What A Lot Of Things
19 episodes - English - Latest episode: 13 days ago -Ash and Ian talk about interesting Things from the tech industry that are on their minds.
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Episodes
Episode Seventeen – Large Action Models and Creativity
July 09, 2024 05:00 - 1 hour - 61.7 MBIn this episode of "What A Lot Of Things", Ian and Ash consider the nature of time, before diving into two main topics: AI's evolving role in our lives and the nature of creativity. They discuss "large action models", the new Rabbit R1 device, and Apple's recent AI announcements, debating whether AI is best viewed as a feature or a standalone product before going on to challenge the common belief that some people "aren't creative," examining how past experiences shape our perceptio...
Episode 16 – Local Democracy and Algo-Free Living
June 04, 2024 05:00 - 1 hour - 55 MBIn this episode of "What A Lot Of Things", Ian and Ash celebrate their podcast's return to a regular cadence, with episodes now coming out every two weeks. The duo cover two main topics - local democracy and the backlash against social media algorithms. On local democracy, Ian discusses his experience running for town council, the arcane rules and challenges involved, and his belief that more ordinary citizens should get involved to make local councils less political and more pragm...
Episode Sixteen – Local Democracy and Algo-Free Living
June 04, 2024 05:00 - 1 hour - 55 MBIn this episode of "What A Lot Of Things", Ian and Ash celebrate their podcast's return to a regular cadence, with episodes now coming out every two weeks. The duo cover two main topics - local democracy and the backlash against social media algorithms. On local democracy, Ian discusses his experience running for town council, the arcane rules and challenges involved, and his belief that more ordinary citizens should get involved to make local councils less political and more pragm...
Episode Fifteen - Testing Career Paths and the XZ Hack
May 21, 2024 05:00 - 1 hour - 57.4 MBIn this latest episode of the "What A Lot Of Things" podcast, hosts Ian and Ash explore intriguing aspects of technology and its broader implications. They delve into the evolving career paths for testing specialists, discussing how testers can navigate organizational challenges and develop fulfilling careers. The conversation shifts to a significant security furore involving the XZ compression tool, where they unpack the complexities of open-source software maintenance and the vuln...
Episode Fourteen – Managing IT Suppliers and AI Voice Cloning
May 07, 2024 05:00 - 1 hour - 59.4 MBIn this episode, Ian and Ash delve into the complexities of managing IT service providers, exploring the challenges and strategies of working with consultancies and independent contractors. They also discuss the cutting-edge topic of AI voice cloning, examining its potential uses and ethical implications. From historical pirate accents to futuristic technology, join them for a thought-provoking discussion on how these technologies impact our work and the broader implications they ho...
Episode Thirteen – TikTok and X
April 23, 2024 05:00 - 58 minutes - 53.8 MBIn this episode, Ian and Ash delve into the evolving landscape of social media, examining the implications of TikTok's potential ban in the U.S., the integration of AI in testing, and the shifting dynamics of platforms like Twitter (now X). They share personal anecdotes, discuss the significance of data privacy, and explore the future of social media engagement. The conversation also considers the challenges and opportunities presented by these digital shifts, offering insights into...
Episode Twelve – AI Haters and The Game That Was Too Good
April 09, 2024 05:00 - 1 hour - 58.2 MBThis episode of the podcast features Ian and Ash in a humour-filled comeback, diving into the fascinating world of generative AI and the impact of Baldur's Gate 3 on the gaming industry. They explore the nuances and controversies surrounding AI, from its potential to enhance creativity to the ethical concerns and the skepticism it faces. The discussion also highlights the importance of corporate culture in producing quality work, as exemplified by Larian Studios' success with Baldur...
Episode Eleven – Testers vs Toxic Culture and Personal Knowledge Management
May 23, 2022 08:00 - 50 minutes - 47.1 MBIan and Ash talk about those pesky testers forming communities and taking on toxic cultures, plus forming a dilapidated mind shack using personal knowledge management tools like Obsidian. Links Zettelkasten - Slip Box not SlipKnot More Zettelkasten Obsidian Home Page Ian's Thoughts on Obsidian Testers walkout after layoffs in the QA Team Raven testers form a union NFT grifters have terrible culture - not causation yet, but the correlation is hard to ignore.
Episode Ten – Metrics and Scrum Bashing
March 24, 2022 08:00 - 49 minutes - 45.8 MBIan and Ash talk about the (mis)use of metrics, including the big four and happiness indices plus how proud Ash was of his Certified Scrum Master qualification but now bashes Scrum with everyone else. Links Here I Belong by Matt Hartley Douglas Adams: How to stop worrying and learn to love the Internet RFC 821 - Simple Mail Transport Protocol (not RFC 822, as Ian thought, which is closely related being about the format of the files containing the messages that get transmitted ov...
Episode Nine – The Great Post Office Scandal and Moxie Marlinspike's Web3 Article
February 08, 2022 12:30 - 53 minutes - 49.8 MBLinks Team Guide to Testability Publishers Page The Great Post Office Scandal Publishers Page Scandal at the Post Office Panorama BBC TV Episode The Great Post Office Trial BBC Radio 4 Serial The Great Post Office Scandal Author Nick Wallis 39 Post Office convictions quashed after Fujitsu evidence about Horizon IT platform called into question My first impressions of web3 by Moxie Marlinspike Web3 is going just great An extremely casual code review of MetaMask's crypto by ...
Episode Eight – The Metaverse and You Build It You Run It
December 26, 2021 17:18 - 53 minutes - 49.6 MBLinks Bugs in our Pockets: The risks of client-side scanning What A Lot of Things on Amazon Alexa Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson The Metaverse and How We'll Build It Together, at Facebook Connect 2021 An Interview with Mark Zuckerberg about the Metaverse, by Stratechery A $10 Million Investment In SecondLife from IBM is the Latest Push to Build V-Business from November 2006 IBM CEO Sam Palmisano in Second Life, by Ian in November 2016 Ready Player One, movie trailer The Meta...
Episode Seven – Other Development Team Roles and Apple's Child Safety Measures
October 01, 2021 07:15 - 55 minutes - 50.8 MBWARNING: We talk about Apple's proposed measures to limit the spread of child sexual abuse material on its platform. Episode Links Are 64% of Features Really Rarely or Never Used? What's in a name: Experimenting with Testing Job Titles What A Lot Of Things Episode Three – Four day work week and Design Thinking Google Ventures Paper Prototyping video Be More Pirate Joy Inc. by Richard Sheridan founder of Menlo Consulting The NFR Rap video (and audio only version). All of Ian...
Episode Six - The Hard Thing About Hard Things and the State of DevOps Report, 2021
August 13, 2021 07:00 - 46 minutes - 43 MBLinks The Mists Of Time clip from Episode 5 Ian’s Other Podcast Ash’s Twitter Nemesis - @ashwinter Ben Horowitz, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz Ben's book: The Hard Thing About Hard Things Ian’s book highlights from The Hard Thing About Hard Things The Guardian: Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, who took a $1m salary cut to pay his workers a minimum wave of $70k Manager Tools podcast State of DevOps Report 2021 (requires a biznass email) Martin Fowler* describes what he ...
Episode 6 - The Hard Thing About Hard Things and the State of DevOps Report, 2021
August 13, 2021 07:00 - 46 minutes - 43 MBLinks The Mists Of Time clip from Episode 5 Ian’s Other Podcast Ash’s Twitter Nemesis - @ashwinter Ben Horowitz, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz Ben's book: The Hard Thing About Hard Things Ian’s book highlights from The Hard Thing About Hard Things The Guardian: Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, who took a $1m salary cut to pay his workers a minimum wave of $70k Manager Tools podcast State of DevOps Report 2021 (requires a biznass email) Martin Fowler describes what he m...
Episode Five – digital legacies and The Unicorn Project
December 10, 2019 13:14 - 48 minutes - 66.8 MBLinks: Some actual beard ASMR. “I’ve sold Agile to Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook” on slide 15 of Jon McNestrie’s talk at Lean Agile Brighton 2019. Ian’s Agile Octopus Timing Alexa Skill. git rebase. Twitter to clear out inactive accounts and free up usernames. The Other Ash Winter’s Twitter Account. Ian’s three-letter Twitter handle. The Digital Legacy Association. The Unicorn Project: A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data...
Episode Four - Building Alexa Skills and popping city tech bubbles
November 26, 2019 10:28 - 31 minutes - 43.2 MBLinks: * Amazon Developer Services * Alexa Skills Kit * Agile Octopus * AWS Lambda Layers * Ian's Alexa Skill Source Code * Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Time * Leeds Tech Bubble Divisions * Even Techies are Sick of Inequality in San Francisco * Code Club * Empowering Women with Tech * Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds Full Theme
Episode Three - Four day work week and design thinking
November 14, 2019 11:20 - 30 minutes - 42.5 MBLinks: Steamed Hams Trial of Four Day Work Week at Microsoft Japan Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman On the Phenomenon of BS Jobs Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing Don Norman: Rethinking Design Thinking Natasha Jen: Design Thinking is BS IBM Design Thinking Intro Course d School Design Thinking Process IBM Design Thinking Loop Agile inception deck
Episode Two - Getting into machine learning, and Team Topologies
October 29, 2019 20:46 - 33 minutes - 46.7 MBLinks: Scottish Voice Recognition Elevator Ian’s Machine Learning/Data Science links Deep Learning Specialization | Coursera Applied Data Science with Python | Coursera Kaggle: Your Home for Data Science Titanic: Machine Learning from Disaster Team Topologies Conway’s Law DevOps Topologies
Episode One - collective bargaining and cargo cults.
October 15, 2019 16:16 - 25 minutes - 35.7 MBAsh and Ian talk about collective bargaining in tech, and “cargo culting”. Links Collective bargaining: Business Insider - Here's the memo Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent to employees on the changes to Google's sexual-harassment policy after the walkout. Whole Foods employees demand Amazon break all ties with ICE and Palantir All workers need unions – including those in Silicon Valley Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs - Wikipedia Cargo Culting: Cargo Culting - Wiktionary Cargo Cul...