Bad consumer week
This week
- I've stayed home all day waiting from a Parcel Force which turned up two days later
- Our less than 5 year old Miele fridge freezer packed in
- My Powerbook battery has been recalled
(Ok, more cat blog than techie blog.)
I am Paul Wilson; Mere Complexities Limited, sells my consulting, coaching, and coding services. I am passionate about Agile, particularly Test Driven Development.
The (non-Freudian) unconscious
Strangers to Ourselves, Timothy D Wilson:
According to the modern perspective, Freud's view of the unconscious was far too limited. When he said that consciousness is the tip of the mental iceberg he, he was short of the mark by quite a bit - it may be more the size of a snowball on top of that iceberg.
Advice that I've given others, but should try harder to follow myself
- I've noticed that I'm generally happier and achieve more when I am being less cynical.
- Having complete test coverage is really very simple: you just need to write a failing test before you write any production code.
- Never mind all that bollocks: just do it.
People, stories, feedback and sanity
It's a few years since my first contract at a huge corporate. I was really quite surprised that, although it was hard to really work out who had official responsibility for the project, the person who had all the actual power seemed to be quite insane. He didn't actually make his horse a consul or declare war on the sea but, as seen from planet Development Team, the decisions were arbitrary, inconsistent, and somewhat distant from reality. People were afraid of him; he didn't take feedback well.
I was reading Julian at the time, and that's why the passage about how monster emperors were created resonated. I believe that isolation from any form of genuine feedback leads to madness. I don't mean stupidity, or arrogance: I mean actual losing touch with reality; floating feet off the ground in fruit-loop land.
Iran Air Flight 655
224 adults and 66 children died on July 3 1988 when Iran Air Flight 655 (IR655) was mistaken for an attacking F14 by the US Navy cruiser, USS Vincennes. Gary Klein, in Sources of Power, blames the incorrect mental simulation of the Vincennes' Captain primarily on two pieces of inaccurate data: a belief that IR655's transponder gave a military rather than civilian response; a belief that the aircraft was descending like an F14 on an attack run, rather than ascending like a commercial airliner on route from Bandar Abbas to Dubai. The former problem seems to be operator error, but the latter was more complex.
When the IR655 took off from Bander Abbas at 10:17 the Vincennes' AEGIS system assigned it the track number 4474, but it was subsequently reassigned to 4131 the track number used by a nearby ship the USS Sides. 4474 was reused and assigned to a US Navy A-6 several miles away. At 10:22 Captain Rogers asked "What is 4474 doing?": most (but not all) crew members reported that it was descending. IR655 was ascending; the A-6 was descending.
No-one corrected Captain Rogers when he used the wrong track number; it would be a breach of military etiquette to correct a superior officer.
Should you ever find yourself governing a 16th Century Italian City State...
Machievelli suggests that you chose the wisest people in your state; give them complete freedom to speak, but only on those subjects on which you question them. Of course you should question them on everything.
To allow complete freedom to everybody breeds contempt; to be indulged by flattery breeds complacency.
Mad Emperors
From Gore Vidal's Julian: the new emperor is taking a bath while discussing politics with his uncle, a distinguished senator.
I submerged for a moment, eyes tight shut, soaking my head. When I came to the surface, Oribasius was sitting on the bench beside my uncle.
"That is no way to approach the sacred presence." And I splashed Oribasius very satisfactorily. He laughed. My uncle Julian laughed too, for I had soaked him as well. Then I was alarmed. In just this way are monsters born. First the tyrant plays harmless games: splashes senators in the bath, serves wooden food to dinner guests, plays practical jokes; and no matter what he says or does, everyone flatters him, finds witty his most inane remarks. Then the small jokes begin to pall....
About me
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Other links:
- Martin Fowler's Bliki
- Clarke Ching
- Richard McMahon
- Gaping void
- Joel on Software
- Creating Passionate Users
- David Megginson
- Rachel Davies
- Michael Feathers
- Rob Lally
- Alan Francis
- Anthony Bailey
- Ron Jeffries