The Ottermanempire.com

Three days into looking at Watir and I’m already reading testing blogs again. It’s an activity that I’m really good at when there’s not a 60/40 split e.g documentation is 60% The rest is testing. Amazing how many jobs have a role in their title that is actually performed less than the management of it I consider that more an American feature, not a bug?. Anyway here’s a nice look at testing that I think is applicable to a wider scope. This is what DARE and the war on drugs represent.This is TSA security theatre a creation of an unthinking system and then assuming that you’ve just nailed reality down to a grid. It’s the disease of all organizations designed to perpetuate the system that now makes the decisions above and beyond the reason they were created in the first place.

The trace matrix | testingReflections.com

What I love about testing is what PMs and auditors hate. Now, I’m using big basic words like a child speaks with no shades of grey but that is how it feels and how I see the behaviors play out. PMs often want testing contained to a line item on a MS Project Plan but then nasty bugs show up with no regard to proximity of the ship date. Can’t we find all the bad bugs first? This question has amused me for years.

Clifford, owner of Mobile HID ,  left a well paid ( ok  he may say otherwise;)  position to work on one of his ventures. Naturally  he wants to drag us all along. Check out his new  blog over at Clifford Wong.com which gets off to a good start with a wake up call to those living in the cubes with aspirations to do something about it. 

However, I would actually like to challenge you to really think about your job. If you did not have a manager who gave you goals/tasks, what would you do?

A popular answer I’m sure would be “nothing”, however, one must make a living somehow and afford a roof over their head and food on the table so one cannot just do “nothing”.

Discoveries and Epiphanies

I’m going to start posting items from my work blog onto this one since I get more exposure here.

A couple of items appeared on my  reader in close proximity that  suggested that iPhone isn’t just a neat phone but it’s also the future of handheld gaming and the death of terrestrial radio.

It’s also the death of common sense least for  the current incarnation of the iPhone. Which network is going to have the ability to support that many real times streams?  If you don’t have immediacy it’s not radio.  Sure you can  DL the playlist  1st over night then just add in the  hosts  locally  may work, but  why bother  what are we trying to achieve here?   Replication of radio? Why if it’s so bad, would we want to?

Apples  target… 10 million  phones.

Yep that kills radio’s    more than 1 unit per person.   > 300 million.
that kills  Nintendo’s ( just one  companies) 20 million  DS base.

It doesn’t even kill XM/ Sirius  merge  with  17.3 million paying users.  It’s a bit late to walk by the  bleeding corpse of radio  and get your friend to take a picture of you standing with your foot on its chest.  That’s the perception of radio anyway.   Sadly it doesn’t jibe with these results.

Radio reaches more than 235 million listeners over the course of the week according to the RADAR 97 June 2008 Radio Listening Estimates. (link)

20 times more people than  Apple expect to sell phones to. Radio  Two controls,  no computer needed to keep it in sync  and oh battery life can be in weeks/ month range.

As to handheld gaming?  Would you  pay  $70 a month for your kid to play games on it?  Beggars belief really that it’s being seriously considered as a question. 

Can we start using the iPhone to do excellent iPhone  related things rather than trying to recreate the old world?

Ernunnos gets off a better title than I thought of.  I thought “who moved the cheese” was the worst corporate torture possible but it seems that there’s too much sun in Utah..

everlastinggodstopper - Oxygen…

While sitting in ER for oh say; six hours I have come up with several ways to improve the process and nearly all of it is to do with data. and one to do with the kind of service that makes me want to put people in ER , sadly they are already there.

In a nutshell.; If you have to have a sign up saying; that your company cares it’s already too late for you.

Erin was carted from the workplace today  after chest pain; with all the accompanying symptoms that suggest something is having a hearty old attack on the main pump. She’s stable and hopefully resting after a long time to get from waiting room to a waiting room to a bed  in the corridor to one in the ward to having the room usurped

Early indications are that nothing immediately serious is present but  we’ll know more in the morning.

Trying to work out a problem that should have been a module in the role playing game, and now form of government, Paranoia.

Here’s the scenario.

Prevent future mistakes by recalling the path taken and the process that led to your current pickle. 

Do so without  past actions  having negative values attached, e.g showing  responsibility for a poor decision which leads to the B word, blame. 

A mentally common tragedy , or a tragedy of the mental commons?

Why was it done this way?   

Where’s the supporting work for the above answer?

Why  didn’t we attempt to generate the supporting info?  

I have two goals at work. Improve the areas I can, advocate for those I can’t yet improve  and  ,there’s no place I’d rather be since I found Serenity( prayer except I’ll  swap god for Eris),pass on those that have a low value of success in relation to the effort to implement them.

Goal two gather bio survival tickets by being effective in the former.  

I’ve yet to find a method of investigating the past decisions that are separate from the decision makers.

So far it’s going all Hal 9k on me.

 Fun day,   took the Meanie to work ( that’s a 1600 V twin Kawasaki that’s really not nearly as mean as they make out)   and since it was  one of the  Employee appreciation days  ,  we break around midday to  either go bowling, movie, eat and sometimes two out of the three. Today was bowling and while  the the team I was with had a great first round we dumped the second set.    Usually after these  events people wander home early , or on time if you start at 0700,  so I took a trip to see a BMW F800s that was for sale  and to get a trade in price for one. Walk in the door,  my boss is standing there  with…  the very bike I’d came to see already in the bag so no F800 for me.  I was also looking for trousers since tending to Creddy’s  road rash has made me appreciate non sucky gear even more than previously.

I am  selling the  Meanie,  it’s a great  short distance  bike, you know  cruising 40-50 miles, stop , drink, yap,  repeat   but it’s not me. It’s stable , really stable at speed , sounds amazing and tis so shiny that la gazza ladra is after it. 

 I’m   stuck in two camps  I love speed and I love comfort  and on the whole prefer to leave the chain behind and go  shaft  which most of my bikes have had.   I’ve had a chain  come off and whip round just missing leg and one  come off when cornering on a roundabout and lock the rear wheel  (since I’ve since had a kid the accident didn’t do any perm damage. The 1st   i can attribute to  poor maintenance ( hey I was  12)  the second  was just dumb luck ( bad type)  so here we have the F800 which appears to fulfill my  long distance, speedy and stoppy sensations and not cost an arm and a leg plus they had an offer in OCT for low finance for the very model that they won’t have in for a bit. Still I’ll get to see “my” bike at work 

BMW Motorcycles: Bikes: F 800 S

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necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy.com Software, Inc.

All we do is subject our official to is public ridicule and a cozy life in the private sector after a quiet period. China seem to take corruption just a tad more seriously.  Oddly enough it’s better here, more democratic, e.g you bribe more people;)

China executes former food and drug safety chief

BEIJING - China executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog on Tuesday for approving untested medicine in exchange for cash, the strongest signal yet from Beijing that it is serious about tackling its product safety crisis.

A frustrating time migrating a blog from my old host ICD soft to Godaddy.com was had by all, ok was had by me:) Since the max fileupload  in the php.ini  is 2mb and the DB max upload is 2mb from the same limitation  I had the split Wordpress’ backup into pieces and then load them independently . In short 2005 will be back soon:)

Meantime the odd missing link/ image is being chased down but I have work to do getting another blog out the door rather than this one..

Firstly  Live Earth from MS has replaced google’s version  as my favorite for entirely parochial reasons namely…

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=55.999481… 

This is my parents airfield and scrapyard in Scotland with a really good resolution.  Hell some of the ones taken by the microlight 2000ft up aren’t as nice.  Soon a map to all of the places I can recall living in.

Last night:  A night at the Museum.. everything comes to life, apart from the acting ability, the character development , the ability to not telegraph physical humour  or go for the most obvious sight gags or  humor on the lowest shelf. 

Tonight: Range, and it’s obvious that my skills have deteriorated badly from 1-2 times a weeks.   I’m just going to bite, er ,the bullet and return to a weekly basis of 100 9mm’s  and 100 45’s and 50 357’s  which means a lot more lunches in the workplaces discount section.

Work’s been sullen the last 2 days re the untimely demise of an employee under the most senseless circumstances,  sadly  I  fit in with a Heinlen quote re the nature of man and   Jubal  didn’t seem to be offering it as a compliment.

“Man is the animal that laughs”

It’s usually all I have left,  it’s my way with dealing with life , universe and everything yet .At the time I most have to respect other’s insanity re their man in the sky providing  “sense”   which is a one way street.

Longest Valley bus route ties Ajo, Gila Bend, Phoenix

The Arizona Department of Transportation has started a study of rural transit needs statewide, bolstered by the fact that Route 685 carried 371 people last month, a more than tenfold increase from April 2005. That was the first full month after the route was restored. It had been discontinued in 2000 after funding dried up.

Do the math   371 people ( that’s not different people btw though the article wants to make it sound like this is a neat thing it’s about  5 a day,  4 journeys a day   and 5 days a week with an annual budget of over $400k.  You are having money forcibly removed from your paycheck to provide a service more expensive than buying a cheap car for all these people, insuring them and giving them gas AND giving them $7 for each journey. It certainly takes a state to fork things up in the road that much.
cue the bleeding brain…

It would really be a blessing, and I don’t mind spending some of my tax money for something that’s needed,” she said. “There’s no way these elderly people could afford to drive themselves, even if they were physically able.”

Let’s make a deal.. you pay me to commute from Payson, where we’d rather live, since to me it’s very much needed. Actually, let’s not make that deal.  There’s no way people can afford to drive themselves  because ,er,could that be  because  some officious pricks thought that the money they could have used to provide for their own wellbeing was better spent on other “needs”?

“The Starbucks 15″: Baristas Concerned About Nutrition at Coffee Chain | Starbucks Union

Oh my, I knew it was bad working in Starbucks but.. being forced to eat free food and drink? Shocking. How can these peopel in call conscious continue to work in a place they claim damages theirs and their customer’s health  I’d be ashamed.. Then again by charging $4 for coffee and $2 for a small cake they remove one’s ability to buy loads of junk food

The Otterman Empire @ work

I’ve been a little type happy over there..

Greetings,

now I can incestuously refer to posts I make elsewhere, ok , on the aforementioned 1 comment

At last.. Quick Blog, Go Daddy’s blogging tool is out in the wild. The first post has been made. Obviously I urge you all to go renew your domains, heck buy a new one, with Godaddy and set yourself up a free blog.