Bonus: A Walk on Ilkley Moor

We're recording now, so

Alright.

We're already doing whatever it is we're doing. What

do we wanna say about the walking episode then?

I guess just that we did it and here it is.

Okay.

Now we're done.

Very efficient. I like it. So hello, everyone. I'd like to welcome you on behalf of me and Ian to this very special episode of What A Lot of Things.

Very special.

There will be more than 2 things immediately breaking our, self imposed limit of of things, which we often break anyway. So the What A Lot of Things podcast started as. It looked like you were supposed to say so.

I was I was just, I'd got off in my head on a little safari about, the difference between less and fewer, and I was wondering if we if we talked about enough things.

You're saying we should talk about fewer things or less things?

Yeah, exactly. Have we are we talking about more things, or That doesn't work with the the greater number of them, does it? You can have more teaspoons and more sugar, and it's both the same slightly less and fewer that are different. Alright. I I apologize for everything I just said. Let's start yet again. And, and

No. We can keep that in. So the What A Lot of Things podcast started with me and Ian going for walks

It did.

And totally more.

Yes.

And gradually, we thought, hey. Wouldn't it be a good idea if we actually started recording these things?

As you do.

As you do. So most of these walks would end up finishing off in the pub as well.

Yes. So as a true tribute

to our beginnings, we

thought beginnings.

Let's combine walking and recording with the wonder of technology.

It's just as well that I'd coincidentally just purchased some wireless microphones Yeah. With lavalier microphones on them that are suitable for the task.

Absolutely.

Because otherwise, it'd been really hard.

So here it is, an episode with

More rambling than usual.

More rambling than usual. I won't get into the less, fewer, more things.

Don't don't get into that. Let's

not go back there.

It's a rabbit hole that nobody wants to go down.

So on a nice summer's day, we took a nice stroll onto onto Ilkley Moor.

I'm gonna try and edit out all of my heavy breathing as I struggle up the hill. So thank me for that Yeah. Dear listener.

I'm a true I'm an editor's dream because I don't have any heavy breathing while I walk up the hill.

No. He's in his head, he's running up the hill. So enjoy everyone. Enjoy. So here we are outside.

And the stove, the fireplace studio are upon us.

So are we. Oh, dear. More pigeon Yeah. Defenses.

They like to discard the defenses, don't they? Yeah. I like all those pictures of, of birds just, like, wandering around on top of the figs that are supposed to defend against them. Oh, death by massive tractor. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a take your life in your hands coming out of the coming out of the office and recording.

Yeah. Yeah. It is a bit, isn't it? Wow. Look at that. It's amazing, the change.

That's no no small tractor.

No. No. Gwen's dad gets really angry about British farmers having tractors because apparently the farms aren't big enough for them. Only Australian farms are big enough. No.

I think that's just Jerry Clarkson's tractor.

Oh, yeah. His Lamborghini Yes. Tractor.

I must say, I see that's a guilty pleasure of mine is watching Clarkson's Farm.

Yeah. Not

all that guilty, really.

I think a lot of people have that have Clarkson as a guilty pleasure, don't they?

The thing is, he is funny.

So am I direct?

Well

Or have you got a particular route?

I have no particular route except that I feel as though this walks document documented audio feed is gonna have a lot of puffing and blowing from me as we go up a hill.

Well, it's very difficult to get on the mall without at least

Going up a hill.

One fairly steep, ascent.

Or a drive.

Orange. Come on. Let's do

it. That's not my that's not my proposal.

Let's do it for real. Let's, let's do the walk.

Well, I said shit caught real, so I suppose I'm obliged now, aren't I?

I went up on the moor yesterday actually.

So the the technical experiment here Yeah. Is that, we've got, we've got lavalier microphones on with big bushy sort of windshield things. And beards. And beards. Yes. So there may be

some,

some free of charge extra beard ASMR going on. Sounds. We're going along here?

Yeah. We can go along here.

It's called Regent Road for those who are being forced to listen to this context free conversation. So, we've we've got 2 lavalier microphones attached to, RODE wireless pro transmitters.

Got to add the pro on the end.

Otherwise, people might think we're frivolous

Yeah. Exactly. Amateurs. Yeah. You wouldn't buy it if it was called an amateur, would you?

No. No. No. The the The hobbyist. Wireless amateur. There is a wireless go and I think a wireless me. But I feel like the wireless pro has the edge. Me. Is it is it a wireless me? I may have made that up. Marketing departments are fickle creatures.

Yeah. Like large action models. Right?

Or agents as we

call them.

So it is definitely very much a pro so the good thing about the pro is that it comes with these, lovely microphones. So you can actually use the transmitters that built in microphones. I think these are are actually a bit better. And then in my pocket, I've got my phone, with the receiver plugged into it that's making a recording using a using a piece of software called Ferrite Recording Studio, which is actually the software I use to edit the podcast.

It's been a mainstay

Although I don't of

the Ian Smith podcast

It has.

Technology stack.

Although I don't actually use it on my phone because anything of podcast on a phone would be insane. Yeah. That's not

You don't hate yourself

that much. That's not a a complete, not completely ruled out on the whole. I think the iPad larger screen is better. Right. So we're going across the road. An extremely blind corner. Extremely blind corner beset by Range Rovers bent on running us down.

And we're gonna go through the,

The millennium Millennium Memorial Garden.

I often, run to here. I'll do my do my call down here.

It feels as though a reverential silence would probably be appropriate. There's some monuments here too.

There's also people there having their lunch.

Casualties of both world wars.

And it is a good place to eat your lunch as well.

It is. Yes. Nice and quiet. I know better now. Better now.

There we go. A virtual silence.

Yes. We're now leaving through the gate at the other side. I feel like some sort of explanation is required of the of the surroundings to give a bit of context. So the the most pro thing about the sorry. I'm gonna get to the end of this

story. Okay.

It doesn't. The most pro thing about the, wireless pro is that it came with all the lovely ear microphones and windshields and stuff as part of the package. Yeah. So you didn't immediately get it and then think, oh, no. You need

to spend

Now I have to buy all these other things as well. You

spend $200 on accessories now. Yes.

So there are plenty of batteries involved that will could all potentially run out at various different times. But, hopefully

Well, if if one of our, transmitters runs out, then we just get a monologue from one of us, don't we?

Yeah. We'll have some distant modeling from the other one.

So, you know, it won't be all bad. Indistinguishable from the podcast, really.

Yes. Yeah. It'll be very similar. So, so, yes, it'd be an interesting experiment. So my phone's battery could run out. So We see

a 10% when we're allowed.

Could run out. The and the transmitter batteries can run. Oh, there's one further piece of nerdery. Alright. So the transmitters that we have attached to us with the lavalier microphones, attached to them, the phones, attached to them, the transmitters are also recording the the output of our walk. And so if the phone runs out of battery and the transmitter runs out of battery, we would still be fine because we'd be able to retrieve the audio There you go. From receivers.

So genuine redundancy built in.

Yes.

Disaster recovery possible. Possible. Although yet to be tested. Yeah. As usual with disaster recovery, to

be fair. We won't be doing that test.

No. No. It's just a nice, it's a nice theoretical exercise to test the recovery.

The thing is the receivers just record all the time when they're out of the case. Oh. So there'll be quite a lot of searching for what the exact files Well When did when did we start this,

recording?

Yeah. And then there'll be lots of recordings of us doing tests, which might not be all that compelling, I would say. So I just come back from holiday.

Yes. The fjords.

The fjords. I almost couldn't have fjord it. No. Sorry. I I still don't understand why I find that so amusing.

Well, it is quite a good joke. And also, it's kinda topical as well because, like, Scandinavian countries are when you first start buying things there, you're like, wow.

I can barely afford this.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it does work on quite a few levels.

Yes. Yes. It does.

Because, you know, I think it is just a little bit pricier than we're used to. Although not too much now.

Yeah. Now we're managing to, get up to their Now we've their prices but without their standard of living. How do

we do that? The best of both worlds.

Yeah. Or alternatively. Both worlds. Yes. So we so I recorded a bit of a video diary while I was on this holiday because I wanted to try a couple of nerdy things out. And one of them was these these devices. So I recorded the audio from these devices. Right. But the other thing is that Final Cut Pro, which is Apple's pro video editing software Yeah. Is available on the iPad. Oh. And it costs £4 a month or £5 a month

or something. Okay.

I hear everybody groans. I'd like

to the subscription stack.

Stack. Teetering about to collapse subscription stack. But, for this, one of the things it has is this ability to use up to, 4 iPhones as remote cameras and just record directly into phones as remote cameras and just record directly into final cut from the remote cameras.

4? Yes. Oh.

Or 3 plus the iPad if you want. Plus

the iPad. Yeah.

So that means that you can have this kind of multi camera recording setup.

So can you use just like, phones as cameras then?

Well, iPhones.

IPhones. Yeah. And I realized I've excluded myself from the,

which was, you know, a bit thoughtless, actually, to be honest. Wow. Go back and buy an iPhone 15 or something that we can we can actually use.

I've still got my iPhone 7.

Well, I wonder if that might. I don't know how good.

Be well. I do know how good the camera is. It's not very

Not very is the answer. But, there's a new video recording app called Final Cut Camera that you can download onto an iPhone. And

Alright. Okay.

It's got lots of video recording options that are available in, in the regular camera app. And it it's free, so that's quite nice. Oh, nice.

So you don't even need the pro subscription?

No. You only need the pro subscription for the the editing software

Yeah. Alright.

On the iPad. Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty fine fine thing. But the good thing about having, the ability having multiple camera feeds is that you can cheat. So, you know, the thing that probably drives you mad except well, it certainly drives me mad is the thing where people are doing little cuts, and they're recording themselves talking to a camera. And they do a little cut so everything jumps a bit. Yeah. And that's of distracting.

But if you cut away to another camera

If you cut away to another camera, you can edit out things you said. Yeah. Or Still got it. And that you uttered and be able to cut to the other camera. So when we're recording when we edit the podcast, obviously, we can just cut out audio stuff very, very easily.

Yeah. Yeah.

But when you have video as well, it's really helpful to have multiple cameras.

So you could just do the edit. And then where you find that there's those continuity, you can just switch to another camera for that bit.

Yeah. Yeah. So and that looks a lot better than cutting. Yeah. Than just cutting little chunks out and having everybody's everybody in the shop leaping.

So while you were on holiday, there was a small global incident and outage. I don't know if you noticed while you were talking about all the things you kinda feel odd.

Somebody was sending me a message. In fact, one of our most attentive listeners who who often sends feedback on

the podcast,

Mark, was texting me on signals saying, how smug was I to be a Mac user? Yeah. And I noticed some former testing colleagues of mine putting, producing some marketing materials about, how maybe the testing should be taking place.

Right. Okay. Yes. I did notice one particular, test architect from that particular organization, which I won't name talking about someone should have signed it off. And I was like, well, as long as someone's signing it off, then that will, you know, that will solve all of you, like testing problems, won't it?

You'll have the conversation about, is it working? Yes. Okay then.

So I must admit there there's been some, extremely terrible takes about testing off the back of the crowd strike, incident.

But there are you can imagine that there are some process fixes that could have been done that could

have Yeah. Sure.

That could have enabled that to to not happen.

Yeah. But they all involve more testing. Generally, not better testing. So most so most of the things that people have suggested just involve doing more testing

So

across an an even larger range Let's say devices.

Let's imagine that you're the chief quality engineer.

Chief quality engineer. I well paid

for this position. Like, crowd strike. I mean, I think you should pick a job

title. Extremely well paid for this position.

There there's a As in

it's impossible to,

To bribe you.

To achieve that.

So let's say just imagine for a minute that, you get to choose a job title that isn't specifically calculated to irritate you by

that one,

and you're in charge of preventing catastrophes like the one we just saw.

Chief catastrophe preventer? Yes. Okay. Yeah. That's better than chief quality

do you? What have you put in place to try and prevent technology catastrophes like, like that one?

Well, aside from just testing it harder Yeah. And testing it more.

With more coercion of testers. More coercion

of testers. I would find the tester who who was supposed to have done it and thoroughly blame them. No. Yeah.

So I I I feel as though you're not they're not gonna hire you for the unimaginably huge sort of money if if that's your approach because they've already done that.

I don't know. I think most executives are quite keen on that approach.

I know. They're a lot

of their own approach.

They've already done it.

They'll be like, this guy is one of ours. So I think one of the things that's always really interesting

is You got it up here.

Yeah. We've got Hebersgill Drive.

For those of you who aren't actually here with us now, like, Hebersgill Drive is here.

So one of the things that's always interesting from a testing point of view is how you just continuously repeat the same tests over and over again until, you know, there's basically a disaster where you then have to, like, change your approach a little bit. So I guess one of the things that I probably would do is say, well, how often do we honestly change what we test and how we test it based on feedback from the real world?

Oh.

So rather than just like what we think is for the best or, no one really wants to test Windows 10 anymore because it's boring. And unfortunately, it's a fact of life that CrowdStrike has a lot of customers who are still on very, very old operating systems.

Just think they're using SQL Server 7.

Maybe. Maybe. Somewhere deep deep in there, I would imagine. So so the I guess there's 2 things I would do. I would say, right. Okay. Well, are we honestly testing the things that matter? Or are we just doing the things that are easiest in order to to ship the product?

But presumably And

also, how good is our is our metrics for telling us what to test? What what information are we getting back from, like, real customer usage that we're actually putting into how we test things.

Yeah. But the the disaster that happened I mean, how how how robust the test strategy do you need to not break half the Windows machine in the world?

Well, I just think that you need one that actually reacts to changing conditions in the world rather than just one that stays the same for all time.

No. No. I I don't at all disagree with that. But it just it just seems to me that this is a a fairly visible fault. I mean, it's hard to imagine they installed it on very many machines Yeah. Because if they had Then

maybe they would

have seen it. Works on on their machine. Yeah.

I'm not sure that testing really works like that to be honest.

I don't know.

I've seen lots of, lots of obvious things missed. Well, these are only because, I guess, by by design, they only become obvious after the fact.

Yeah. 2020 vision and all the rest of this.

Yeah. Exactly. So I there's lots of obvious faults in software, but they're only obvious once they've been unearthed. Yes. And it's your testing approach and strategy is the thing that unearths them. So if your testing approach and strategy is static, not fed by customer usage, then maybe what is immediately obvious after the fact is not obvious to how you test because you've just kept them the same.

But is there a the thing is it's just so huge a problem. Yeah. It's so obvious a problem.

Yeah. But testing is the canary in the coal mine for those types of problems, isn't it?

Well, yeah. That's what you want it to be, I suppose.

Yeah. Well, the canary that doesn't die in the coal mine. The canary that just keeps chirping at you.

Yes. You find out that

it's a little bit of

a canary.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's more like it's a golden eagle.

This is a fake canary.

So, but the the amount of places that so basically a lot of the takes were, testing is the problem here. When it usually isn't, is it? Let's let's be honest. There's way bigger things going on before, like, that particular fault was released into production, which, were probably a bigger impact than testing. So you're already on shaky ground if you're what you're saying is we're gonna rely on testing to find these things.

you said team.

Every time you said, can we do this a bit quicker? And every single time the technology person reacted to that and did something that they wouldn't normally do. So we're all creating the conditions for these problems, not, it's a testing problem. Because anyone who's been around in testing for any decent length of time would say, yes, there's probably things we could do in testing, but the reality is is that like any decent postmortem, you'd look at the chain of events that led to it.

And

maybe because CrowdStrike updates quite often because obviously the threat, landscape updates Yeah. Incredibly often. And maybe their processes in terms of cadence. You know? Maybe there was some kind of discrepancy Yeah. Which led led to a natural gap in what they might test. And so there's a few things that I would probably explore there. Because if you've got so if you're testing across multiple operating systems, that sounds slow to me. Even if it's automated, it sounds slow. Yeah.

is slow. Almost by inevitable.

Yep. Yep. But if it's part of, like, your business model, then if your business needs it to keep going, then that is that is your cadence, not the amount of times the threat landscape changes because, you know, that you you need to go with whatever your slowest cadence is. So that's if that if your bottleneck is around there, then you need to start to work on it. So we've just wandered in to the, the Jurassic beauty of, Heber's gill.

We have, which means that, Ash is gonna have to talk even more because, basically, I'm just gonna be puffing and blowing as we go up the steep Yes. Incline that's represented by this, it has to be said, almost Garden of Eden like. Yeah.

I mean, they they have made it a bit more friendly in terms of steepness.

Oh, good. They fixed it. Car. Not that

friendly. But it's still pretty hostile. But yeah. So this is a very long, long climb.

Brilliant.

Fairly steep.

Fairly steep.

With a very, very beautiful, long series of waterfalls around it.

Which you may or may not be able to hear in the background.

No. So and they've constructed a set of little bridges over the waterfalls as well. So it's very beautiful. This is the not so secret entry to the moor, I think.

Not so secret.

Not so secret. But less used, I would say Yes. Than probably white wells.

You can't drive up it.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So it does put a lot of people off. But I have run up and down this thing on various occasions. It's actually the down that scares me more. The down is, is fairly nerve wracking. Yes. So, you know

That speed, I can see it would be.

Yeah. So I choose to go to run up it more than down it.

I think

it's probably fair. Yes. So but it is very beautiful.

Yes. It is.

Something nice for your brain.

It does.

It makes you feel like this is what the world used to look like.

Makes you breathe heavily.

Which is also a good thing. It's like you should be in some discomfort while exercising, but not total discomfort.

My heart rate is up to a 133 BPM. Okay.

I won't say mine.

Which is probably quite clearly audible on the microphone that's attached to it pretty much.

Yeah. Well, that's okay. So, yeah, I think there's a lot to come out of CrowdStrike. I'll tell you one thing I did enjoy about it was initially it was called a, the Microsoft

Yeah. Outage,

which I can imagine within Microsoft. They worked quite hard to to to dispel this this fallacy because it was nothing to do with, like, with Microsoft, really.

There's a quite interesting nuance about that because Apple are quite smug, for example, because they don't have any real security providers. So in the in the 2000, you couldn't run Windows and not have 3rd party security software.

Sure.

I don't know if that's still Oh, yeah.

That's very true actually.

Still the case. But I remember there was a bit of an outcry. Maybe it was Windows Vista. That kind of era where they were gonna close off access to Colonel's base code

Yeah.

Which would have put the security companies kind of would have taken away their ability to deliver their software. And so they all clamored about how Microsoft were inviting a security problem because if Microsoft Windows security failed, then it would be a worldwide catastrophe. Whereas if McAfee fails or one of the other ones, let's just say crowd strike For example. For example, then that only affects their customers. Yeah.

Yeah. Because, I mean, Apple generally wouldn't do that, would they?

Well, Apple, I don't think they do. No.

So at the very least, if there is a an outage, they know where it's come from or they know, like, its its origins, don't they? They know where to look for responsibilities.

I think people are more relaxed about how Apple platforms in general in that area. Well, I don't know. Because they never had the the level of attack that Windows had. Yeah. Although, certainly isn't 0, is it?

They don't tend to wheel out, entire airports on No.

No. It really is. Yeah.

If you want to stop me, you can, by the way.

Ash kindly there offering me a break. I I have a lot of red face and sweating, struggling up the hill. See, I don't I don't think

of these things. No. Because I'm just like, right. Well, let's just keep going. Walking. So

Yeah. There's no

possibility that

this will be tiring for you. But I like the little dinosaurs. The little plastic dinosaurs that have been introduced into the moat up here for children, I guess, to to seek out. Spot.

So I guess this adds to the cadence problem as well. So you've got CrowdStrike updating themselves for the threat landscape. You've got trying to test across a multitude devices and operating systems, if indeed they do do that. And you've got, obviously, operating system providers updating themselves. So you've got this constantly shifting set of cadences which are all different.

So but is it is it sorry. The thing I still can't quite get my head around is that testing arbitrary level of complexity in it. Yeah. Because it's one of those things where you can do as much or little as you want. Yeah. But this problem seemed to affect pretty much every Windows machine with CrowdStrike on it. Yeah. So it just I'm a bit confused I don't know. About how even the most rudimentary testing strategy could miss Well such a thing.

I guess it sounds like to the I guess the simplest answer might be they just didn't test it. So because this is one of the other testing.

They must have worked on someone's machine.

But how do I don't know that. But I don't know if they honestly tested it because it's

saying So

there's a few things. Right?

They ran it. Even if they were if there was no testing at all, someone must have run it.

So do you think that their developers develop software on Windows 10 machine? Absolutely not. I don't know this, but I can pretty much guarantee.

Is it developing on a Mac?

Yes. I would imagine so. Probably. You're right. So so basically, like, you've got so companies often have these problems as well, don't they? Where they don't they they lack diversity in their testing. As in so all developers build stuff on a Mac. They've all got the latest iPhones and Android phones. Yeah. And someone says, can you have a look at this on Windows?

And it's like,

it's your turn.

Yeah. You But

but there's there's something in there because, like, most of the world seemingly still runs on Windows machines.

Yes. Yeah? That's true.

So whereas as developers, in a lot of occasions, we're designed where our our preferences are not to go towards that world. Obviously, some still inhabit that world, but, I would if someone said, CrowdStrike's devs, you know, they they develop on a combination of Macs and maybe, like, roll your own Linux boxes

Yeah.

Then I wouldn't be surprised.

No. That's true. I wouldn't either. And furthermore, it might have been a data update.

Yeah. Yeah. So so, yeah, there's a few things there. There's it might not have ever been run at all before it went out, which is, because either it's hard or no one wants to do it or, you know, Jane the tester was the only one with a Windows 10 VM set up, but she was off, you know. So and everyone was like, well, what's the worst that could happen?

Well, the moral of the story is that testers aren't allowed holidays. Yeah.

Exactly.

That's the only only possible Yeah. So,

which is why you kind of these all things always go deeper than testing, don't they?

Yeah. And there's another side of this, I suppose, which is that these large companies always look very professional from the outside. Yeah. But, actually, it's hard to know whether all the people inside are running around with their hair on fire. Totally under resourced, unable to to do much apart from the very basic rolling out features.

Yeah. No. Absolutely. So and then what was the pressure like from all the stakeholders?

Yeah. Because, you know Normally, other stakeholders say, no, you're going too fast. Take it easy.

So and also, there's there's kind of trade offs as well, isn't there? Because say if you've got you say if Crown Strike updated their app for the latest sort of threats that they perceive in the in the cybersecurity world, and then, you know, they delay it for extra testing, which would be a miracle. Yeah. And then one of these threats becomes a reality. So it's like, well, what's

Why didn't you protect us?

Yeah. Exactly. So that could be bad too. So, there was one particularly interesting take, which was this chap wrote a blog about how programmers should be

held accountable like engineers,

like civil engineers. Yes. Accountable like engineers, like civil engineers. Yes. But, obviously, lots

of people pointed

out that Professionalism. Yeah. But lots

of people pointed out that, you

know, you should. If you're gonna have that, then you'll need some form of accreditation

Which does exist.

And a body. But I mean, like a serious body, not a

I think the BCS is a serious body.

There's no consequences from the BCS, though, is there?

No. Hey, puppy. You go down. Sorry. Let me know.

It's alright. No worries. There you go.

Sure. No. Yeah. Yeah. No. I'm grateful for the ref, frankly.

Hang on. Alright. Yeah. Some of this is quite You

want some flatter, aren't you?

It flattens out. So

am I, but you get used to it. Okay.

So, yeah, there's no consequences from, like, the BCS, is there? So, yes, I agree that there is a there are bodies, but, you know, you don't need to be in the BCS to get a job.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's the, that's kind of what I was thinking about when I said professionalism Yeah. In a sense that civil engineers Oh,

creaky gate at the top of Hooper's Guild.

So civil engineers are obliged to be certified by their professional body. Yeah. At least here in in Britain. And they can't practice if they're not. Yeah. And doctors are saying and other engineers. So you're right. Toothless trade bodies don't really solve the professionalism problem. Although, they give an opportunity for people who want to to do that. Hello. Hello. You alright? Morning still. Oh, no. It's afternoon. Yep. I can do this this afternoon.

See, I thought that was quite an interesting interesting take, but I think it was probably, like, symptomatic of the amount of hot takes about what had actually happened.

Yeah. The Microsoft. The Microsoft.

Yeah. So and all programmers should be immediately locked in to, you know, every programmer needs to be in a professional body, and you can't get a job without it. So, like, trust me, there are some organizations who would really, really quite enjoy that, I think.

I think, but I think there's something to it. But I suppose like with all kinds of engineering, there are some safety critical important things.

Yeah.

And there's some other things that may be less so. Yeah. And also, that can't just happen. It would have to be an iterative process that the industry decided to do.

Yeah. And

that that whoever was driving that process would need to make sure that everyone's on board with it, including the victims of it. Yeah.

And I guess the other angle is that what so why was it released, you know, as an all in one? Why would you ever do that? And if true, which we don't know, but if that is what happened, it does suggest some naivety.

But there's a tension there, isn't there? Because if you're installing an update that requires a reboot, an unattended reboot, then you don't want to do that 5 times for individual fixes. You want to do it in one go. Yeah. Another another trade off in this world of trade offs.

Yeah. But I think you probably could find a friendly company to to

try these things with or

a controlled environment of some description. There's a little bird.

If you wanted it, you could make it.

I think a little bird running along in

front of us thinking if they run-in the in the same direction we're walking, then they'll somehow get away without needing to bother bother flying. Hello. Hello. Hiya. Hi. So now we've got to one of my favorite hillkeep places because I really love this reservoir. Yeah. Panorama reservoir, it's called. Panorama reservoir. One of my favorite pictures I took here.

I was at the occupation lane reservoir yesterday. Where where where's that? Occupation so it's down it's down near Burleymore.

Oh, right.

Burleymore is a bit more bleak. So I think

No pun intended.

Yeah. But I think they, I don't know. There's still there's still hides and, pots up there for shooting.

So it's

kept in a slightly different state now to Oakleymore. Oakleymore is retaining regaining some of its, ruggedness. There was also I spotted an article about, one of the original co authors of the Agile Manifesto was bemoaning the Agile Industrial Complex, saying this isn't what I intended. I I always enjoy, people use the industrial complex quite a lot, don't they? They just put, like

2 things they never like.

Whatever the thing that you don't

like, you know? And the other thing

that you don't like.

That you

and call it a complex.

Yes. Yes.

And say, well, this this well known, well defined entity is the problem. In fact, might

there be military industrial complex gate Yeah. If there was a scandal about it? Absolutely. Absolutely. These are these are American things which are quite entertaining, so we would allow them into the British version of the language.

Yeah. So, yeah. So I quite I quite enjoyed that as well. Because I don't think he saying anything particularly new. He was just like, oh my god. I can't believe that that safe dad and less have appeared based on what we've said on that day versus what what we look at now. It's not quite what we meant.

It's like, no. That's too agile. There's not enough control. Why don't we just put controls around it, then we can do it.

But I guess it's been a long time since the Agile with FSR, isn't it?

And when you give something to a community, you must expect not to recognize it in a few years' time.

Keep it pure. It's like, basically, then that gives you carte blanche to say to everyone, you don't understand. Yeah. Uh-oh. Only we know what we meant on that day.

We, the agile guild of agile people.

It's like, well, will you tell us what you meant? No. That's because you don't understand. If I have to tell you, that means you don't understand.

We'll certify you in it if you pay us a tremendous amount of money.

So, yeah, I I I did find that one quite interesting. It was quite a wistful look back, to be honest. It was like, ah, yeah. But like I say, once you free these things into the public domain, that's where the weird stuff starts to happen, isn't it? And turn it into a turn it into a a movement rather than just a set of ideas from the workshop. To be fair, though, for a set of ideas from a workshop, it's been fairly profound, the change that it's

Yeah. Yes.

That it's created.

So I

don't think they should be too down on themselves.

Many things are called agile now that were were never no one thought to call them that Yeah. 20 years ago. I don't know. I I try not to be too cynical about I try not to be too cynical about this. You're right. You're right.

I I am being Yeah.

Too cynical Yeah. Yeah. But for humor. I think that there is there's room for for

cynicism, and there's room for celebrating the change that actually came about. My my favorite thing is always, like, it'll be like a bunch of oh, yeah. There'll be, like, a bunch of, say let's just say, older developers who were like, but we were doing that before it was cool. We were doing RUP and, other things that that have strange names. Well, we did Arrow, and it's like, I I don't know what that is. You know what I mean? I don't know if that exists, but

it's kind of one of

those things that it's like. So I don't know if that all that's true, and I don't know if or maybe it is, and all those things, all those experiences were put together in the manifesto. But I don't know. This the it does seem to have become there's a there's definitely, like, a joyless aspect to it

Yes.

Where more people say what agile isn't than what it is, or give positive examples of what it is. Positive example of a thing. Yes. Because I think it helps. As opposed to, hating on pull request. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Because, like,

there's lots of people, like, in the testing world who will say what you're doing is not testing. Yeah. And it's like, right. Okay. Fair enough. So, basically, you you're just saying that, you know, whatever strategy that we've employed isn't testing, and that's bad. It's like, well, is it and

What are the outcomes?

Yeah. Exactly. So

You don't have to do testing. You just have to have good outcomes.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So I I don't know. I think it's, it's just nice to when if you if you are going to engage with the way that someone is doing something and it's something different to what you expect, then you need to, well, listen and then come at it with some good examples of what you think good would look like. Yes. Rather than just saying, well, that's not testing, is it?

If it rains, I'm scuppered. I didn't bring my hat.

Ian has a long history of unpreparedness.

No. There's like one time.

So I have sturdy trail shoes, hat. I have waterproofs in my bag. I've brought water with me. I am of the very picture of preparedness.

And I'm heavy enough already.

And Ian said, make sure you put a shirt on, so we can, we can attach the microphones

to the hotel.

And I

did. Are you not benefiting from

that then? I am. So basically, I did everything that Ian said, but Ian did none of the things that he said. So I guess it's just the classic. Well, do do as I say.

You see now we've said, oh, we might not edit this. Ash just feels like you can say anything. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly.

With impunity. The gloves are off. Well, I can't edit it. Oh, yes.

No editing. Hash tag no editing.

Hashtag no editing.

The the hashtag no no testing, no agile, no Quality. No estimates, no quality.

No hope.

Well, already got no quality nailed.

So that seems to be quite easy to do. Yeah.

Exactly. So yeah. Although I'm not on, I'm not on x anymore. So I don't know if on on Mastodon, have you?

You've moved to Mastodon now, haven't you?

I've been thinking about it.

Oh, have you? Yeah. Is my slow campaign having an effect, or are you thinking about it for entirely independent reason?

I think you've you've basically you've started to sufficiently, like, gather my interest with the the the concept. I mean, I'm only human. You know, if you if I'm subject to the same laws of propaganda as everyone else, someone mentions something enough, then eventually, you'd be it it lodges in there.

Does Mastodon? Mastodon. Friendly neighborhood. Mastodon. Yeah. I've never run out of inspiration.

Yeah. Yeah. So maybe I need to get on to Mastodon because I don't

know I

don't know if they do no no things, no testing, no agile, no estimates.

But now you're a leader, Ash. You you you're you're the point in your career where your leadership of, amongst the the testing community will be able to be solidified by your introducing these things. Yeah.

I must admit, I I went down to Brighton last week to speak at November.

You did. I was gonna ask you this.

I did.

But it was in Norway.

And it would have been nice to have something other than LinkedIn to say, thanks everybody.

Yeah. Yes.

But I didn't. So and I figured by the time I set it all up, well, it probably won't take that long to be fair. Yeah. Not like you have to fill in, well, I don't know. I'm, again, I'm making assumptions. I assume I don't have to fill in a multi multi page form to join Mastodon.

Well, you don't really join Mastodon per se. You join a server. I'm sure that you could find a server where you'd have to fit in a giant font. You also get servers that just run-in people's living. Some people have their own server with their own domain name.

It's federated, you know. Federated. Uh-huh. Someone has told that before.

Have they?

Yes. They have.

I'm very pleased to hear that you've, you've fallen in with such a wise and educated people.

Wise and venerable crowd.

Venerable is true. Venerable is true.

So the the event in Brighton Yeah. So it was really good. It was Ministry of Test 1. I do like a a workshop, which is a combination of stuff from Testability adventures over the years. Yeah. Mostly just, like, very short form questions. I do, like, a version of the Joel test, which is the

Joel Spolsky elaborate on that.

So Joel Spolsky did a, like, a 12 12 question test to talk about to find out, like, how well you're building software.

Oh, I'm gonna have to do this myself now, aren't I?

There's, like, things like, can you make a build in one step? Do you have a quiet environment for programmers to do work? And various other questions. Do you have a bug tracking database? Various other things.

This is sounding alright. Actually. Maybe I'd be alright.

Yeah. Yeah. So but they're all yes or no questions, which is which is interesting, because it's just like a curious it's actually genuinely hard to come up with a question, which is yes or no.

Yeah.

Because most people are like, well I mean, obviously, there are there is nuance in there because it's like, well, what do you mean by bug tracking database? So it could be

What do you mean by bug tracking database? Well, it

could be Jira or it could be spreadsheet, you know. One is better than the other, but one is significantly more expensive than the other. So, you know, it's like, well well, better is this is arguable as well.

Yes. Yes. It is.

Yeah. So but it's it's it's a nice thing for teams to do together, I think, to say, you know, to honestly answer these questions. So one of the questions in the testability one is do developers do exploratory testing? And the answer is generally no. And then that's not meant in this in, like, a disparaging way, because they do other forms of testing as well.

One hopes.

Yeah. Exactly.

At least they they get to say it works on my machine.

Yeah. So but it's just like, well, in high testability environments, developers are more interested in testing, because it's not like you have to spend 3 days getting the test data ready to run this one test. Like, most developers I know, if you say, well, can you help me with this test? They'll be like and then you tell them what you're to do. They'll be like, well, I would do, but, you know, I've got, like, a dentist appointment or something. I'm just gonna go and have multiple root

canal problems. Root canal surgery Yeah. Than help you with this.

So whereas if it's easy to test, they're like, yeah. Sure. I'll give you a hand. So questions like that are just kind of designed to sort of trigger that thinking. And then in the workshop, it gets a bit more involved. So it looks at Rob Meaney's model for the 10 p's of testability, which would have always been better as the 10 t's of testability. But he wanted p's. P's it was.

Suppose we all need p's.

Yeah. So and then we do that exercise in the form of, like, a, like, a Spotify health check.

Oh, right.

So you have, like, green, amber, and red for each of the areas to say, hey, things are great. No immediate concerns, or things are really terrible. We need to work on this. Yeah. And then it gets then do like a like a testability career retrospective, where you look at all the roles you've had over your career. Yeah. Or not all of them maybe, because some people have had a lot.

A headlong career.

Yeah. And then say so I so basically what we generally do is pick 4 roles, an early one, a middle you know, an early one and a couple of middle ones and a later one, and see how testability has changed over the course of your career. So, like, my first testing job, the product people were in London, testers were in Leeds, developers were in somewhere else, and all communication was done via Tickets. Tickets on a hand rolled and they didn't even buy a request tracking piece of software. They actually wrote their own.

What's quite funny is, there's lots of YouTube videos of, people, quickly implementing using various technologies, things like little trellos. Yeah. And you sort of when you look at something like that and you think, wow. Did that in an hour. They they did that in an hour. So how hard can it be?

Wow. Yeah. Anyway, yes.

Turns out Jira has got some more features.

Yeah. Yeah. And then the final part is just looking at some models for improving testability. So both at, like, the team level. So you got one called it's called, like, my ability to test, our ability to test, and the testability.

So sorry. Sorry. Can I just understand that a bit? Your ability to test because of your skills Yes. Or because of the resources available?

Skills, domain knowledge, you know. So say if I pick up a say if I'm, I if I if I know Node really well, it's in a domain that I know really well, and it's with a set of tools that I know really well, I'll be able to test something, a system, which it might be hard to test in itself, the system, but I'll be able to test it to a good standard because of my ability to test. Right. Whereas someone who doesn't have those three things will really, really struggle to test it because it's not just about the actual system itself. It's about the people who are around it.

Yeah. Yeah. But the problem

is if my ability to test is too is is outsized, then the team then relies on you to test things because they're just like, well, you know, he knows what he's doing. And I've I've tripped over this quite a few times in

my career. That's the end of holidays for you. Yeah. Exactly.

But then, like, often there's, like, a learned helplessness when it comes to testing as well.

Before you go on holiday tomorrow Yeah.

Can you just test the next test

test this week's work of worth of testing?

Can you test test the next 2 weeks' worth of And that's

that's made made acceptable by the use of the word just. Yeah. Can you merely simply without undue effort?

Yeah. The event itself was was good because it was there was only I think there's 12 of us. So it was more of a discussion than a, you know, something particularly, like, me just broadcasting.

Yes. So Oh, so you were in a room with Yeah. I mean,

it was standard, like, summertime meetup.

Okay.

As in lots of people are on holiday and

Oh, like a seat. I think we should avail ourselves of that, and we can gaze down upon the spectacular beauty of We've arrived at White Wells. We're going down these steps.

I was gonna go to the town.

Okay. Yeah. Well, no

We can go down the steps if you wish.

No?

It's just a different set of steps.

I'm feeling that we're on the homeward stretch now, though. I feel as though if it turned out we were still on the outward stretch, I would I would be a bit I would kind of feel that it would be nice to

No. No. I figured.

To adjust our trajectory accordingly. Yeah.

So usually I do the run is the greatest hits of Ilkley Moor. So you do Heber's Gille, White Wells, and then to the Carran Carve.

What about the 12 apostles, though?

Oh, that's not part of the greatest hits.

No. That is definitely a greatest hit.

Well, you've got to decide. You know? I go for the top 3. Plus, it doesn't really work as a loop either.

No. It Well,

or a very large loop.

It would be I feel like the shape of a walk or run is an important thing now

that we see them referenced on the last. We've discussed this before, haven't we? That your your disappointment if there's a

If it's a yeah.

If we walk down a path and then suddenly it's like that's not the path and we have to turn back. You're like, well, surely we can we can sweep around in some way.

Yes. It's only another 7 miles on top of the the previous distance, but at least that we're in good shape.

Which is the main thing.

That is the most important thing.

So we're walking past. This is a little tarn, isn't it? Yes. On the right.

I was about to call it the lower tarn, but it's actually higher than the than the regular tarn. So I think people call it the old tarn, do they?

I think so. Yeah.

It's the thing that used to be called the tarn before that tarn, was it? The new tarn. The new tarn was was created by the Victorians, I believe.

So Or at

least it was domesticated by them.

So we often say this, but we're very lucky to live here. We are. To have sites such as this on the doorstep is pretty incredible.

And you're never short of a fern?

No. Definitely not.

Anytime you could just have a fern.

Although, whenever we walk on here, I do think I do think that I must be slightly psychotic for running around here Yes. Because it's so treacherous.

I do think that, Ash. I do think that.

Oh, because well, you just you stop looking.

There's even an Ilkimaw fell race, isn't there? There is. Yeah. I mean, you'd think from the name, you know, you'd know to avoid it, but you've done it, haven't you?

Yeah. There's also Did

you fall?

No.

No. In the fell race?

No. There's also the Ilkley Incline. No. I nearly fell then, which is a 1 mile race from the bottom of Keithley Road up to well, basically, up to the center of the moor. But it's,

the gate?

Yeah. But it's an extremely painful experience, but fun in that in that strange way.

Yes. Painful experience, but fun.

Yeah. Yeah.

In a way that only excruciating pain can be.

Yeah. Yeah. So that that's a good one as well. Although, when I when I did it last year, I got the, apparently, I was very excited to sign up for it. So I was I got the race number 2. And I was like, I I would like to set expectations now that this probably won't be the final placing.

Yeah. Yeah. No. It was 3 or 4.

Yeah. Well, mhmm.

How many people did they get to do such an insane thing?

I think there was about a 100.

A 100? Well, I suppose as as a proportion of the society, it's Yeah. Comfort ingly low. No. I mean, massive respect to people who can do that.

Well, it's a I'm

not among them.

It's a question of, well, where you decide to spend your your focus, isn't it? You know? It's like, I might run

Wireless microphones. Yeah. Exactly.

So I might run 7 or 8 hours a week, but that means that that time is not spent doing something else. You know? I could learn a new language or

You could do that and run at the same time.

That's true, actually. Maybe that was a bad

example. You know? Or walking and I

could learn carpentry. I don't know how I would do those 2 at the same time.

That would be challenging.

Creating, like, interlocking joints while running

Yes.

With chisels.

You'd be good at it if you

use chisels.

Doing it standing still would become a cinch.

Yeah.

But, I mean, we're going for a walk on podcasting, aren't we? Well, yeah. True. Apparently, you can do that.

Yeah. Maybe we should make it a live broadcast.

You mean stream the audio?

Streamed audio as it happens. Maybe that would be too much.

I don't know. It might be quite interesting. I'm not sure anyone would listen to it.

Well, maybe.

Maybe they would. Well,

you know what we're talking about the other day when I was in Brighton? So we're talking about how, like, massive meet ups used to be.

They did.

And we're talking about the Liverpool, is it a tester gathering?

The Liverpool tester gathering was a monumental affair.

And how, like, enormous, like, for, you know I remember an evening event that was.

I remember being invited by Leeds to talk about it. Yeah. To talk at it, I mean.

Talk about it. It's not about it.

I mean, I talked about it after after I talked at it because I was very impressed by the scale of it.

Yeah. So but and also and now, like, obviously, the after the pandemic, the the whole world has changed in terms of that type of event and many other things. But trying to to gather that trying to build up those events again, or will they ever, you know can they ever come back in the same way? Because for for the Ministry of Testing, you've got the Athens meetup is that is that I think that was that is bigger than the Liverpool

one was.

Right. It's still they still get, like, well over a 100 people

per event. Wow.

But it's maintained its the, you know, post pandemic, it came back, when it was still as strong. So I have, like, theories, because they say it's the same with the Italia as well. Because there's multiple organizers, it's easier to get it's easier to get the events sort of on, rather than relying on 2 or 3 people. So I think there's, there's there's definitely, like, a a dynamic there, if you've got loads of people helping you organize

Yeah. Hi there. Hi. Yeah. Hi. Yeah. We, where are we going now, actually?

So once around the town.

Apparently, we're going once around the town.

Otherwise, the world will end, won't it?

We're now heading away from friends of

Han. But the world will end if we have got one from the town.

Serious issue with the route has developed. However, this is pretty easy to walk on compared with the steps we just came down. So

Yeah. Maybe we should get a GPX of the of the route as well.

Well, we can, can't we? Because we have you been recording the entire thing on your

No. I

haven't. Garmin. I've recorded a fair bit of it, but I started it when when we were walking up Grove Road. It said, you seem to be going for a walk, walk, which might mean that it backfills the route that I came or might not.

They were quite smart like that sometimes.

Yeah. I thought, oh, I am. I should be caught that.

So if we can have the GPX, that would be kinda cool.

Or at least a a picture of it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But, yeah, this is another thing. Hey.

Here's an app idea for podcast You have an audio recorder that attaches time stamps to all the places you go to.

Alright. Okay.

People can watch a video of it Yeah. Where you inch around the map. It's 3. Split base. 29 minutes. Well, we haven't slowed down.

No? Consistency. That's what it's all about. So it's a collection of ducks, more hens, and other things in the town.

I think there's more ducks.

Yeah. Sorry. It's alright. So I won't force Ian to walk up to the can calf. No?

Because it's probably not possible to force me to do that.

There's no coercion.

My legs will be yeah. There was a time when I went for long walks every day, you know, I've stopped doing it, and that's very poor, really. But it means that this was rather more of a a thing Yeah. For my level of exercise than probably previously would have been.

Yeah. But, you know, life does change in unexpected ways, which mean that

Life happens.

Whatever old habits that you've accumulated sometimes have to fall by the wayside

I mean, in the during the pandemic, I and I guess quite a few other people who are in a sort of more privileged position of it was possible to, you know, to work at home and to be productive. But also, you could go for these amazing summer walks in beautiful locations where there was no pollution because all the traffic had stopped. And it was just this amazing experience.

The world looked like it was in high definition again.

And that was amazing. I was

Well, Shanson, just going past the sign for

the Cowencough. Past the sign for the Cowencough locks. And,

And we've gone past it.

We've gone past it. Oh, dear.

We can go that way as well, too, sir.

We could, but let's keep going and then go to Friends of Ham where we can partake of a cold drink. That's cool. Should we keep recording when we get there? I should that's that's the question.

Well, we can I guess we can leave it on? Yeah. Well, it's gonna

if it's

out, it's gonna keep going, isn't it? So, yeah, we can do for me.

And then we can go back to base and have a bit of a listen.

Bit of a listen.

I see Realized that my cable came unplugged 3 f. Three quarters an hour ago and we've Hiya. Hi. And all is lost.

All is lost.

Again Or rather it's just a monologue from you.

It's just me. As long as it's me.

Yes. That'd be alright. And then we'll realize that actually that's why we're supposed to use the thing that screws the

ear. Yeah. That that dog was eating seeds. It's good to see. You don't feed them bread.

I must admit I have no bread to feed them.

No. If you just feed them bread, it's just like you just feed them it's like just feeding a human chips all the time. I mean, I know some humans do exist on chips. Yeah. Exclusively chips based.

Chips are a fine addition to any diet.

Yeah. So he took some bread in, but it was just a big lump.

A big rock of bread.

So the ducks are like, you're alright.

I'm fighting for that. Wait for it to get soggy, and then I'll peck at it a bit.

It'll just go the bottom of the town Yeah. Forever. So the circuit of the town is nearly complete. Yeah. Well, you know, short CVs aren't such a bad thing. I've seen far too many too long ones.

They go along with youth, don't they?

Yeah. Yeah. Well yeah. Exactly. I don't know. I'm quite

like which I I coveted less at the time when I was going through it

Yeah.

And a bit more now. Well It's a pity youth can't be combined with experience.

Yeah. And we might actually start to solve some problems then. Yeah. Yeah. That will do. I'm quite a stickler with the CVs. They've gotta be, like, 2 pages. I don't care how long you've been around. It's literally a summary.

Yeah. So if you can't summarize something Oh, chat GPT can do it

for you. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. GPT can do

it for you. Oh, yeah.

Exactly. So, you know

Dear chat GPT,

please take my 12 page CV and make it into 2 pages. Yeah. Someone on the CV

the other day had put they had 3

0.3 years experience of something. 3.3. What?

Why don't they just say they had, you know, 17,312 hours experience of it?

So it's like, oh, now I have to work it out.

Yeah. Is that being used as a shorthand for months? Maybe.

I don't know.

Make it 3 months, or is it a 3rd of a year which will make it 4 months?

I don't know. I was just like, oh, no. This is this has just got my fault. Do sums. Make me don't make me think about this.

It's like those things you always used to hear about. Oh, you know, hiring managers will take one look at your CV for 3 seconds, and if they don't like it, then they're immediately gonna put it in the bin. Yeah. And I think we can add to that or if it makes them have to do mental arithmetic.

Well, I think the days of hiring managers looking at CVs are numbered anyway, aren't they?

Well, I think it's funny, isn't it? I think the

It's now AI versus AI.

Yeah. So that that world is just AI is howling at each other. I'll use Chat GPT to write my CV, and then you can use Chat GPT to reject it. Although, actually, you can use Chat GPT to fail to reject it because because someone put in a job description perfect fit for this job description. Just so that I can see what that would look like. I'm the hiring manager. Honest. I'm the hiring manager. I'm the hiring manager.

I did use Claude for my, I updated my CV, but I wrote it and then said to Claude, can you make this less repetitive?

Please review this.

Yeah. And, you know, a bit better. And to be fair, Claude did did exactly did exactly that.

I like Claude. I mostly use Claude. Now are you paying out for Claude? No. See, I am. So now Claude has this thing called project.

Right.

And what it means is basically you put, you know, you can attach a bunch of files to the project, and then it knows about the things in the file when you're talking to it, which is a bit like GPTs that chat GPT lets you do, but more simple and focused.

It's got Android out now as well, Claude?

It does. Although I'm scared to see why that's relevant.

I don't see anyone using that. Yeah. There's no money in that. Well, there isn't. But, pretty to be believed.

Yes. Is that l o r e or l a w?

Both.

We're walking past a bank of yellow flowers with white flowers intermingled in them. Those kind of white blossoms that as a child, if you press them near the base, they pop out in an interesting way. But when I if I were to do that now, I'd feel like I was engaging in vandalism, so I won't. The child part of me, it's still quite like to do it in some childish way. So we're at the end of the moor. End of the moor. There's no more more.

There's no more more. Back up to the white wells.

No. No. No more up to anything.

No more up to anything.

We're only going down now. We're going down.

Too fair, I did run 12 12 kilometers this morning as well. So

Yeah. And to be fair, I did get up this morning. Well to work.

Yeah. Did you get up for the, Australian stand up?

No. That was yesterday morning. Oh, good. I'm sitting at work at 6 o'clock thinking, I feel very tired. Why do I feel so tired? Oh, okay. I got here 10 and a half hours ago. I have to explain this. I've been

here for many days. Yeah.

Be great if this has worked.

Yeah. Definitely. I don't see why not. I don't see why not. Surely, in the long chain of dependencies, everything would have gone fine. Yes. That's the way that you should

Nothing can ever go wrong. Nothing can

ever go wrong. There is no evidence that anything has gone wrong because I haven't looked.

Yeah. You've been very careful to make sure. Oh, that's

the joy of testing. Right?

Found no evidence of such.

So CrowdStrike didn't know, did they? Because they didn't look.

They did not. Exactly.

So they were like, well, another another great release.

Did that

High fives all

wrapped. Even run it. Did they even run it?

Did it run fine on, Linux and Mac? It ran fine. See? And on Windows, whatever came after Windows 10, I don't even know anymore.

I particularly enjoyed the fix. All you have to do is go to the your data center with all these unattended servers in it and then boot them in safe mode. And then

Remove the file.

Remove the file and then boot them off again.

I mean, they'll be fine then.

And then they'll be then they'll be in some position where now you have to reinstall something.

Yeah. Just do that tens of thousands of times. Yes.

There's no

Manually, please? Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe if they got 10,000 people, we could we could each go and do it once.

See, if we would have all just chipped in.

Yeah. I don't know. Many hands make light work.

We've all been over very, very quickly. No fuss.

No. No mass.

No mass. No fuss.

Those American protesters. I think I'm going to cross over the road k. Because it makes me feel marginally close to friends of Ham. Arriving at which is now become a major fixation in my in my head.

I would have carried on.

Regardless. Regardless.

I could have gone to the Cowen calf, but I would have gone alone.

Do you reckon all the batteries and all these things have lasted an hour and a half? I don't know. Maybe.

Well, this is the point of the test. Test our configuration. Yep. Soap test.

It doesn't rain, so we haven't managed to do that. In fact, I'm quite relieved it hasn't rained because I'm not sure that I would have been prepared to do that.

Well, yeah.

That type of test.

Yeah. I enjoy going Yeah. That type of test. Yeah. I enjoy going on to the software testing Reddit sub Reddit, and people just come up with, like, the wildest ideas.

Software Go subreddit?

Yeah. Yeah. It's it it is like and so there was someone who'd written a a JMeter performance test for a form that was 10 steps long. Did you get a a bug?

I got buzzed on a a bee, I'm guessing. Yeah.

So I I always find it really interesting. If someone said, Ash, can you perform the test this 10 step

form?

Be like, well, I'll tell you what. Should we just perform the test like the thing that gets submitted at the end of it? Yes. Right? Because that's the thing that probably needs to perform check for each of the pages, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. And then we'll just, like, test the rest of the form, you know, and maybe say, write some automation, put, like, a lighthouse check for each of the pages, you know, that kind of thing.

Yes.

Rather than write in a JMeter test, which goes through all of the steps of the form. Probably fails before it submits it. And then you don't get to find out about the thing that you actually need to test.

Yes. You're not really testing the performance of the Yeah.

Exactly. But I don't know if I'm just like a a jerk who just, like, you know, sees people coming up with these wild solutions for testing. And then just immediately thinks, well, yeah, you could do that.

But Well, I don't I don't think the thing is that coming out with that is not the mark of a a jerk. I mean, you could express it in a way

that way you would do it.

I could be

like, well, you're the stupidest person alive.

Yes. Yeah. I thought this last one from last week was the stupidest person alive. It turns out it's you.

You know what this test proves? You're

the stupidest person alive.

So I won't say that.

Don't say that.

Don't say that.

So but coming up with things is Yeah. Is jerk neutral.

So the question at Friends of Puppy is sit out the front

and back and out the back.

It's just a lot of I wouldn't mind sitting inside. Inside? Yes.

There's a few insects. It's a bold strategy. I am quite bold. Also, Also, I'm feeling as though it might rain. Okay.

Yeah. We can go inside.

Being inside would be good. No bother. So I think rather than recording in there, I think that's the best I think now would be to turn it off, quit while we're ahead, assuming that we are, and then see what we've got

Yeah. Okay.

If anything.

Plus I need to go to the toilet.

Definitely. Definitely.

As it is to record

Do not record that. It is There are drops of water falling from the sky now, aren't there?

Hello, Colin. You alright?

God Almighty.