The Over-qualified Trap

From the Wall Street Journal:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-overqualified-trap-can-hit-you-at-any-time-11566207000?mod=hp_lead_pos9

A GUIDE TO AGILE JARGON (Wall street Journal)

A GUIDE TO AGILE JARGON (Wall street Journal)

Agile: A tool kit of practices for turning complex projects over to self-managed teams that work closely with customers to deliver work in stages and respond quickly to change.

Backlog: A prioritized list of everything that needs to be done to complete a project.

Sprint: A work period of a fixed length, usually one to four weeks, that ends in a demonstration of work accomplished.

Promise: The work a team has committed to deliver during the current sprint.

Scrum: A popular framework for putting agile methods into practice. 

Scrum master: A person who helps teams manage themselves, making sure they have the information and resources they need.

Stand-up (or huddle, scrum or check-in): A meeting held at the same time every day when team members report briefly on work completed, tasks planned for that day and obstacles that are getting in the way.

Kanban or scrum board: A display showing one sticky note for each task in progress, aligned in separate columns based on their status—to-do, doing or done.
Stories: Narratives defining features, functions and other work to be delivered, explaining for whom the task is being done, what the customer wants and why.

Timebox: A maximum period of time allotted to produce something of value for the customer.

Waterfall method: A traditional method of organizing projects, moving an entire body of work in steps from planning to designing, testing and launching.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-you-agile-enough-for-agile-management-11565607600?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1

GIZMAG: A dog's view of the world

"I hadn't realised Rex, my Rottweiler, loves sniffing any turd he spots in the garden or in the street: he never stops. Also, he licks his balls on average 3 times an hour: I need to tell Brenda, my wife, because she loves it when Rex licks her face. She might have a re-think. 

Another thought that's crossed my mind is that I'd like Brenda to wear one round her neck: I'd like to see the world through the eyes of a woman. I've never done that before. 

It might be interesting. I mean, how do you know what they think, on a daily basis? A bit like Rex, so to speak. It's a mystery. It's not like you listen when your wife talks to you, most of the time -- I mean, life's too short and we're all busy, innit?" commented Ralph Plank, a builder from Peckham (London). 

https://www.petnowspc.com/

The app that can save your life

From the BBC: What3words: The app that can save your life

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-49319760

Julia

From Nature

Julia: come for the syntax, stay for the speed

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02310-3

Autonomous Vehicles for Retirement Communities

Autonomous Vehicles for Retirement Communities

https://www.gpsworld.com/age-of-acceptance-retirement-communities-embrace-driverless-shuttles/

Autonomous Vehicles for Disabled

Kristy Rasbach Speaks on Autonomous Vehicles:
GM autonomous vehicle chief engineer wants to make disabled access a priority
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/general-motors-autonomous-vehicle-chief-engineer-wants-to-make-accessibility-a-priority/

Free Code Coverage Tool from Microsoft

Free tool from Microsoft:
Coverlet is a cross platform code coverage framework for .NET, with support for line, branch and method coverage.
It works with .NET Framework on Windows and .NET Core on all supported platforms.

https://github.com/tonerdo/coverlet

Ghosts in the Network

From the London Review of Books

A minor issue for Facebook, as compared to all the rest...

You can live, you can die, and then you can be in limbo, somewhere in the parallel universe of Facebook, trapped in your virtual profile for ever and ever. And if there is no end, can there be any 'closure'?

The problem is, who is going to do the clean-up? Eventually, the 'dormant' accounts will probably get archived at best, deleted at worst -- a bit like dormant bank accounts (but, with those, the banks have tended to get hold of the cash and keep it, as I understand).

I can't imagine the Facebook geeks have answers to these questions, which lie somewhere beyond their limited intellectual capacities: "It was all meant to be fun and a way to find long-lost friends from college!"

_______________________

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2019/june/ghosts-in-the-network?

The alarming face of facial recognition

From the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The alarming face of facial recognition

https://thebulletin.org/2019/06/the-alarming-face-of-facial-recognition/

Against AI/ML

A contrarian view point on AI and ML from Asia Time
https://lnkd.in/gU6pARR

Or as the poet says:

"...Where is the Life we have lost in living? 
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? 
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? ..."

What is well-formed Backlog?

What is well-formed Backlog?
https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/what-is-a-well-formed-backlog/

Problem-Solving Heuristics Mind-Map

Problem-Solving Heuristics Mind-Map; based on the ideas of the book, "How to solve it" by G. Polya (please see https://lnkd.in/gBxNnZY):

Dali Avatar

GIZMAG -- Avatars 

The virtual Salvador Dali is almost better than the real one was. With hindsight, now we have the copy, did we need the original, back then? 

"I think it's a great idea -- great idea. I love it," commented an inspired POTUS in one of his now legendary tweets. "I've asked Melanie, my wife from Slovakia, and Ivanka, my darling daughter who loves her Daddy very, very much, to have me mummified in due course, and keep me alive forever. I will donate my superior brain to science and all the data will be downloaded into a Virtual Donald that will live on until the end of times. I will tweet well into the 22nd and 23rd centuries. I know you're all looking forward to it! I'm going to be around for a while, my fellow Americans... Love you America!"

https://newatlas.com/salvador-dali-ai-generated-computer-museum-exhibition/59641/?

Progress in Robotics

From Boston Dynamics:

https://dms.licdn.com/playback/C5105AQE-cwvI7bds-A/42d9dde641564af984c6ab631fcf0df0/feedshare-mp4_3300-captions-thumbnails/1507940147251-drlcss?e=1557262800&v=beta&t=1GaScGT4admeRbaTPNDAfV8uZjJyUdW3msreeJf-RGE

The Burn’s IT Imperatives

The Burn’s IT Imperatives

[After an article by Ambassador (Ret.) William J Burns in Foreign Policy Magazine - https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/23/10-parting-thoughts-for-americas-diplomats/]

1. Know where you come from, your strengths and weaknesses.
2. It’s not always about you or your team.
3. Master the fundamentals; understand the specific Framework, Methodology, Technology you are using.
4. Stay ahead of the curve; keep learning and keep trying new ways of doing things.
5. Promote economic renewal; your systems should help make money or save money.
6. Connect leverage to strategy; use your knowledge and experience and wisdom to support the strategic business goals.
7. Don’t just admire the problem—be not afraid of offering a solution and thus starting a discussion that could lead to a solution.
8. Speak truth to power; put your concerns on the table.
9. Accept risk.
10. Remain optimistic.

The Dead Horse Theory

Dead Horse Theory: How to Resurrect a Failed Project

Unhelpful Buzzwords

From City AM of the UK -- A partial selection 

It's obviously, literally rather annoying. Sorry, not sorry. 

http://www.cityam.com/275916/office-banter-bosses-left-fuming-buzzwords-have-literally?

To Micro-service or to Not Micro-service

From SD Times:

With microservices, more isn’t always better

https://sdtimes.com/micro/with-microservices-more-isnt-always-better/

Hacking Tesla

Hackers gain control of Tesla:
From Russia Today -
https://www.rt.com/news/455341-chinese-hackers-tesla-autopilot/
and Forbes -
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/09/20/keen-team-remotely-hack-tesla-cars/#6d9d351b22b7
Here is the Keen Lab website. It explains what they did and how they could do it.
https://keenlab.tencent.com/en/2019/03/29/Tencent-Keen-Security-Lab-Experimental-Security-Research-of-Tesla-Autopilot/