined to respond to questions about when and how Bracegirdle’s belongings were disposed of.
It said in a statement: “The council offers our deepest condolences, and regrets that the council’s actions caused distress at a difficult time for Mr Bracegirdle’s family. We acknowledge, now and at the time, that matters should have been dealt in a more sympathetic way. In response to the concerns that the family members have raised, we have changed our processes to ensure that similar cases are managed in a more sensitive way. This case is currently being dealt with by our insurers so we cannot comment in more detail at this time.”
Bracegirdle’s sister, Christina Bracegirlde, said she had not received an apology and had to contact the council repeatedly for answers that never came.

“Their curt responses have shown no understanding of our loss and have added to the grief of a family whose much-loved brother and uncle probably took his own life,” she said. “They have stolen memories from us as if my brother was of no value.”

Quote:Original article at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024...-from-flat